Don’t let the door hit you on your way out!
Would you like the mods to change your name to “Absolutely My Last Post-Really Truly I Swear!”?
Please stop teasing.
“little straw tarbaby”? WTF is that supposed to mean?
Perhaps I don’t get this. In Tennessee, you are risking torture by proclaiming that we are losing our freedoms?
I’ve got to have missed something.
That’s a shitload of last posts.
No; I simply don’t believe in your persecution fantasies. It isn’t happening. Pray is allowed in school, Christians are not having their free speech suppressed.
But you were commenting on John Mace’s post of "Does anybody want to defend the meme that they’re anti-Christian? ". Not anti-right wing Christian, anti-Christian.
:rolleyes: We haven’t been “skirting” anything, we’ve been asking you to explain what in the world you are talking about. What threats of murder?
Why should we believe in any such persecution, given your standards for what counts as “persecution” and your unwillingness to explain what you are actually talking about? As far as I can tell, if someone got into an argument with your sister over Jesus’s hair color you’d consider that brutal tyranny.
I was trying to comment on the question of why the Religious Right doesn’t like the ACLU. How the ACLU feels about Christianity is something I wasn’t commenting on.
Brown, according to everyone who used to tell me I looked like Jesus. Now that my hair and beard are white, I simply assume that I look like Jesus would have if he’d lived to 54. And had a tobacco-stained mustache. And started cutting his hair shorter because it was a pain to wash and brush out shoulder-length hair. And was willing to wear a tie when the Board of Directors is meeting.
I completely agree. This is the thread Der Trihs was born to write, so to speak – the one where hie becomes the voice of reason and the fighting of ignorance. (And on a religious question, no less – signs of the imminent apocalypse! :D)
Wait until he starts playing “Taps”!! 
In this thread? To quote Darth Vader, “All too easy.”
Just remember, friend, in the end Anakin redeems all by eliminating Palpatine. If we’re going to mix our mythical metaphors here, well, go for the top!
So at some point I’ll end up throwing a lightning spewing Pope down a well to his doom? Hope I can avoid the dying painfully part…
You want to cause a man like that a heart attack?
Ask him to outline the difference between what Jesus taught and communism.
Hello mcfirefly.
I have sympathy for you “having your back up” and feeling attacked and ganged-up-on here. I think it’s pretty much a universal human trait to be upset and perhaps get a bit defensive when—for whatever reason, right or wrong—an individual feels threatened by a group of others they are engaging with.
I think for a lot of people (myself included) jumping into the fray here on the SDMB Great Debates forum feels/felt about like jumping into a white-hot furnace. That can be mitigated to some extent by spending time “lurking” here before posting, although that’s not required, of course.
So why would anyone endure this “punishment”? In my opinion, most contributors here (the SDMB in general, but specifically Great Debates) feel that the debating standards are pretty darn high, at least for an internet message board, and therefore participating is usually an enriching pursuit. To be sure, it’s not *always *so enlightened and worthwhile—it depends on the topic, the contributing posters, and the phase of the moon;)—but it’s a breed apart from most other message boards.
In part this is due to the courageous toiling of the moderators. But what really makes the underlying fabric that our threads weave through so formidable is the fact that here in the Great Debates forum one WILL be called on ones s**t. Essentially, one must put up, or shut-up…
…Actually, one doesn’t have to shut up—as long no Board rules are broken, a poster is free to prattle off into the sunset, if they wish. But at some point, if no credible evidence is offered to back-up ones* debating points yet he or she continues to fling handfuls of thin gruel on the walls the question must be asked: Does a tree that falls in a forest with no one around to hear it make any noise?
By and large, we do play fair. At the same time, by and large, it’s pro-ball (at* least* Triple-A, most days :D). Gotta bring the heat to make your pitch here, and you gotta *take *the heat, too. The tough time you’re getting is a little like an initiation, except it’s not, because we’re this tough on each other (veterans and noobies alike) every day.
May be wrong, may be right (or Left),
Just fight the Good Fight.
Welcome to the Boards.
*Boy, I sure did use the word “one” a lot! I felt that in this case, the use of the general “you” was not a good choice.
http://truthout.org/aclu-sues-rick-scott-stop-voter-suppression/1307206596
Latest ACLU action to try and stop Florida from voter suppression.