I’ve not been round here long, and before I’d learned of lekatt, I made the mistake of entering into a debate with him. I read his self-citations, and responded to his declarations, respectfully asking him to answer my points. I seem to recall it was about morality and religion. I’ve learned my lesson now.
I like Cervaise’s suggestion of a generic thread, but we could even create a website with a list of numbered responses, which we could update and link to in any future debate. “Science hates religion” - number 17… “Evolution has never been observed” - number 32 etc. Just think of the time (and threads) we could save.
Debating with someone who disagrees with you is stimulating and useful for both parties - you can learn from each other. Debating with lekatt is banging your head against the proverbial brick wall.
As an aside, if there were such a thing as an anti-pitting, I would have to nominate tomndebb for the calm, polite way in which he handles lekatt’s inanity. It’s not an easy job, there’s little reward, but it’s much appreciated. Thank you.
In all fairness to lekatt, he may see his talking about his near-death experience and his experience with the divine as a key part of ministry and faith. I must admit, I see the posts I make on religion as part of my ministry, even if it’s something I never thought I’d do. On the other hand, I can’t say lekatt has been all that effective a witness. Among other things, I’m still not entirely sure what he believes, only that, to embrace it, I’d have to give up some ways of belief and thought I rather enjoy. I’ve no desire to embrace his faith, whatever form it takes.
AFAICT, he sees it as the primary requirement of his faith and possibly the only one. His spiritual obligations seem to be limited to maintaining his website, and witnessing at the SDMB and other boards. Occasionally, he maskes vague rerferences to working at a hospice and using that as an opportunity to preach to the dying. Some people will argue that Lekatt is one of those who are modest and will not discuss their good deeds. But, there is always some mention or hint of them. I’ve never seen that hint from him. Rather than turning his faith into action, he just posts about it on the net.
I hope he doesn’t preach at a hospice! Correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t people usually go to hospices do <i>die</i>? Because they’re beyond treatment, or don’t want it anymore, and just want to pass away peacefully?
Considering the way he behaved in the Schiavo threads, I can see him seriously doing those people harm if he acted like that.
So anyway, DocCathode (per usual) is insightful - I’m curious though about your references to lekatt’s life. What’s his full background, and how do you know about this stuff?
He’s told the story of his supposed NDE many times. The details of his age, depression, training in a now obsolete printing shop, etc are all in their. The ‘NDE’ itself is on his website. He was in bed with his wife. He saw and heard certain things. He maintains that he had a fatal heart attack and spoke with a being made of light. I and others maintain that while his wife could very well have slept through his death, you don’t just have a heart attack and get all better. He didn’t wake up needing an ambulance or other medical attention. It does not happen that way. A heart attack is not something you briefly mention over cheerios the next morning. Besides Lekatt’s claim to ‘just know’ that he died in his sleep, there is no proof he was near death.
In his earlier threads, here, he used “his life” (or some presentration of it) to support the “truth” of his beliefs. In the process, he made references to various events in his careers. Other posters perceived discrepancies among his anecdotes and made a minor cottage industry of trying to catch him in “lies” to “disprove” his claims. For a while, he responded with more anecdotes, then gave that up. In addition, there is a bit of biography scattered around his website.
We really do not need to rehash all that old stuff, but if someone is desperately interested, one may do searches on “lekatt AND navy” or on “printer” or “hurricane” posted by username “lekatt” (or go to his website) you can see some of the information.
Tomndebb It was not my intent to stir up old controversy. I specifically avoided mention of the you-know-what and the attempts of certain posters to disprove that cliam by you-know-how. Lekatt has claimed to have spent decades as a printer, worked as a nurse, and volunteered in a hospice. I believe all three claims. The only reason I require details on his work in the hospice is that he’s never posted any.
I do dispute his ‘NDE’. But, I am going through his own posts and the account on his website. Nor am I accusing him of lying. IMO Lekatt absolutely believes that on the night in question, he died in his sleep, met a spirit guide, was given a choice to return to life and came back. I believe in G-d. But, I’m also a skeptic. If you say a tangible, quantifiable, verifiable miracle happened, I want proof.
I like your idea too. Maybe we can combine them, and pre-write the generic response thread. Spend the first few posts collecting lekatt’s top twenty Idiotic Spewings™ complete with examples, recruit some volunteers to craft responses (perhaps culled and refined from prior replies), and build a thread out of it.
Then we bookmark it, and future GD threads would look like this:
lekatt: “scientists want to destroy god”
Random Doper: [post eleven](bada bing, bada pow)
lekatt: “I have evidence that life continues beyond physical death”
Random Doper: [post seven](zip zop, my face was ripped to shreds), followed by [post nineteen](hey hey hey, let’s go to Victoria)
lekatt: “evolution is a religion”
Random Doper: [post four](someone left a cake out in the rain), then [post twelve](our house is a very very very fine house), then [post fifteen](whose cuisine will reign supreme?)
Sure, it’d be a lot of work, but it would certainly simplify future interactions. And we wouldn’t necessarily have to link to the individual posts, either; just link to the thread and indicate which post is the relevant one, so the whole thread is visible. New readers could thus draw the appropriate conclusion. And if a new Moron Meme came up, we could easily add to the thread.
I don’t know about that. If you were bedridden, with no means of escape, would you want to spend your last hours listening to lekatt? Comfort would not be the word I would use.
Couldn’t Jerry the Tech God program a Doper 'bot who could automatically debate lekatt? Whenever lekatt posted, it could scan for key words, and immediately regurgitate the appropriate response. I doubt lekatt would notice the difference, and it would take the burden off of the rest of us, who cannot stand by as he vomits his turds into a thread without refutation.
I didn’t think you were. I have no problem with what you’ve posted. I also have no problem with people going back and looking at his stuff (which is why I provided some search terms), I just didn’t want them bringing them back to the present for more trainwrecks.
