The inquisition is alive and well, and living in New York.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Confucius say: "Don't bother reasoning with cunts."

Fuck off, Ian. If your sole reason for coming here is to throw insults around, I would prefer you didn't.

[Seth]

Take a happy pill, Seth. You're ranting a bit and showing a level of negative emotional engagement that the discussion doesn't warrant. In the past this usually happens just before you call someone a cunt and go on holiday. So chill, please.

Oh, I'm chill. Of course you're not acting in an ethical way at all by calling me out while you ignore the outright personal insults that have been recently reported, so fuck off.

I'm not "calling you out". I'm trying to remove any reason to suspend you before it happens. You have a pattern of behaviour here, accept it or not, that i see moving towards a head. You would do yourself a favour by disengaging for a while.

Or I can just watch my step.

And there has only been one report of a PA on you recently. It was relatively mild and was dealt with behind the scenes. Feel free to report anything similar, as ever.

Of course it was "dealt with behind the scenes," just as all such insults directed at me are ignored.

If I call someone an "ignorant cunt" I get suspended, but when someone else does it to me it's "dealt with behind the scenes."

So fuck off XC, you're biased and you know it and so does everybody else, and it's just fine with all of you because I'm the guy you all love to hate.

[Ian]

Confucius say: "Don't bother reasoning with cunts."

Fuck off, Ian. If your sole reason for coming here is to throw insults around, I would prefer you didn't.

You fuck off, XC. This site might still be doing well if only we had the balls to put our foot down regarding a tiny handful of malcontents who have no business socializing here, such as Seth. Mods sometimes need to be bouncers, but you more than anyone insisted on tolerating anyone posting here so long as they refrained from ad hom insults to the prescribed degree. I tried to fight that battle when I was a Mod and I lost. Anyone and Everyone who wanted to post here was exactly who was allowed to do so - and now almost everyone else is gone.

Are you honestly wondering why the forum has dwindled down to this point? I hope you're sharp enough to realize that the main reason by far is that a select few members drove off many others. No interest in being part of a community, just ranting about their issues and shitting on those of us who did come here to be social. I saw it, and they were the ones I took issue with. The formula for letting them have so much free range was a flawed one.

So... fuck you Seth, you despicable scum. You are the festering shit of my country. And just as bad - you don't belong here and never did, and you know it.

[Ian]

Also, disable my fucking account here.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Also, disable my fucking account here.

Happily. These days, you only ever come here when you're in a foul mood and feel like calling "Someone" a cunt anyway. That kind of trade we can do without.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Take a happy pill, Seth. You're ranting a bit and showing a level of negative emotional engagement that the discussion doesn't warrant. In the past this usually happens just before you call someone a cunt and go on holiday. So chill, please.

Oh, I'm chill. Of course you're not acting in an ethical way at all by calling me out while you ignore the outright personal insults that have been recently reported, so fuck off.

I'm not "calling you out". I'm trying to remove any reason to suspend you before it happens. You have a pattern of behaviour here, accept it or not, that i see moving towards a head. You would do yourself a favour by disengaging for a while.

Or I can just watch my step.

And there has only been one report of a PA on you recently. It was relatively mild and was dealt with behind the scenes. Feel free to report anything similar, as ever.

Of course it was "dealt with behind the scenes," just as all such insults directed at me are ignored.

If I call someone an "ignorant cunt" I get suspended, but when someone else does it to me it's "dealt with behind the scenes."

So fuck off XC, you're biased and you know it and so does everybody else, and it's just fine with all of you because I'm the guy you all love to hate.

Fuck off yourself. Last time I try and help you.

[mistermack]

I don't really agree with Ian.
Nobody's obliged to read Seth's posts, or to reply to them.
To leave because of that is like leaving New York, because of the message in some graffiti.
Or not watching tv, because you don't like friends.

It's the same if you reply to Seth. I don't expect anything but Seth-type posts in reply.
If it does bug me, I don't have to read Seth posts. I only read a few anyway. Most are too long. (for me)

As far as forums are concerned, the are all dwindling. Or that's the impression I get.
It seems to be twitter and facebook that people are drifting towards.
I don't get it, but several people have said the same thing. Whether that's a permanent trend or just a blip, I dunno.

[Seth]

Take a happy pill, Seth. You're ranting a bit and showing a level of negative emotional engagement that the discussion doesn't warrant. In the past this usually happens just before you call someone a cunt and go on holiday. So chill, please.

Oh, I'm chill. Of course you're not acting in an ethical way at all by calling me out while you ignore the outright personal insults that have been recently reported, so fuck off.

I'm not "calling you out". I'm trying to remove any reason to suspend you before it happens. You have a pattern of behaviour here, accept it or not, that i see moving towards a head. You would do yourself a favour by disengaging for a while.

Or I can just watch my step.

And there has only been one report of a PA on you recently. It was relatively mild and was dealt with behind the scenes. Feel free to report anything similar, as ever.

Of course it was "dealt with behind the scenes," just as all such insults directed at me are ignored.

If I call someone an "ignorant cunt" I get suspended, but when someone else does it to me it's "dealt with behind the scenes."

So fuck off XC, you're biased and you know it and so does everybody else, and it's just fine with all of you because I'm the guy you all love to hate.

Fuck off yourself. Last time I try and help you.

You're not trying to "help" me, you're wagging your big Mod dick at me to show how powerful and superior you are while you blithely ignore actual violations of the FUA perpetrated against me because you really don't give a fuck whether I violate the FUA, in fact you'd prefer I did so you can suspend me. You just want to pretend to be altruistic and all that shit before the rest of the forum so that next time you decide to fuck with me you can say "Well, I tried to tell him to chill out but he wouldn't listen."

Your self-serving, self-aggrandizing crap is entirely unwelcome and entirely dishonest in intent and purpose, as proven by your penchant for ignoring the malfeasance of anyone else while focusing on nitpicking my posts and making shit up as you go (like the new, unratified "indirect group insult" rule that snuck in here from RatSkep). This is exactly the sort of thing that happened at RatSkep, and you fucking well know it. And at RatSkep they had to violate their own FUA and their own principles in order to declare me persona non grata and permaban me, and I would not be at all surprised if that's what happens here someday as well, because the ilk here are the same as the ilk there and the tactics are the same too. You are all as predictable as the sunrise.

So shut the fuck up with your "advice" and do your fucking job, but try to do it properly and evenhandedly to everyone who violates the rules...if you can...which I doubt. If you want to ban me, then just get on with it and quit trying to excuse your unethical behavior by hiding behind your big, wagging Mod dick.

[Seth]

I don't really agree with Ian.
Nobody's obliged to read Seth's posts, or to reply to them.
To leave because of that is like leaving New York, because of the message in some graffiti.
Or not watching tv, because you don't like friends.

It's the same if you reply to Seth. I don't expect anything but Seth-type posts in reply.
If it does bug me, I don't have to read Seth posts. I only read a few anyway. Most are too long. (for me)

As far as forums are concerned, the are all dwindling. Or that's the impression I get.
It seems to be twitter and facebook that people are drifting towards.
I don't get it, but several people have said the same thing. Whether that's a permanent trend or just a blip, I dunno.

Thank you MM, you have demonstrated the best about this forum in a single post. The reasons such fora are in decline is because of precisely the sort of "dissenter's veto" that drove me out of RatSkep. It's not that what I have to say is driving people away, it's the fact that I exist and have the balls to continue to post here and say things that they don't want anyone to hear or read, but that they themselves cannot resist reading. It's my very existence as a contrarian voice who is unwilling to bow to the forum agenda that makes people like Ian so mad. It's not that THEY don't want to read it, it's that they don't want ANYONE to read it because it might convince someone else that the forum agenda is actually full of crap, and therefore so are the parrots who chant the Socialist/Progressive party line.

Rational people simply pick and choose what they read and what they respond to without attempting direct censorship of contrary opinions that they find disagreeable as Ian and others have done with respect to my posts.

I suggest Ian go back to the echo-chamber at RatSkep, where he can comfortably live in his delusion that everything he thinks is correct and everyone else on the planet thinks like he does, so anybody who doesn't is just...well...to use a popular term..."Divergent."

Interesting movies by the way...

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Some tedious, pompous shit

Tl;dr. I stand by my last post. Consider it my only response to anything you post in future.

[Seth]

Some tedious, pompous shit

Tl;dr. I stand by my last post. Consider it my only response to anything you post in future.

Fine by me. You'll get my respect when you show me that you are doing your job in an ethical and even-handed manner, not before.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Some tedious, pompous shit

Tl;dr. I stand by my last post. Consider it my only response to anything you post in future.

Fine by me. You'll get my respect when you show me that you are doing your job in an ethical and even-handed manner, not before.

You'll never get mine.

[JimC]

Seth wrote:

No Christian faith has ever advocated or participated in the torture or murder of anyone. Any religious group that advocates or participates in such acts cannot, by definition, be "Christian" because Christ expressly forbids his followers from torturing or killing anyone, ever. Therefore the Catholic church, during the time of the Spanish Inquisition (which was in Spain by the way), was not a Christian organization.

This takes the absolute fucking cake, in terms of retroactively excusing anything done by avowed christians in the name of their religion.

One can point out that many actions committed by christians in the past can now, in hindsight, be seen as antithetical to some major tenets of their own religion without saying that this means they were actually not christians, implying that christians have never, ever done anything wrong...

[Hermit]

No Christian faith has ever advocated or participated in the torture or murder of anyone. Any religious group that advocates or participates in such acts cannot, by definition, be "Christian" because Christ expressly forbids his followers from torturing or killing anyone, ever. Therefore the Catholic church, during the time of the Spanish Inquisition (which was in Spain by the way), was not a Christian organization.

The No true Scotsman fallacy at its most pronounced.

The Spanish Inquisition did indeed occure in Spain. Hence the name "Spanish Inquisition". Who would have thunk it, huh? It was, however, by no means the first official inquisition, nor were they confined to Spain. The first inquisitions took place in France, then Italy, towards the end of the twelfth century, and later on expanded across all of Europe. Bruno, Kepler, Copernicus and Galileo were among notable targets for formal inquisitions too, and none of them lived in Spain. Eventually witchcraft became a fashionable target too, whereupon inquisitions crossed continents and were instigated by Christian denominations besides the Roman Catholic Church.

[Brian Peacock]

Seth wrote:

No Christian faith has ever advocated or participated in the torture or murder of anyone. Any religious group that advocates or participates in such acts cannot, by definition, be "Christian" because Christ expressly forbids his followers from torturing or killing anyone, ever. Therefore the Catholic church, during the time of the Spanish Inquisition (which was in Spain by the way), was not a Christian organization.

This takes the absolute fucking cake, in terms of retroactively excusing anything done by avowed christians in the name of their religion.

One can point out that many actions committed by christians in the past can now, in hindsight, be seen as antithetical to some major tenets of their own religion without saying that this means they were actually not christians, implying that christians have never, ever done anything wrong...

"With regard to heretics two points must be observed: one, on their own side; the other, on the side of the Church. On their own side there is the sin, whereby they deserve not only to be separated from the Church by excommunication, but also to be severed from the world by death. For it is a much graver matter to corrupt the faith which quickens the soul, than to forge money, which supports temporal life. Wherefore if forgers of money and other evil-doers are forthwith condemned to death by the secular authority, much more reason is there for heretics, as soon as they are convicted of heresy, to be not only excommunicated but even put to death."

Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, 1274

Aquinas: not, nor never was, a Christian, apparently.