Internet missionaries aren't exactly in short supply.

(September 2, 2011 at 9:05 am)theVOID Wrote:

(September 2, 2011 at 4:30 am)CoxRox Wrote: Dear Atheist,

I wanted to bring to your attention, the worrying trend that you have developed when interacting with non atheists. Maybe you aren't aware how obnoxious and pompous you are.

I must admit that you are more clever than your average non atheist and that is evident in your posts; but you are also more rude, impatient and down right childish in your aggressive 'attacks' against proposed ideas that don't fit your definition of truth. You display no patience, good will or humour even, in your counter arguments.

If you are 'right' about a point, then its truth is made ugly or impotent by your methods of establishing it and maybe will result in some not 'seeing' the truth you 'defend'. You are in a privileged position that gives you power: having knowledge that many don't have. Share your knowledge wisely and peacefully, then it will grow.

best wishes

Catherine

p.s
Obviously this letter is not aimed at atheists per se but to the people who are responsible for driving Diamond and myself away. Of course their 'atheism' does not cause them to be like they are, but rather their egos and puffed up pride. (hence why this letter is not in the Atheism section).

Yeah this forum has become full of vitriol lately, we might have to tighten up the rules again, never a popular move but this has happened before and last time we tightened the rules a lot of people made a big deal of it and left, then things settled down and we relaxed the rules, then over a year or so the nastiness returned.

It's damn hard striking the right balance, we want to be as open as possible but at the same time we don't want to drive off the theists who stop by.

DiamondDeist was damn irritating, but still I think in retrospect we all (myself included) were a bit harsh. It's hard to find a polite way to tell someone they're full of shit.

No you weren't v0id. WTF makes you think for one minute that llife on this rock is a fucking walk in the park??? HELLO!!

This planet is hard and harsh and ...Oh forgive me that I would apply these paranmeters to a forum that values critical thinking and logic??

Fuckin bullshit Vi0d and et al. No you call the shots as you saw them and these delicate xtians decided to pull the "get out of jail free" card called "victim-mentality" we have enough of this shit here in Oz with these fukin asylum-seekers so why on this rock should they be tolerated on an ATHEIST FORUM sans their argument for their position???

Please explain?? And WHY IS IT SOOOO HARD TO USE SPELL CHECK??

(September 2, 2011 at 9:12 am)KichigaiNeko Wrote: No you weren't v0id. WTF makes you think for one minute that llife on this rock is a fucking walk in the park??? HELLO!!

This planet is hard and harsh and ...Oh forgive me that I would apply these paranmeters to a forum that values critical thinking and logic??

Fuckin bullshit Vi0d and et al. No you call the shots as you saw them and these delicate xtians decided to pull the "get out of jail free" card called "victim-mentality" we have enough of this shit here in Oz with these fukin asylum-seekers so why on this rock should they be tolerated on an ATHEIST FORUM sans their argument for their position???

Please explain?? And WHY IS IT SOOOO HARD TO USE SPELL CHECK??

Ssssh... Don't go saying the world is harsh, you might end up being called a Nazi

This is an atheist forum and the primary function is providing a place for atheists to hang out and discuss related issues but we still want theists to come along and discuss topics so being harsh can detract from that, then again there are theists here who are pretty much awesome in general like Rayaan or Fr0d0 who tend to get along just fine, so we can't really be giving the rest of them more rope when the others manage just fine as is.

I'm glad you ausies put up with the Asylum seekers, it means we don't have to Then again their leaky rust-tubs probably couldn't make it much further across the pacific anyway. But hey, the ones who can stand on their own two feet are welcome in my book, it's a shame that the self-reliant ones are rare.

(September 2, 2011 at 9:45 am)theVOID Wrote: I'm glad you ausies put up with the Asylum seekers, it means we don't have to Then again their leaky rust-tubs probably couldn't make it much further across the pacific anyway. But hey, the ones who can stand on their own two feet are welcome in my book, it's a shame that the self-reliant ones are rare.

I don't know what americans have against immigrants...

"White americans, what? nothing better to do? Why don't you kick yourself out, you're an immigrant too."

It isn't immigrants..per se... it is the "victim mentality" the "oh poor us we demand special treatment" that gives me the tre-irrits.

Yeah, I can understand that... Fair enough.

The world is NOT the "safe and Happy" place that religion would have you believe. Nor fairy tales would try to soothe you into thinking is a truism.
It is hard. it is harsh and unforgiving. A most wonderful place to exercise expertise imho

(September 2, 2011 at 4:30 am)CoxRox Wrote: Obviously this letter is not aimed at atheists per se but to the people who are responsible for driving Diamond and myself away. Of course their 'atheism' does not cause them to be like they are, but rather their egos and puffed up pride. (hence why this letter is not in the Atheism section).

Actually that's not true, Diamond's still barging onto threads happily spreading his tolerated mildly-annoying ignorance.

Obviously you don't appreciate what is happening in these exchanges from our perspective. Eventually someday you will both learn that if we appear to be overly-abrasive it's because we've heard the same bullshit over and over and over and over and over again. We offer a rebuttal and highlight their erroneous assumptions, only for them to respond with the same bullshit over and over and over and over and over again.

We get pissed off with disrespectful people who spread nonsense and don't want to learn, and rightfully so.

If you want to be a drama llama and storm off, hey that's your decision and we respect it. Though you're behaving far too childishly thin-skinned to survive very long on Internet message boards. Whether or not your ego deflates, you're always welcome back regardless.

Take care.

Guys, some of your replies just make me so sad. Of course we're going to disagree and get heated. As Void said, it's hard to get the balance sometimes, but in this case, the balance was truly tipped in a negative way. It's no doubt easier to become nasty and unhelpful when you're not face to face with someone but it seems to be contagious.

Why can't there be more humour in the posts, rather than 'point scoring' that seems to go on, and yes, theists and deists are guilty of that too.

I'm sorry if I threw my dummy out the pram, but I was really pissed off.

Can we call a truce? I hope Diamond sticks around and we get to finish the BB discussion.

Whether or not the BB discussion even begins is now (and has always been) up to Daimond Cox. This is the very source of frustration.