And he also smells of elderberries, now that I think about it.
And his mother… Ah, so that’s why the board keeps timing out!
Is there a statement from another mod supporting this? I don’t recall seeing one and without corroborating evidence, aren’t you believing simply what you want to believe?
If you do know of a quote from another mod advising Tom to place his genitals in ice water (or the metaphorical equipment), please supply it. Otherwise, you’re just a (heh) believer.
Incidentally, the point of my earlier Superman analogy is to highlight the following:
[ul][li]Belief in something unprovable is often viewed as ignorance[/li][li]The mission of the SDMB is to fight ignorance[/li][li]Therefore, some posters conclude that believers (and not just beliefs) must be fought.[/ul][/li]The conclusion is a bit shaky and, when combined with rudeness and sanctimony and insults, frequently slides into the jerkishness that the moderators are constantly trying to eliminate, that being their SDMB mission. If a person writes knowledgeably about a topic, does it really matter what his personal beliefs are about that topic? Is driving him away a victory of some kind?
I’d say “Belief that something unprovable is true is often (and correctly) viewed as ignorance.”
As I persist in stating, Xians are free to belief in whatever nonsense stories they choose, but not to tell me that what they believe (but can’t begin to support) is anything like true, or that their belief systems and values thereof should be taken seriously by non-Xians, other than as a polite courtesy. Instead of thanking me for not busting their chops, and granting the right granted to every American citizen to believe in one’s own chosen nonsense, however improbable, they impose their values on me, with a particularly self-righteous arrogance designed to make me and my kind feel marginalized in American culture. Every time George Bush opines that he was chosen by God for his mission of fucking up the country, every stupid ballplayer who thanks Jesus in public for helping him make the crucial catch, every mourner at my father’s funeral who tells me that it’s all part of God plan is imposing their beliefs (that I will defend, if they’d keep their beliefs to themselves) on me.
Your beliefs are between you and your God? Fine, wonderful, whatever. Keep them there, okay? Pray in your closet, not on my airwaves. Shut your filthy lying mouths about what you believe in, and I’ll shut my filthy lying mouth about my beliefs, we’ll never know what each other believes, and we’ll all be happier.
If you stop singing “God Bless America,” at baseball games, I’ll stop shouting “God is a fucking lie designed to keep people content with human misery” when you’re done singing. Oh, you’re offended by my choice of language, my lapse in decorum, my spoiling your nice day at the stadium? Okay, now youre close to understanding how I feel, as if you can possibly empathize with another human but non-Xian being’s feelings.
You don’t need to proselytize me, and you know what? You don’t need to proselytize your own kids either. If you’re so content in your Xian lives, if you withhold all talk of God until your kids are adults and can make up their own minds, why wouldn’t they admire you and want to emulate your values, including your Xianity? Instead you teach your kids to mistrust and marginalize the beliefs of others, you indoctrinate them before they’re able to think (and you discourage thinking as a barrier to understanding God, anyway), you fill them with fear of being rejected by the family if they question your values so they grow up associating Xian beliefs with a loving family and never really getting why they make that association deep-down, and you degrade the human spirit by insisting that any spirituality must follow the script that you have chosen and your neighbors have not.
I dont know a thing about why the world was created, but I know enough to keep my trap shut when I don’t know anything. Search for the truth, and believe whatever you like, but why can’t you keep your traps shut while you’re searching?
I never knew how bad PRR had it until that last post. It brought a tear to my eye. The fucking guy can’t even enjoy a ball game. You people should be ashamed.
It was precisely my point that that behavior was obnoxious, and for the record I would not do it; I erected it as a sort of Golden-Rule-inverted analogy for you. (“Whatsoever you would that men do not do against you, do not do against them” or something of the sort.) I trust you can see the point I am making in it.
For the record, while I haven’t been following either of you around the board, such reading as I have done suggests that Zoe, a lady with excellent credentials in my eyes, simply gave back to you precisely what you offered her, in a very few pit threads. If that constitutes “stalking” in your eyes, then I do appreciate your support as against Badchad’s much more egregious, and admitted, stalking of me.
Finally, I do not have ready cites for the missed allusions, though I seem to recall a couple of obvious ones which seemingly whooshed you. But it would hardly matter whether that allegation were the truth, now, would it? Any more than “believes what he feels like” or “refuses to take the authority of the Bible on an all-or-nothing basis” are valid or invalid as against me?
Well, I’m fairly certain he’s said he doesn’t accept the historicity of the Crucifixion, so that vacant cross provided him a nice place to hang out, as it were. 
Sure, there you go oppressing *PRR ** again with your beliefs. I am sure he would prefer allusions to being on a torture rack rather than comparisons to the cross. How can you continue to torment him in such a way.
- Of course summoning up one of the most unchristian things done in the name of Christ, the Inquisition.
So your solution is to find Christians who don’t impose their values on you, who aren’t sef-righteously arrogant, who actively oppose marginalization of any Americans based on belief and… bust their chops instead?
You sound kinda like those defenders of Christmas who feel marginalized when they hear “Seasons Greetings” or “Happy Holidays”. Wouldn’t it make more sense to comment on mindless nationalism after “God Bless America”? (I mean, if you’re gonna be a gadfly you might as well be relevant to the occasion, right?) I’m irritated by many things in popular culture, but I guess it’s not the same pain you feel, which is beyond my reach of understanding because you’re “non-Xian”.
Wow. Us Xians better review our parenting playbooks. Some of us are going about it all wrong.
If only.
If youd specify some of the missed allusions, I think I’d either cop to it (I haven;t read everything–in fact I’m spending this intersession filling gaps in my reading) or I’d discuss what you’d misunderstood. Or if you were being particularly dense and difficult (“PRR hasn’t read a book in his life”) I’d just ignore you, happily.
Is it incorrect to say that you believe what you feel like believing, or that your faith is finally predicated on subjective feelings that you can’t hope to communicate to others? Then debate the point, or ignore it. (Or acknowledge it.) But suppressing others’ questioning of you because you’re thin-skinned and you don’t like the way the question was phrased, is just demanding special privileges that this otherwise intensely questioning board is willing to grant you. badchad is the price we pay for open inquiry–if it weren’t him, somebody else would be getting in someone’s face, and causing complaints.
Wow, prr, how do you get through the day without your stress-ulcers reaching up from your stomach and devouring your head?
And while your rant was entertaining, it didn’t answer my question about what evidence supports your belief (which you have chosen to share with us, thus oppressing the heck out of us) that Tom was told by other mods to dunk his wang, in regards to badchad.
Your oppression of us will stop when you can prove your case. You have until noon.
Well, you’ve certainly clarified some things for me, and given me a lot to think about, and I thank you for the time that you dedicated to it.
AFAIAC, with the relaxation of the rule against using the word “troll” in the Pit, the word has been demoted in significance from “serious charge” to “just another Pit-appropriate epithet.” Were I find an instance of [what I thought to be] trolling that I felt should be officially sanctioned (in the bad way), I would be more inclined to report it via the “Report this Post” feature, and less inclined to wade into the Pit with the accusation (I would likely consider that to be “troll-feeding”). When I see the epithet used in the Pit, I don’t place any more significance on it than I do on “attention whore.”
Come to think of it, I don’t often find myself wanting to direct epithets against other Dopers for the purpose of expressing disdain; I do sometimes enjoy reading the epithets Dopers hurl at one another (LEFTWINGCUTESYSEMANTICBITCH was one of my favorites ;)). For that matter, I don’t often give public expression to the disdain I have been inspired to feel towards any particular Doper.
As to the thread regarding the specifics of LDS theology being, well, sacrosanct, for want of a better word: the theology is what it is. On the whole, people wishing to argue its validity would be better served by having access to what it is, rather than being left to argue against the validity of what it is not. Bringing the argument about validity into the thread about the specifics will tend to have the effect of drowning out the useful function of providing those specifics. IMHO, once the OP uses the thread to advocate for the validity of the theology, it becomes fair game for argumentation. As long as the OP doesn’t cross that line, I feel she should be allowed to continue providing information without being called upon to defend the underlying validity of the theology. I suppose an argument could be made that such a thread would be better suited to GQ than to GD, but I don’t feel enough interest in the matter to want to spend time on that issue.
A thread started to deride the RCC for the use of torture by the Inquisition? Sounds to me like something for the Pit. A thread about the actual practices of the RCC, including any records about how, f’rinstance, Torquemada justified to himself the practice of what we today call atrocities? Could be interesting and informative, in the proper forum. But, ISTM that the question of whether Torquemada was a monster, while appropriate for the Pit thread, would tend to derail a thread about what he actually said and wrote. If you consider yourself up to the task of assuming the mantle of “Expert on the Facts of the Conduct of the Inquisition,” I suggest you start the thread and see how zealously the mods respect and support your intent to keep it on topic.
I think that’s about all I have for now (except for the fact that I think you’e wrong about Zoe being a moron), so I’ll thank you once again for your response, and submit this.
Physician, heal thyself.
Boy that’s the truth. And a few hundred less posts about how Tom is mean to him would be nice too.
Er, cite?
You’re okay with courtesy and politeness, then? I’d be delighted to know that you find value in those qualities, if you do, and I would welcome your assistance in convincing badchad that value is to be found.
[bolding mine]
You have been asked, repeatdly for some evidence of this or similar statements. You “have read” nothing that supports this claim and you have chosen to make no effort to discover its accuracy. Imagine whatever you wish, but it would be nice if you would stop inventing imaginary support for your claims.
In fact, it is simply not true. I have made no motion to have badchad banned in staff discussions. I have not expressed any great appreciation for his presence, but I have made no effort to persuade other staff to consider banning him.
We have already had this discussion. Your claim is somewhat to the far side of disingenuous. While religion is a broad topic (to which badchad is welcome to contribute), badchad does not discuss the “single” broad topic of religion; he spends well over 99% of his energy attempting to demonstrate the “single” narrow idea that all belief in the spiritual is wrong and that persons who post on it should be silenced on this board. That is a narrow topic, not a broad one. That is being a one-trick pony.
More stuff you’ve simply made up. While badchad has admitted making Polycarp a “special project,” (which by my standards puts a large troll sign beneath badchad’s username, YMMV, obviously), in fact, badchad has made it a point to attack several posters, cosmosdan and AHunter3, most recently, but the raindog, skald the rhymer, and several others. I have already stated that anyone who has watched badchad’s performance should already know what they are going to encounter and I have made no attempt to “protect” anyone in GD as demonstrated by the fact that I have issued no warnings to badchad and that you have, despite repeated claims on your part, provided not one shred of evidence that I have.
His language in “debate” is designed to ridicule his opponent. He constantly takes some point of discussion (sometimes legitimate and sometimes silly) and then tries to make it a personal attack–often in direct contradiction of the words posted by his target. An example (taken from November, 2006, after I had already expressed my views regarding his actions being consistent witrh trolling, so don’t try to turn this into some silly claim that he hurt my feelings):
badchad drags my name into a part of a discussion in which I had not participated regarding biblical authority.
I post an explanation, with citations, of the use of the phrase “biblical authority.”
Later, while failing to address my points, he simply declares that I should change my use of the phrase.
[Then immediately posts again, ignorting my information, changing the meaning of the words posted, and ending up with a question designed to insult me](So you really don’t care much about Christ’s moral message to preach the gospel to every creature? You don’t care if we all go to hell?)
which only makes sense if one has deliberately ignored the actual information already provided (or deliberately twisted it) and relies on an interpretation of scripture which i clearly do not hold. Challenging my posts is legitimate. Ignoring supported information that I have provided to make a personal attack on me based on one’s own distorted view of the world is dishonest.
Nothing wiggling about them. badchad’s use of language is dishonest and he has demonstrated enough intelligence that it is clear that he is doing it deliberately.
He has persistently tried to hide his actions behind the fig leaf of claiming to “fight ignorance,” (a little bit of nonsense that you enjoy echoing). In fact, ignorance is a lack of knowledge. Belief is not a lack of knowledge; it is a different approach to viewing the world. The only strained way that one can call belief “ignorance” is to pretend that one is 100% correct and anyone else lacks the “knowledge” of your opinion. Sorry, that is nothing but a dishonest debating tactic. He and you and anyone else is free to reject certain beliefs, but it is nothing more than spin to pretend that you possess some great Truth that is “unknown” by your opponents.
He started the thread questioning the right to raise children in religious belief (a valid topic) with the title declaring “brainwashing.” Brainwashing is a verb with a specific meaning. It indicates the use of torture, drugs, sleep or food deprivation and other acts with the intention to change a person’s view from a position once held to another. If he had started a thread asking whether it was proper to “brainwash” children into supporting democracy or following the law, he would have been laughed off the board. It was simply a bit of dishonest rhetoric to rile people up.
His dishonesty also permeates his debating. When he demonstrated an appalling ignorance of the ways in which groups pass on their beliefs in sacred writings in his first visit, here, I pointed out his error. Instead of actually discussing the issue, he spent quite a few posts attempting to get me to discuss my my personal beliefs (irrelevant to the point I had made, as supported by Diogenes the Cynic), and pretended the anthropological and cultural information I had provided did not exist. In other words, while he was content to wallow in his ignorance, he saw my participation as an excuse to try to focus on attacking my person. Hardly the work of an “honest” man who claims to be “fighting ignorance.”
He used to use the (somewhat) neutral and legitimate term “liberal Christians” to identify those Christians who were not adherents to biblical literalism. A couple of months back he switched over to calling them “nominal Christians.” When I asked him why he changed is terms, (thus pretending that the overwhelming percent of people in the world who profess Christianity are not “really” Christians), he evaded answering me (although you jumped in to demonstrate that you did not understand the question and call me names). That is a dishonest tactic.
Now, his dishonesty is no worse than that of some others who post here. However, that dishonesty in conjunction with his attempts to make all discussions personal and his very narrowly focused topics, limited to the sole point of mocking believers, complete a constellation of traits that I consider to be consistent with trolling.
A few random thoughts:
-
A bunch of us are hardcore intellectual wankers. I include myself in this group since I’ve been involved in these pointless circular discussions before, even though I haven’t been involved in this one. But if you’re beating on something and beating it and beating it, and you reach no resolution (so to speak) it’s best to stop before you rub all the skin off. Nothing lies in that direction but frustration. Frustration and ointment.
-
Some people are assholes. Some Christians are, and some atheists are. Some will rationalize their assholery as a cause – a misunderstood cause, a noble cause, a cause for which they will martyr themselves. This doesn’t mean they aren’t still assholes, they are; they just go from being garden-variety assholes (the drunk asshole, the boorish asshole, the completely self-centered asshole) to being assholes with a persecution complex and a secret sense of their own specialness in a hostile world.
-
It is my experience that most people don’t want to spend a lot of time with assholes, no matter what they’re peddling. I have never understood the value in promoting a cause by being an asshole, since that seems to me to be a sure-fire way to get people to stop talking to you and, more damaging to your cause, stop listening to you. Other people’s MMV.
-
If you give people enough time to ramble on, you will learn a lot about them. This is helpful when attempting to decide who is a rational person with whom you may disagree, and who is a complete spittle-flecked fruitcake it would be best to leave alone.
Given that he is a troll, a jerk, and a stalker I have to ask, why not?