Subject:
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Re: The Brick Testament - More Teachings of Jesus
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Tue, 24 Oct 2006 07:58:12 GMT
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Viewed:
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4806 times
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In the interest of brevity, nonredundancy, and my own sanity, I am going to skip
responding to some of John’s comments that have been taken up by Tim and DaveE.
I also want to take a moment to note that I began this discussion by asking John
to explain certain of his religious beliefs. John, you have obliged me, and I
appreciate your taking the time to do so. I haven’t met many other religious
believers who are as comfortable and open to having their beliefs scrutinized.
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, John Neal wrote:
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Really? At what point during a rational evaluation process do you decide
something? How can two scientists who evaluate the same evidence draw
different conclusions?
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I defer to Tim’s response
here.
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Do you know for sure from where “ideas” that “pop into your head” come?
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No, and it’s a fascinating question for scientists to examine. I don’t quite
see how it’s relevant to our discussion though. Unless you are trying to argue
that “because one can point to things science hasn’t fully explained, this
discredits science and rationality as a reliable means of attaining knowledge”.
Even if there are things that science and rationality can never explain, it
does not therefore make it the slightest bit more likely that religion can
explain them.
I think I will leave further debate on this subject to others.
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Here’s my point: though you fancy yourself a
“rational” person, you are just as irrational as anyone, but can’t/won’t
admit it, because that would be “unscientific”. I realize that that is an
“ideal”, but you fail to grasp your ideals much the same way I do mine. The
very existence of the universe is irrational, but that doesn’t bother you in
the least. So I reject your blind trust in rational thought because you only
adhere to it when it is convenient.
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I will defer to DaveE’s
response here.
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And on my part, it’s really more on an
impatience than an intolerance, only because it seems to me that a rational
debate will be quite fruitless if people begin using nonrationally-derived
beliefs, especially if they are not recognized as such.
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Not so much in debates, but IRL. Christian researchers, for example, are
considered second-class scientists. The same can be said for any religious
academic.
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I defer to Tim’s response
here.
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And it’s not really that I am intolerant of nonrationally-derived beliefs.
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Actually, that’s exactly what it is.
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I
realize people have them (I probably have some of my own that I haven’t even
realized I have),
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BINGO.
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You seem to think you’ve “nailed me” on this point because I have admitted that
I have had and may still have some nonrational beliefs. I don’t get it.
Someone who believes that racism should not be tolerated may still recognize
latent racism in their own thoughts. Does that make them a hypocrite? I do not
think so. Much of the process of becoming nonracist is to recognize your own
racist beleifs and ways of thinking and doing your best to eschew them. I would
say the same is true for nonrationally-derived beliefs. The path to becoming a
rational person involves self-examining your own beliefs for irrationality.
It may even be the case that the human mind is prone to forming irrational
beliefs and that fact may make it harder for people to eschew irrationality, but
it certainly does not mean that anyone promoting rationality over irrationality
is a hypocrite.
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Here is the strategy from the playbook: Proclaim the Good News, and love God
(by loving others). Any “convincing” is not our responsibility; it is the
job of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of others. That’s it. Win over others
by “loving them up”. So, in theory, everybody will at some point be loving
everybody else. That’s the game plan, pure and simple.
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But what could possibly be the purpose of “proclaiming the Good News” if it is
not intended to convince people of anything? Is it mere busy work? Just
something to do until Jesus gets around to coming back? Do you not even think
about it or care what the point is? Is it just that “if God tells you to do
something you do it” because he’s God, and who cares if you can make any sense
of it?
Because if the Holy Spirit is what actually convinces people, how could it not
be infinitely more efficient to just have the Holy Spirit convince everyone in
the blink of en eye? Or if not everyone is going to be convinced, everyone
could be convinced or not in the blink of an eye.
I suspect you will take this as just another example of me Monday Morning
Quarterbacking, but I fully stand by my defense of the practice. If you posit a
being with certain motivations and unlimited power and intelligence with which
to act on those motivations, but their supposed actions do not line up with what
even a semi-intelligent and somewhat-powerful being with those motivations could
be expected to do, it would seem to follow that you are mistaken about this
being’s existence, his motivations, his power, his intelligence, or some
combination of the above.
As far as I can tell, what prevents you from coming to any of those
conclusions is that you will not allow yourself to seriously question the
existence of God, or your belief in him having those abilities, or your belief
that the Bible is in some way a true account of God. These seem to have
become axioms for you, and I’ve been curious to see if you can explain why
these are axioms for you.
Actually, this all started out by me asking you about what struck me a peculiar
view of the OT. I was interested to discover if that view of yours was
axiomatic in itself, or whether it necessarily followed from a certain set of
other axiomatic religious beleifs, or whether it was simply your best rational
theory about the OT beased on your set of axiomatic religious beliefs, but one
where you could possibly be convinced of a different theory if it was shown to
be more plausible.
I suppose I could have just asked these questions directly, but I thought it
might be better to start off by just asking you explain in your beliefs about
the OT compared to your beliefs about the NT.
But if you’re game, we could just take the direct approach. In fact, I’ll open
the question to any religious believers who feel like answering by starting a
new OT.debate thread here.
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Their beliefs, or ideas can be irrationally based, but they can rationally
argue any position they want. For example, say I believe abortion is wrong
because I believe God says it’s wrong. I can argue against abortion using a
myriad of rational arguments, but my positions aren’t negated because of the
genesis of my belief.
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OK, I think we agree here. Certainly someone’s rational arguments are not
undermined by their also holding nonrationally-derived beliefs on the matter.
It is only when those nonrationally-derived beliefs become premises of the
person’s argument that the argument fails to become convincing on those grounds
alone. And that is exactly what I’m suggesting is fairly often the case.
Someone might make an overall good case against something by presenting several
independent arguments against it. But any of those arguments that depend on
nonrationally-derived beliefs as premises can pretty much be tossed out the
window. If what’s left is still a good case despite the tossed-out arguments,
great.
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But the onus is on you to rationally explain how a universe suddenly just
came into being.
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I don’t see why. Clearly the onus is on someone who posits the existence of a
supernatural being to make the case for its existence, but what am I positing
that needs defense? I have not even said that the universe “suddenly came into
being”. Maybe it didn’t. Maybe it has always existed. Maybe it was just a
singularity for all eternity before the Big Bang, or maybe the universe
collapses and exands in a never-ending and never-beginning cycle. I do not
know. But why on Earth do I have to have that answer? What are you
suggesting must be true if I don’t have that answer?
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Personally, I feel comforted by the
knowledge that even if there is a Creator, there is no particular reason
my purpose in life should need to align with whatever purpose (or lack of
purpose) that Creator had for creating the universe.
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If that works for you, then I believe you can thank God for being thoughtful
enough to let you “do your thing”.
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Obviously it’s clear by now that I don’t believe in God, so your suggestion that
I be thankful to him is like me suggesting you be thankful to Santa Claus for
leaving you presents as a kid and for not killing you when he broke into your
house.
Even if we posit a Creator, it would not be a matter of this Creator being
thoughtful or “doing me a favor” by allowing my purpose in life to not match
up to his. That’s just how it would necessarily be. Even a Creator who did
have a purpose for creating humankind would not be able to give their lives
objective purpose. The Creator would have his subjective purpose for them
(whether good, evil, or neutral) and the humans would have their own subjective
purposes, and nobody’s existence (not even the Creator’s) would have objective
meaning.
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For others, however, they may need hope
to get through life. I do, and it makes all the difference in the world.
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You may or may not be more hopeful than the average atheist, but either way, it
makes the actual possibility of there being a Creator with a Purpose 0% more
likely to be true.
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But I can’t really compare because I was raised in a Christian home, but I
find testimonies of adults who were agnostics or atheists that became
Christians very compelling. It betters their lives. YMMV
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Sure, each of us could bring up anecdotal evidence of people who feel their life
was immesurably bettered by adopting religious belief or ridding themselves of
it. Neither makes religious beliefs any more likely or less likely to be true.
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If two people happen upon a closet whose door has
been hermetically sealed, who is more rational, the person who admits “I do
not know what is in that closet” or the person who says, “I am certain there
is an enormous elephant in that closet.” Obviously, the person who claims
knowledge of what is in the closet is being irrational, and the more the
person claims to know about the elephant, the more irrational their beliefs
become. In the absence of evidence about what is in the closet, the only
rational response is to admit the lack of knowledge.
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What about the giant poop on the floor in front of the closet? (that is the
first time I’ve compared the Bible to a pile of elephant poop-- perhaps you
find this analogy particularily convincing;-)
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But what happens when a scientist comes along and provides very strong (and
independently verifiable) evidence that what looked like elephant poop is
actually just the accumulated human poop of all the people who have come up to
this closet in the past and wondered what’s inside? Then what do we make of the
person who nonetheless continues to be certain beyond a doubt that there is an
elephant in that closet despite the scientist’s evidence about the poop?
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And yet, the fact remains, it is
either true or false that blind faith in religious dogma was a significant
contributing factor to the 9/11 hijackers taking the actions they did.
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Specious and a non sequitur to boot! It says NOTHING about blind religious
faith any more than Stalin’s atheism predicts the actions of other atheists.
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I disagree. But first of all, blind religious faith is a
way-of-forming-beliefs. You are comparing that to atheism which is not a
way-of-forming-beliefs, but a nonbelief in gods.
Perhaps I should not single out blind religious faith in particular, it just
seems like the most common form of blind faith because it is the one actively
promoted in our society.
I think a good argument can be made that blind faith in general as a
way-of-forming-beliefs is far, far less likely to give you accurate information
about the world than science and rationality.
I further think that a case can be made that 9/11 style terrorism requires a
mindset that is only brought about by blind faith, in this case blind religious
faith.
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At the very least I can hold up millions of people with blind faith in
religious dogma that are doing a lot of good in the world as well!
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True, you could also make an argument that certain acts of great kindness
require a mindset that is only brought about by blind religious faith.
I just think think the former case would be a lot stronger than the latter. I
don’t know it would, it’s just my guess based on my own observations. The
matter would have to be tested scientifically, which I think in principle is
possible (if unlikely to actually occur).
I would also posit a guess that Stalin’s acts of cruelty most likely required
a non-religious sort of blind faith in Bolshevism. But you can make an argument
that his acts of cruelty required atheism or a lack of blind religious belief
if you like.
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And
it is either true or false that a culture that encourages blind faith in
religious dogma thereby raises the odds of religious terrorism.
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That’s patently false! ALL religous faith is “blind faith in religious
dogma”, so you’d have to consider every culture to calculate your odds.
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I did not say it would be easy to determine this scientifically, but it should
be, in principle, something that could be studied. If you cannot find a culture
that doesn’t at all promote blind religious faith, you’d have to settle for
comparing different cultures that promote it to widely differing degrees.
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Again, I look at outcomes. Judge the religious faiths based on what their
followers do; things will clear up quickly.
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But what, in the end, does it really clear up? Only whether you approve or
disapprove of their actions. It will, of course, “clear up” nothing about the
truth of falsity of their religious beliefs.
You are going through life acting on your beliefs about what is morally right
and wrong based on some nonrationally-derived religious beliefs. So,
presumably, is the “Islamo-fascist” terrorist. Both of you point to God as the
ultimate moral arbiter, and you each believe you have a revealed knowledge of
God’s morality and judge the other based on that revealed morality. Neither of
you can ultimately point to a rational basis for your beliefs, so rationally
convincing one another to change their morality or their desire to act on that
morality is not an option. So when you condemn the “Islamo-fascist”, you do so
for acting on beliefs that seem as equally well-founded as your own.
If you wish the demise of the “Islamo-fascists”, at least you should be in a
position to completely understand why they might wish for your demise. You at
least have the solidairty of both being people who act on their religious
convictions, even if acting on those convictions brings about each others
demise.
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I believe that atheism can lead to wonky moral compasses (but not from
ignorance) But let’s save that one for another time:-p
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Agreed. About saving it for another time, that is. :)
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Sorry, didn’t mean to use that one again-- I wanted “relative morality”.
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Oh, OK. Gotcha.
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So if you say “this is right” and I say “this is right”, then who is right?
Without an authority, we BOTH are, and neither of us are-- lost in a sea of
relative morality.
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Even if it is necessarily true that without God or any “moral authority” we are
lost in a sea of relative morality, this would still make it 0% more likely that
God actually exists. Again to posit that would be an argument from wishful
thinking.
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Anyone whose belief in God is ultimately nonrationally derived seems to be
abandoning rather than embracing the intellect.
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This statement makes no sense. Belief in God is by definition irrational.
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Here we’re back to different definitions of God, and whether or not you like it,
John, people really do have different conceptions of what they call “God”. From
what you’ve described, I can’t really say your idea of God sounds like the one
most Christians believe in.
I think there are a lot of people out there who at least say they formed thier
belief in God in a rational way, based on an evaluation of the available
evidence, without resort to blind faith.
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Anyone who beleives that there is a rational explanation for the origin of
the universe abandons their rational intellect as well.
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I’ll leave this matter to be discussed by others.
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Here is perhaps a clearer example. Your doctor informs you that you should
really eat 16 oranges a day. Now, that a lot of oranges even if you really
like oranges, but if the benefits were worth it, you just might consideer
it. You ask the doctor why you should eat 16 oranges a day, and are
expecting he might tell you that there’s excellent evidence to suggest that
eating 16 oranges a day will almost certainly prevent you from getting any
sort of cancer or heart disease. But instead he tells you that you should
eat 16 oranges a day because every day you fail to do so, 100 invisible
unicorns suffer a horrible death. It is therefore only morally right for
you to eat 16 oranges a day. When you ask how he came to this belief, he
explains that he is absolutely certain of it because of a personal
revelation. It rings true to him logically, but he’s certain of it
because of an unexplainable personal revelation.
How do you evaluate his claim? There’s no bridge to drive up to and verify.
You simply cannot know if those 100 invisible unicorns are really suffering
horrible deaths or not because they’re invisible. You can’t know unless
you yourself have such a personal revelation. Can you evaluate the merit of
his belief “on its own”? What would that even mean?
When it comes right down to it: do you start eating 16 ornages a day? If
not, why not? Does it have anything to do with the fact that his belief
came from a personal revelation? Does it have to do with the fact that his
belief posits the existence of things (the unicorns) you don’t have any good
rational reasons to believe exist?
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First, I’d evaluate HIM. Does he follow his own advice?
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Let’s say yes. Let’s say he eats 32 oranges a day just to be doubly sure.
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In the end probably not, because there is probably a definite
health risk there.
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That’s why you would not take his advice? Because of the health risk to you
if you ate all those oranges? Are you suggesting you might take similar advice
if it was less of a health risk? What if he told you to pat your head 30 times
when you wake up each morning? No health risk there.
You really wouldn’t simply discount what he’s saying as soon as you heard how
he arrived at his belief? Forgive me for having such a hard time believing you
would take your doctor seriously for one moment after he told you how he arrived
at his belief, and that you wouldn’t politely just say, “I’ll think about that”
and then go seek a new doctor.
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And in the end, I really don’t care much about invisible unicorns,
because they have nothing to do with me.
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Sigh. I wish I were better at constructing these hypotheticals. If you don’t
care about the suffering of invisible unicorns, just insert something you
would care about but which is not verifiable. Help a brother out. :)
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To make an even closer parallel situation, let’s imagine that four books are
written about Dave!’s life, but even the first book is not written until 40
years after Dave! has died, and the other three over the course of the next
20 years. The books have authors’ names attached to them, but it later
turns out these books were not written by the authors they are attributed
to, and the first copies of them were published anonymously. Literay
analysis provides extremely strong evidence that two of the books were
largely based on the earliest book with additional material added, and the
fourth may have depended on the first as well. The books all make
outrageous claims about Dave!, including that he worked miracles and
survived death. It is also clear that the authors of the books were members
of a religious cult surrounding Dave! and more interested in promoting their
own varying theological takes on Dave! than accurate historical reporting.
In addition, nothing of Dave!’s own writings exist (sadly the LUGNET
OT.debate archives were destroyed in the Great War of 2038) and outside
these books there are no other contemporary reliable indepedent sources to
verify that Dave! even existed. There are several other books about Dave!
written soon after the four, and these ones everyone dismisses as completely
unreliable.
So in that case, what can we really know about Dave!? Should any of these
books be considered reliable? What about where they contradict each other?
Given the circumstances, it would seem we would have to approach these books
with extreme caution and skepticism, especially inasmuch as they make claims
of supernatural events having taken place.
Of course I’ve taken your hypothetical about Dave! and twisted it into a
analogy to highlight the historical unreliablity of the gospels. But that’s
not what we were talking about. I believe your point was more along the
lines of “why should we expect four accounts of Jesus’s life to match up
exactly?”
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But notice that your analogy to the parallel Gospel accounts sounds like a
vast conspiracy (right wing, no doubt!;-)
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Sounds like a conspiracy? I don’t see how. Obviously I’m doing my best to
parallel what we know of how the gospels were written. But I have never thought
of the Gospels as some sort of conspiracy. So I’m not really sure what you
mean.
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If you come to them assuming Jesus’s divinity, you
come away wondering why the heck Jesus/God would have left his major source
of communication to the entire world for the next 2,000+ years in such a
state.
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And yet, 2,000 years later there are still 100’s of Millions of His
followers! I know that that’s not evidence of truth in and of itself (hi,
Dave!) but it gives one pause.
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It honestly doesn’t give me much pause, John. And I would guess it doesn’t give
many Muslims, Hindus, or Jews pause either. The only ones who might be tempted
to think “hmmm... if it’s been around for that long, there must be some truth
to its religious claims” are people who already believe in it, and I’m sure
not even all Christians would think that about their own religion.
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What the heck ELSE has survived 2,000 years, and why not? Just
a little food for thought.
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Well, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism and Jainism for starters. Plenty of
non-religious institutions as well: monarchy, slavery, mathematics, agriculture,
war.
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(Passover has been celebrated for over 4,000 years!)
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So, Judaism is more true than Christianity by this measure?
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My point was to counter your claim that “There are no ‘facts’ (verifiable by
science) in religion” which I think is outrageously false. The holy books
of any and every religion are full of ‘facts’ about things that happened (or
didn’t happen) and describe how the world works (or doesn’t). You must have
some extremely narrow view of religion if you are holding to this claim.
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But you need to understand that historians from 2,000 years ago were not like
those of today. There is a LOT of contextualizing that needs to take place
to legitimately consider Bible as historical record. This is Religion 101.
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Yes, of course if one is approaching the Bible as a historical document, one
must take all sorts of very serious precautions, the same as studying any
ancient religious text that purports to describe historical events but which is
obviously interweaved with accounts of the supernatural. We’ve established
this.
But that is not, by and large, the religious approach to the Bible. Most
believers take nothing like the rational historicist’s approach to the Bible.
Even Christians who are not fundementalists and who do not insist that every
word of the Bible is true still believe that much of the Bible and its
claims are true. And to that extent, Christianity does indeed make claims that
are verifiable by science. And to the extent that all religions have dogma that
includes beliefs about historical events, all religions make claims that can be
verified or falsified by science.
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it is the LEGO aspect that ruins you. Your critique would be taken
much more seriously if you’d not chosen LEGO for your medium. Even cartoons
would be taken more seriously, because that form actually has some
credibility.
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OK, I did not realize that it was mainly the choice of medium that made you
think of The Brick Testament as mockery. There are many websites out there that
do much the same thing as The Brick Testament except without the illustrations.
But they probably get a much smaller audience than The Brick Testament. People
generally don’t like to read (same reason most people don’t read the Bible, I
suppose), especially things that might cause them to reevaluate their cherished
beliefs, and more especially if they know beforehand it’s the product of someone
from a class of people they would otherwise dismiss out of hand.
So illustration gets the eyeballs, but I also think it often forces people to
think about what’s in the Bible more than just reading it does. It’s one thing
to read a list of seven city names that the Israelites destroyed, but it’s
another to view a series of seven illustrations of the violence being carried
out on city after city of people. There’s a reason the White House does its
best to keep all violent images and video from the war in Iraq out of the eyes
of the US public.
As for why LEGO? Partly it’s just because it’s novel and silly in a way that
appeals to a lot of people and makes viewing the Brick Testament fun. Partly
it’s because I’m better at building and photographing LEGO scenes that I am at
drawing or other artistic mediums. But partly it’s also because there’s a
certain shock to seeing little plastic toy people doing these shocking things,
and it amplifies the shock of learning that these things are in the Bible to
begin with.
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It is. It’s created from a children’s toy. It’s making light of a religion
(that is not your own). You may not intend it, but that’s the way it is
taken.
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Of the thousands of reactions I’ve seen to The Brick Testament, I’d have to say
you are in the extreme minority by objecting to it as mockery primarily due to
its use of LEGO as medium. That doesn’t make you wrong or right. Just special.
:)
And I object to your characterization of LEGO as merely a children’s toy. I
(and I’m sure many others here) did not not truly and fully appreciate the
wonders of LEGO until adulthood.
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And “safe from retribution” is certainly not guaranteed. While the few
Christians I’ve heard from who would apparently take delight in harm coming
to me are patient enough to allow God himself to give me my comeuppance by
way of eternal torture in hell after I die of natural causes,
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Okay, that’s funny! “That BPS, he’ll get his!” :-D
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It’s funny, sure, but funny scary.
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I realize I do
run some small risk of being harassed, harmed, or even killed by someone
willing to murder for the sake of religious dogma.
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You run a greater risk of being run over by an atheist as he changes the
radio station to METAL 105!
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No, I am quite sure I have a greater chance of being killed by a Christian
nutjob than a poorly driving atheist who happens to be into metal. But only
time will tell.
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Take Omnipotent alone for example. Can God creat a stone he can’t lift?
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Fine, so if you define omnipotent in a way that is logically inconsistent, it
simply follows that no entity can be omnipotent, not that God is omnipotent in
some way that our puny mortal minds cannot fathom.
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But I feel like there is a fundemental mistake being made here. If you
define God in such a way that the definition is internally inconsistent, it
does not follow that you have posited a God that our puny finite minds
cannot ever fully conceive of. It follows that such a God could not exist.
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I can posit an omniscient, omnipotent God and have no idea how that can
logically be.
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I would say that, no, strictly you cannot actually posit such a God and your
attempt to do so turns out to be meaningless in the same way it would if I
defined a hoohoo as a married bachelor. Just because you string words together
and follow rules of grammar does not mean that they have any sensible meaning.
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Heck, we live in a universe that can’t logically be, and it
certainly exists...
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I really don’t see what your hang-up is about the universe’s existence. What is
it about there being a universe that is illogical? (If this topic is being
covered in other threads, feel free to not answer here.)
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If something is utterly undefinable, utterly unknowable, and can’t ever
possibly be even remotely understood, it would necessarily be an utter waste
of time to give it any thought because what possible relevance could such a
thing have to human affairs? And yet this does not seem to be the way most
people think of God. It doesn’t even seem to be the attitude you adopt
toward God most of the time.
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That is the whole God must reveal Himself to us. Yeah, that process has
been interesting, but it is what it is. And the Judeo-Christian experience
could be only one of many.
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OK, so God is undefinable, unknowable, and impossible to understand through
rational thought, but revelation can make God a snap to understand. That just
makes God sound like he’s keeping secrets. If we could understand God through
revelation, what kind of God would purposefully keep that understanding from
humankind except for inconsistent revelations doled out over the course of
thousands of years? What kind of God would allow people to be so vastly
mistaken about what God wants from them for thousand of years, knowing the
strife his ambiguous and partial revelations have caused?
You don’t need a revelation to know what such a God is like. As is your
favorite method, you judge him by his actions! :)
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Why just the other day you were saying that God is perfect. You seem to
know something about an utterly unknowable entity.
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That’s revealed through the Bible. And reasonable to assume, I might add.
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Wait, first you say we can know nothing about God through rationality, but now
you say it’s “reasonable to assume” that God is perfect? Which is it?
And where in the Bible is it revealed that God is perfect? How do you know
which parts of the Bible are revelations and which parts are uncertain knowledge
because the Bible was written by different people who understood God and Jesus
differently?
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I do not see how that provides an
objective meaning or purpose to my life, all life, or the universe.
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One day you might.
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Yes, and one day you might author a Brick Koran.
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Do you think that you would you live your life
differently if you were convinced that the God of the universe cared
personally about you?
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Honestly, my first reaction was “that’s creepy”. :)
I guess I would basically treat a god or Creator of the universe like a
super-powerful person. When a person cares about me, that’s usually a good
thing. But not always. When a mafia boss cares about you, that can be nice,
but it can also turn out very badly. I guess it would depend on what else this
hypothetical god or Creator is like. How does that caring manifest itself?
Why does he care about me? I mean, does he like me for me, or does he just
want me to change into his idea of a perfect human, you know?
So I guess the answer is: it depends. It’s nice to see you throw a hypothetical
scenario back at me, and I’m quite willing to run with this one if you want to
flesh out the details a bit more.
-Brendan
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: The Brick Testament - More Teachings of Jesus
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| (...) I hear that! I'm going to do some snipping to clean up a bit around the thread. (...) <snip> (...) Not at all. I'm just seeing common ground. (...) But you will probably always be irrational though you strive to be rational. You are a closet (...) (18 years ago, 25-Oct-06, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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