I will not shoot the next priest I see...

[Seth]

I like Seth. I find him interesting when he's not in full-on diatribe mode. I avoid debating him on his pet subjects because it's pointless but I am more than willing to hold a meta-debate with him on why he acts the way he does.

Glad to hear it. Have at it.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

PissingIntoTheWind2.PNG (11.28 KiB) Viewed 2133 times

[Seth]

A Fact: something which is known to be true. This implies to me that there is no chance of an evolving debate by flinging facts at one another; it's a stalemate situation- if the facts are there for all to research then there's nothing to debate about

I've had facts flung at me that caused me to change my mind. The facts did not always emanate directly from whomever I was interacting with, and sometimes there was a delay between receiving them and me my changing my mind, but ultimately debate was the cause of it.

In the end it comes down to what is actually "known to be true," and that usually has a lot more to do with the context in which it is sent and received than it is asserted to be "a fact" or "known to be true". Recently, for instance, I was astonished to find out that no lesser genius than Albert Einstein wrote a foreword around 1955 for a book by a prominent geologist who disputed that tectonic plate movement was "a fact". Even in the so-called "hard sciences" facts are not accepted as such until the environment for such recognition is favourable. History is awash with discoveries that were ignored, ridiculed and/or rejected until they were accepted decades or even centuries later as "fact".

Indeed. Salient and well-put point. Most of what we see here is only loosely based on fact and mostly consists of well-entrenched ideological blinkeredness. I like to challenge that stultified mindset by being contrarian. Whether I'm right or wrong is largely irrelevant. The reward and purpose is the debate itself and the journey towards knowledge, not whether one wins or loses or indeed whether one is right or wrong in the position one chooses to defend.

I fully realize that some of my positions are both provocative and hard-line, I intend them to be that way in order to stimulate debate and thought. I don't much care what anyone thinks of what I have to say, I'm interested in exploring a subject from all angles, and unfortunately here, to do that, I generally have to take the conservative, religious or gun-supporting side because there's nobody else capable of doing it nearly as well as I do who is interested in defending those locally unpopular positions.

Do I believe many of the things I state? Of course I do...in some cases. In others I do not and I'm arguing purely, or partly, from a desire to present an opposing view in a way that will cause people to think outside the sometimes tiny box they've built their ideology upon. Some people don't like being forced outside their comfort zone so they get angry and frustrated that I won't concede to their opinion. But that's the thing about opinions and assholes...everybody's got one and everybody's entitled to exercise them.

[Seth]

PissingIntoTheWind2.PNG

This is the sort of ideological intolerance and close-mindedness that if I can't penetrate I can at least ridicule. "Rational" my ass.

[Animavore]

Wait! How does one exercise one's asshole?

Do I even want to know?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Wait! How does one exercise one's asshole?

Do I even want to know?

You let it bleed.

[Animavore]

I tried google it.

http://www.google.ie/search?hl=en-IE&so ... IaQ_75BG1U

I don't think google understands the question

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I tried google it.

http://www.google.ie/search?hl=en-IE&so ... IaQ_75BG1U

I don't think google understands the question

Speak English to it.

[Animavore]

I'm not old enough yet to know such terminology.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I'm not old enough yet to know such terminology.

Ask Lozzer.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

The futility of seeking an honest debate from some members here became obvious to me early on.

That's only because YOU are intellectually stunted and unable to honestly discuss a subject without allowing your emotions and prejudices to take you beyond civil debate and into invective and insult.

You seem to think that "honest debate" is synonymous with "agree with me," and you can't stand it when someone (like me) is willing to defend a disparate point of view vigorously.

I've been telling him something very similar for years!

Mind you, you're not averse to letting your emotions get the better of you either - your warning and suspension record speaks volumes about that!


So, while you have a valid point, the pots and kettles on display here are both of a remarkably similar shade of aluminium.

[Jason]

The futility of seeking an honest debate from some members here became obvious to me early on.

That's only because YOU are intellectually stunted and unable to honestly discuss a subject without allowing your emotions and prejudices to take you beyond civil debate and into invective and insult.

You seem to think that "honest debate" is synonymous with "agree with me," and you can't stand it when someone (like me) is willing to defend a disparate point of view vigorously.

Or he might have better things to do than practice his argumentation. I do.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

The futility of seeking an honest debate from some members here became obvious to me early on.

That's only because YOU are intellectually stunted and unable to honestly discuss a subject without allowing your emotions and prejudices to take you beyond civil debate and into invective and insult.

You seem to think that "honest debate" is synonymous with "agree with me," and you can't stand it when someone (like me) is willing to defend a disparate point of view vigorously.

Or he might have better things to do than practice his argumentation. I do.

I don't have my waders, so I don't bother with Seeth's posts.

And if he agreed with me I'd know I was doing something wrong.

[pErvinalia]

The futility of seeking an honest debate from some members here became obvious to me early on.

That's only because YOU are intellectually stunted and unable to honestly discuss a subject without allowing your emotions and prejudices to take you beyond civil debate and into invective and insult.

You seem to think that "honest debate" is synonymous with "agree with me," and you can't stand it when someone (like me) is willing to defend a disparate point of view vigorously.

I've been telling him something very similar for years!

Mind you, you're not averse to letting your emotions get the better of you either - your warning and suspension record speaks volumes about that!

That's because of a Marxist conspiracy, though.

[Seth]

The futility of seeking an honest debate from some members here became obvious to me early on.

That's only because YOU are intellectually stunted and unable to honestly discuss a subject without allowing your emotions and prejudices to take you beyond civil debate and into invective and insult.

You seem to think that "honest debate" is synonymous with "agree with me," and you can't stand it when someone (like me) is willing to defend a disparate point of view vigorously.

I've been telling him something very similar for years!

Mind you, you're not averse to letting your emotions get the better of you either - your warning and suspension record speaks volumes about that!


So, while you have a valid point, the pots and kettles on display here are both of a remarkably similar shade of aluminium.

Well, yes, I do lose my temper from time to time, but I use cast iron, not aluminum.

As for the warnings etc, just like any corrupt bureaucracy a "warning" here is hardly the same thing as being guilty of an offense. Mods here (and certainly at RatSkep) very frequently issue their dictums based on their whims and caprices and not upon any rational evidence. Not always, but a lot, though I will take pains to note that the jackboots seem to have been taken off recently without chaos ensuing.