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Post by hazelireland on Nov 3, 2008 13:58:21 GMT
Apology denied. I do not believe you can use it correctly nor do I find it courteous to make your posts unreadable as they do the more other people follow up with more QUOTE tags. " Dear Hazelireland, Then you and I are even steven because I do not believe you are capable of being courteous to anyone. I have not seen you so far extend courtesy to one person on this forum. Then you are not looking. I can quote places where I have. And we are not even stephen... stephen... as I can use the quote function so Im one ahead.
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Post by Inedifix II on Nov 4, 2008 5:29:12 GMT
I feel I should point out, having read many of the posts on this forum, that simply putting the word, 'Dear,' before the name of the person you are addressing, does not equate to courtesy. Intentionally making your posts obfuscating by purposefully misusing the quote function, I would have thought, is the height of discourtesy.
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Post by hazelireland on Nov 4, 2008 9:22:47 GMT
There is no rule applying to this forum that states that a quote function or that any of the extra feature buttons need to be utilized. Just as well for you as your inability to use it would preclude you from the forum. Then again common courtesy is rarely spelt out in forum rules. MOST people have it by default. If your style is to make it difficult to be read then so be it. That is your right. It is by no standards polite however.
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Post by hazelireland on Nov 4, 2008 15:51:02 GMT
Dear Hazelireland, I see that you make concessions inch by inch, in another foot you will be agreeing with me entirely. If you say so. You are the one with the world view that you can never admit to being wrong no matter how wrong you are as seen by your reference to "concessions" as a bad thing. I think you cant use the function correctly with any consistency. It is too complicated for you. I think you have no interest in being courteous or polite in making any effort to make your posts readable by either your peers or your antagonists. However these things are your right. You have every right to be impolite to others and to be ignorant of the use of a simple function. So I fail to see a concession here. I acknowledge that you are incapable and impolite and I acknowledge your right to be so.
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Post by hazelireland on Nov 5, 2008 8:26:30 GMT
Dear Hazelireland, By saying if you say so is a concession. I appreciate your agreement that I have rights, that is the foundation of religious belief in God. Hehehe you really do need to grab every false victory you can dont you. Whatever makes you feel good sir, whatever makes you feel good.
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Post by hackenslash on Nov 9, 2008 20:44:14 GMT
Last night (2 Oct) I was at a lecture called "Is Religion Dangerous?" The lecturer, Prof Keith Ward , argued very powerfully that it is not. Religion, especially Christianity, is about forgiveness and love. Of course some religious people are not so nice, but if Churches ejected those who are not good, how could the Churches themselves be good? He claimed religion is not the cause of violence or war. Of the 300 wars at present few are essentially about religion. Wars are fought for money, land and power usually. The great empires in the past, Persian, Roman, British etc. did not fight for religion. Then he hasn't looked at any of the evidence, or at least he's only looked at it with blinkers on. Tell all the people who died at the hands of almost 1,000 years of inquisition that religion is not the cause of violence. OK, but Hitler, and almost all of the German army of the time were catholic. Interestingly, there is only one record of the excommunication of any of the Nazi war criminals. It was Joseph Goebbels. Even more interesting is the fact that, although he was responsible for the deaths of huge numbers of people, that's not what he was excommunicated for. He was excommunicated for marrying a protestant. I would have to do more research on this point before I can reasonably answer it, but I do know that there wer major pogroms against Jews on the way to the Crusades by crusaders. Allow me a little time to research this properly. Yes, but it wasn't atheism that drove them, but a doctrine very similar to religion. Also, there was much collusion between Stalin and the Russian Orthodox Church. Previously, Russia had been a kind of theocracy, with the Tsar being semi-divine. As Hitch poinbted out, if Stalin couldn't take advantage of those mechanisms, he shouldn't have been in the dictatorship business. The one is not connected to the other. Another canard. North Korea is the world's most complete theocracy. The only right of a North Korean is to worship and thank the Great Leader. Appeals to history are a very slippery slope. For a start, while they may have been great thinkers, they were also products of their time. Most secondary school students have a deeper understanding of the universe than the minds that you appeal to. They lived in credulous times, and often under imposed belief, ie, a society where not believing could cost you your life at the hands of, yes, you guessed it... I would not expect there to be. Delusion and credulity are not only symptomatic of mental illness. We are pattern seeking creatures, and we like to tell stories. The belief itself is easy to explain, and requires no recourse to mental study. It's the focus of belief that is irrational, not the belief itself.
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