Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!laura From: laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton) Newsgroups: net.religion Subject: Re: Response to Laura on appropriateness of newsgroups Message-ID: <5093@utzoo.UUCP> Date: Sat, 23-Feb-85 10:52:13 EST Article-I.D.: utzoo.5093 Posted: Sat Feb 23 10:52:13 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 23-Feb-85 10:52:13 EST References: <428@pyuxd.UUCP> <1777@pucc-h> <457@pyuxd.UUCP> <1247@shark.UUCP>, <519@pyuxd.UUCP> <5054@utzoo.UUCPRe: Response to Laura on appSat, 23-Feb-85 10:52:13 EST Organization: U of Toronto Zoology Lines: 168 Reply to Rich: When my beliefs get "slammed", unjustifiably, I counter with an offering of the reasons why the argument slamming my beliefs was flawed [...] The responses to such articles are not of the form "This is the flaw in your reasoning, Rich." Rather, the responses are of the form "HOW DARE YOU QUESTION MY BELIEFS? WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE, SHOWING FLAWS IN A BELIEF SYSTEM HELD BY MILLIONS OF PEOPLE FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS? YOU MUST BE AN ASSHOLE!" If responses like *that* wouldn't get you irate, and prompt you to get a little annoyed, frustrated, and perhaps nasty, well, ... (Another RULE #1 I've learned to live with: When you show people a flaw in their logic, they have every right to punch you in the face. Or so it seems on the net...) No. When you show people a flaw in their logic they do not have the right to punch you in the face. You have got the problem down pat. (except -- hmm, Rich, if this is you when you are ``a little annoyed, frustrated, and perhaps nasty'' I would hate to see you when you go whole hog... But there is a further problem here. This business of face-slamming has been going on for years here. You are obviously not getting your message across. Now the question to ask is: What is wrong with your messages that so many people can't understand them? ``They are all morons'' is not an acceptable answer. It may be true, but then you are a fool to argue with them in the first place. My theory is that they are not listening because they perceive you as not listening -- and hostile to boot. If you want to get a better response out of them, then you are going to have to change this perception of them. A good place to start is to always assume that if your message isn't getting across, then it is *your fault* for not tailoring it to your audience properly. Sometimes, of course, this isn't the problem. But it saves on flames. At some point you may have to consider that they are not interested in logic at all -- and if you conclude that this is the case then what are you going to do? Logical arguements are not going to work with them no matter how you phrase them! *Enjoying* it? When did I claim that? I found some aspects of it very *interesting*, like the short-lived (why?) absolute good/evil discussion. I've found that interacting with people of opposing points of view on a rational basis helps improve understanding on both sides. I've grown to understand to some extent where the concerns of people with opposite viewpoints lie, and I would hope that the same holds true for them regarding my concerns. What's more, taking the time to discuss these things has better helped me to understand clearly (and hopefully to state clearly) my point of view. If you don't believe this, read article <509@pyuxd.UUCPon "Logic based on different sets of assumptions". It codifies the concepts I've been trying to put forth in this group since day one (or two), to me, better and more clearly than anything I've written before. Is that why no one has offered any response to it? You may be understnading them better, but I don't tghink that they are understanding you. From the mail I have received, it seems that a fair chunk of the readership think that you are playing a con-game -- you claim to want understanding but don't make any effort to understand. This claim may be false -- but you seem to have lost some of teh audience. The article you mention hasn't arrived here yet. I don't know exactly what happened to the ultimate good/ultimate evil discussion -- but Larry Bickford (where is he now?) and I went at it for a few months by mail. it took that long for us to get a defintion of ``evil'' that we both could use. I don't think that we ever got a definition of ``good'' that was mutually acceptable. Because only my vindictive (because of what?) articles get responded to, providing an opportunity for people to say "See? Rosen is an asshole."??? Yes, but if this is happening, at least it is easy to fix. Cut out the vindictive articles. And stop worry about ``because of what'' --, because, at this late date, it doesn't matter. That you may be justified in venting your spleen doesn't mean that you *should*. Why contribute to the general level of vidictiveness? is it doing you any good? [Long paragraph on how nobody can force which newsgroups people post to.] Yes. Remember me? It is going to be a very cold day in hell before I start advocating censorship -- but that wasn't the idea. The idea was to set up a form where you could get the audience you are interested in, as well as one where they could get the audience that they are interested in. This is more like the net.music split -- but then, I seem to recall, you didn't like this one either. Why? I think that the problem is that RELIGION, not NET.religion, is viewed as a battleground. Some trying to persuade others of their rightness, others resenting the efforts, still others seeking to persuade by stronger means, still more others resisting that. Yes, even the gentle little footprints article had swipes taken at it. And maybe that's the point. People who want to air their beliefs in a public forum but don't want to hear contrary points of view in that same forum are living in a dream world. And if they wish to control what other people have to say, well, Gary Samuelson knows the word that describes that. As Charlie Wingate had already mentioned, there is a *private* forum, a mailing list, for private discussions amongst Christians. But net.religion.christian is a *public* forum. The problem with mailing lists is that new people don't know that there is one, and that casual readers who don't want to always follow the discussion either get their mailbox filled when thy don't desire this or get themselves removed from the mailing list. Why not have more than one public forum? The dificulty about the argument about it being the fault of religion, rather than the currect activities of net.religion is that certain discussions seem to take place without rabid flaming -- at least for a while. How much flaming is there about ``what do various Christians believe about transubstantiation'' now? Why is there so little about this? I think that this is because nobody has gotten up and said ``if I can't one of those hosts under my microscope and see the real molecules of Christ then I won't believe and beside you are all ninnies for believing this anyway.'' Now -- I am sure that there are a lot of people who believe this. How come we haven't seen this? because this argument is not worthwhile. But many people get sucked into the same unworthwhile debates again, and again, and again. This is folly. Most of the Christians can claim ``well, I wasn't around 2 years ago -- so this is news to me''. But there are others, like Ken Ardnt and Kar:en alias larryg who seem fantastically interested in such folly. And you, Rich, either also enjoy this or get sucked in far too often. So, why not move these arguements to another newsgroup? net.religion.perpetual perhaps? (gee, I'm having fun thinking of names). I would like to try to do something about this. Since you tend to provoke (maintain?) such arguments, moving you is a simple way to test the theory that it is the presence of arguments which continues the arguments. The theory may be wrong, but if it *isn't* it would be nice to do something. I wasn't "put" on earth to be the subject of your scientific experiments, Laura, and I resent being the "guinea pig" to formulate some sort of netnews litmus test. *I* wasn't the one who replied to the Footprints poem. The series of articles countering each other that followed it (no less abrasive than my own) had nothing to do with my participation in either newsgroup. I'm not the only one who responds to articles in either newsgroup, "impolitely" (as Hutch would call it) or otherwise. -- Otology recapitulates phonology. I never said that you were ``put'' on earth for anything at all. Why so resentful? Your claim that your participation in either newsgroup had nothing to do with the abrasive series of articles is exactly what I want to test. Why are you opposed to being the ``guinea pig''? Laura Creighton utzoo!laura