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Subject: 
Re: Uselessness of .debate
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.off-topic.debate, lugnet.admin.general
Date: 
Tue, 19 Dec 2000 03:47:25 GMT
Viewed: 
387 times
  
James Brown wrote:
- The religion "debate" which constantly drags off into the Christians
saying their piece, which is not even remotely a debate because their
position by their definition CAN NOT be open to critical discussion.

(nitpick) Some christians.  I'm not preaching, and I can't be the only
christian who's stearing clear.

I agree. I think it is possible to involve Christianity in the debates
without the thread quickly heading for the gutter. But the reality is
that the way threads go in .debate, the visibility of Christianity is
what I'm complaining about. The Christians who would actually debate get
lost in the shuffle or shouted down (one should also recognize that I
actually count myself on the fringes of Christianity, but it's a fringe
diametrically opposed to the "there is but one truth and it's the one I
subscribe to" Christians who have the loudest voices in .debate).

I'm not sure what it would take for me to pay attention again.  Certainly
better debates.  I recently followed a thread in there (don't recall which),
and got right back out when I saw the religion debate raging around me.

I'll watch it for a while again and see if I can come up with something more
tangible that "better debates".

I think there would be a vast improvement if we could somehow keep the
debates from raging off into the totally unwinable religious shouting
matches. As I mentioned originally, those Christians who are doing the
shouting on that side seem to have painted themselves into a corner
which can not be open to critical debate because it shreds the core of
their faith. Of course I think it's almost possible to hold such a faith
and still be capable of debating, but honest debate requires that there
is at least a remote possibility that the participants will change their
minds (though it need not be to come around to the opposing side, it may
just be that when the other side convinces you that red is not a good
color that you change your mind and agree, but you don't accept their
choice of green as the best color, instead, you chose yellow).

Actually, this thread has been a pretty good debate. It certainly has
had an effect on my opinion, though I'm not ready to concede that all
the votes have been counted yet... :-) :-) :-) (unlike that "Gorey"
presidential contest... :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) (sorry, that just came to
me, and I'm actually amazed no one pulled that one before).

Frank



Message is in Reply To:
  Re: Uselessness of .debate
 
(...) (nitpick) Some christians. I'm not preaching, and I can't be the only christian who's stearing clear. (...) I'm not sure if I'm one of the folks you're talking about, but I've certainly dropped .debate from my reading. It's gone way downhill (...) (24 years ago, 18-Dec-00, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, lugnet.admin.general)

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