Cutting the head off Medusa

[Angrboda]

You can call me a liar, or you can say "hey, maybe you misunderstood me or maybe you mistakenly quoted me when you meant to quote someone else. Never claimed to be perfect.

Oh. So in other words, it's okay for you not to be perfect, but it's not okay for me to be imperfect, because my imperfection is religious belief. I see. You just get better all the time. I seem to remember someone making an argument about people holding positions inconsistently recently, but I just can't remember who or where ....

[Brian37]

Where did I say you had to be perfect. You are merely upset that I didn't give your social predilections a pass. I don't do that for anyone, so don't take that personally.
my objections to ALL irrational claims, from the past to the present ALL INCLUDED.

You human right to hold a label IS NOT my issue. Being wrong does not make someone bad or evil, it makes them human.

I am not right about everything, but until you can prove to me that Taoism is required for evolution to occur, I would suggest to you that maybe you merely think you need it. If others throughout history can go without it, and if you consider that you don't believe that the sun is a god, then maybe you can consider why I question you like this.

People have always centered around social clubs in the form of race, politics, nationality and religion, in our species history. But the socializing, is what helps them survive, not the credibility of their beliefs. The socializing that the Egyptians had worked well for 3,000 years, but that did not make them ultimately survive, nor did it make their gods real.

We are social animals, but far to often we IN BIG GROUPS center around a placebo or a falsehood, which may help the tribe, but can become hostile and detrimental to the out group, and not even be credible at all "like the Egyptian sun god".

Why you are having such a reaction to my attacking your label, has nothing to do with me claiming you are bad or evil. But you protecting your own ego. That is not because you are bad, but because our species has a tendency to default to protecting their ego.

[Angrboda]

You really are a total fucking moron, aren't you? Well it's good to see that the creotards here now have legitimate competition for the bottom of the barrel.

Don't bother replying, I won't be back. You're just too fucking stupid for me to waste anymore time on. You are an exemplar of the Dunning-Kruger effect par excellente.

[Brian37]

You really are a total fucking moron, aren't you? Well it's good to see that the creotards here now have legitimate competition for the bottom of the barrel.

Don't bother replying, I won't be back. You're just too fucking stupid for me to waste anymore time on. You are an exemplar of the Dunning-Kruger effect par excellente.

Why am I stupid? Because you came onto a form of minorities and thought that because you support Taoism and Hindus I would blindly not question it?

Do you think religion is the only thing I question? Do you think that because you think that because I challenge you I hate you?

I have had debates with ATHEISTS, and if you would READ the posts on the few weeks I have been here, I have ruffled the feathers OF EVEN ATHEISTS.

Now here is what I see from the atheists I have pissed off here that I do not see from you. They stick around and battle me and don't seem to take it personally.

To me what you are doing here is an Uncle Tom like Issac Hayes did with South Park. He had no problem poking fun of everyone else's beliefs, but quit when they got to Scientology.

Let me tell you what I did when that same cartoon depicted Mrs Garrison fucking Richard Dawkins. I laughed, I didn't run or demand they be taken off the air. And if I truly thought they were being bigoted I wouldn't run away, I would fight back.

I bruised your ego, SO THE FUCK WHAT. If I coward to verbal conflict like you are now, any time someone equated Hitler to atheists I would never debate.

I am not being hateful or bigoted by merely saying the social club you subscribe to is not needed. I would be a bigot if I said you are evil or you should be outlawed. I am being blunt like cold water on the face of a friend who doesn't see the placebo they are clinging to.

Saying you don't need to hold a label does not make me a a bigot. So run away rather than AT A MINIMUM consider that you do not need the social club you like.

[Adjusted Sanity]

To be fair, you did seem to go out of your way to ridicule her beliefs in the deism thread. I'm not saying you shouldn't be allowed to do so, but you should pick your battles.

[Brian37]

To be fair, you did seem to go out of your way to ridicule her beliefs in the deism thread. I'm not saying you shouldn't be allowed to do so, but you should pick your battles.

What is the difference between one naked assertion and another?

I want my detractors here. I want people of ALL claims here. Not because I hate them, but to provide ALL with a perspective they have not considered. And quite frankly, like a hockey game, to try to put them in the penalty box as much as they try to put me into it.

Jefferson was a deist and I would blast him as much as I blast as I have blasted even atheists who have suggested that the Transporter from Star Trek is a possibility. And as much as I have blasted my own hero Sam Harris for his Buddhism woo, I love the guy, but not his claims that there is "something" to Buddhism. And even Victor Stinger objects to Sam's predilections on Buddhism.

I have another economic Libertarian atheist on another board that drives me far more nuts on economics than the beef I am having here with this Taoist.

I am NOT ridiculing her as a person. I have never met her. I know plenty of people whom make claims that make me pull my hair out INCLUDING PEOPLE I LOVE AND WORK WITH. If I disowned everyone who made an absurd claim, I would have to disown my own mother,

If I coward to every unkind thing said to me, or thought I was a bad person because someone objected to what I said, I would have killed myself a long time ago.

[Adjusted Sanity]

I agree, but in this case she wasn't making any assertions. Unless her assertion was having a belief, which in that case i'd be making a claim as well.

[Brian37]

What makes you think I wouldn't question what you entered as your beliefs?

Not just here but on every website when people post their beliefs even if just in their profile, I find it odd that they would comment on the beliefs of others and then expect hands off on their own.

If you don't want your beliefs questioned then don't even open yourself up to question by even stating them in your profile for people to see.

I think it cruel to grow up or be raised in a society that sets up taboos. It sets the person up who expects "hands off" to not deal well with conflict. The world is not all peaches and cream. Deal with it as it is and dont expect it to conform to you.

And give me one good reason why I should not question your beliefs stated in your profile or that of any other person here, or on any other website?

In life outside the net you do one of two things, you can cower and run and hide, or your can stand up for yourself. If someone challenges you, you don't have to adapt that person's position, but it is an OPPORTUNITY to learn, and if you are wrong, you can look at it as a positive learning experience.

What should be more important to ANYONE, protecting one's own ego, or the ability to learn something new?

I am not trying to destroy anyone here, but at a minimum face them with the fact of reality that EVERYONE in life is going to hear and see things that they may not like. It happens in life even outside the net. How you deal with it is important.

Even if you or her keep your beliefs your entire lives you at least grow by the debate and you also learn to accept that people will not always agree with you.

But no one here or even in real life deserves to demand that their personal beliefs not be questioned. That is the quickest way to hurt yourself and society in general.

I would suggest to both of you again, be brave, face your fears, don't look at it as a literal "us vs them" "you hate me" conflict. Look at what I do here and what most atheists do here in nothing more than a debate. It may be messy and ugly sometimes, but it is NOT personal.

I wrote a poem once about what it would be like if I debated Thomas Jefferson. And in if I could have debated him on his generic god, I would have said "bullshit" to him too, and that is a man whose thoughts and laws I ADMIRED. And considering he said "question with boldness" I think his response to me wouldn't be "YOU HATE ME', but "why do you think my claim is "bullshit".

I admire more someone who is willing to be honest with me than someone who expects me in every situation to walk on eggshells.

And again, although I do hate the concept as a claim, the idea of ANY and all religions, I would have to isolate myself on an island and never talk to anyone if I hated all the people who made claims that I did not like, including my own mother. No matter how much I might hate a persons claim, I do not hate THAT particular person just because they may make SOME claims I don't like.

So don't she should not fear me and she should not be afraid of conflict, especially when we are NOT talking about life or death in being here or in posting here. No one is going to die if they hear or read things that might make them uncomfortable.

[Adjusted Sanity]

Nevermind. I don't think you get what I'm saying. I'm sorry that I'm not being clear.

[FallentoReason]

Saying you don't need to hold a label does not make me a a bigot. So run away rather than AT A MINIMUM consider that you do not need the social club you like.

What makes you think people need to adopt your way of thinking? It's rather arrogant to say that at minimum they should consider throwing away their belief.