SusanDoris the millstone

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  • mousethiefmousethief Shipmate
    edited August 2018
    [context lost -- this is a reply to lilBuddha]

    I'll give you this: it's about her atheism inasmuch as she makes it about her atheism. She's so much more rational than we are (to hear her tell it) because she doesn't believe things that are based solely upon feelings or things made up in your mind (or whatever other descriptions she uses). Therefore she sets herself up as a beacon of reason.

    Then when she is called on her lack of reason in some way or another, she gets more, not less, unreasonable. She refuses to "play by" the standard she herself has set up. So I can give you that -- she equates atheism with reasonability, and then is unreasonable, so complaints about her discussion style (I say "discussion" rather than the more accurate "debate" because she has an unreasonably rigid and narrow definition of "debate") are in that way "about" her atheism.
  • Boogie wrote: »
    So I assume it’s Susan Doris’ atheism that folk really have a problem with, not her posting style.

    🤔
    Nope, not on my part. I have no problem with SusanDoris’s atheism or anyone else’s atheism.

    What I have a problem with is a posting style that often seem to mix politeness with condescension. And I have a problem with, as @mousethief suggests, SusanDoris’s frequent unwillingness to hold herself to the standards she holds others to, or to even engage in discussion about the disconnect there. I’d have a problem with that if she were a Christian, a Muslim, or any other kind of believer instead of an atheist.
  • Simon ToadSimon Toad Shipmate
    edited August 2018
    Sorry to jump in. Three pages and it started yesterday! Dear oh dear. Crucifixion? Yes? First on the right. One cross each please.

    I don't hang about much in the types of threads Susan likes, but every now and then I will post and then watch as an interesting topic goes off the rails. Then I get bored and go back to yakking about politics. Much more fun.

    I like Susan Doris. I reckon she's great. I'm glad she's part of our community.
  • My analogy was poorly expressed. Ignore it.

    Other people are making a better job of engaging with SD and explaining how her posts can come across than I am.

    As to whether Boogie doesn't get called to Hell because she's not an atheist ... Well, if I understand Boogie correctly she's very ambivalent about faith and whilst still theistic to some extent, certainly isn't a card-carrying sign on the dotted line to the Nicene Creed small o orthodox Christian.

    I probably post n Hell more than is good for me and for everyone else but if I were to call Shipmates here for vacuity - or be called here for it myself - I'd never leave ...
  • BoogieBoogie Shipmate
    edited August 2018
    You understand correctly @Gamma Gamaliel.

    I wonder if this thread has made @SusanDoris think twice before posting in Purg?

    I hope not tbh. We all have our own take on things. If we aren’t into academic style debating does that make our point of view less valid?

    The biggest plus round our dinner table when I was a child was to be interesting. So long as what you said was interesting and engaging the subject matter was secondary.

    I like that approach to life :) (But I’m sure Purg isn’t the place for it)
  • BroJames wrote: »
    SusanDoris wrote: »
    I think I have said many times that one fact would change my mind, but then it would change all minds, would it not?
    I just wanted to pick up on this because fact is, in fact(!), a very slippery term. It might be a fact that I proposed to my other half from the highest point we could get to on the Eiffel Tower. If it was, how would I prove it? Unless you chose to accept her and my testimony that was the case, or the testimony of other witnesses, if we could find any two and a half decades after the event. You might choose to say it is merely my belief that I did that. We might struggle to adjudicate the truth of my belief. The fact, if it is one, would not be less factual for my inability to prove it to your satisfaction. It remains a fact whether you believe it or not. If I lose my memory of it through, say, dementia, it doesn’t cease to be a fact because I no longer remember it.
    Even that mundane and recent fact might be very hard to prove.
    No-one would, or would need to, dispute that; and if they did, well, that’s their problem, not yours! There is, however,
    a huge difference between a fact about an event in a person’s life and a fact about God, since the latter is not available. The former is very important to you, your family and friends; the latter, the belief in a god, has affected the human species since it first asked questions.
    It might be a fact that Jesus was raised from the dead nearly two thousand years ago. What evidence could we realistically expect to find of that fact now? If it is a fact, its reality is not lessened because we can’t prove it, or can’t prove it to a standard not normally applied to ancient history.
    But we can bring to bear on the question all the knowledge gained since that time on the physical nature of life and all animal and mammalian species.
    That understanding of the nature of historical ‘facts’ seems basic to me, and I believe the resurrection to have been a historical fact. In the light of that understanding, your call for ‘one fact’ seems to me to be either almost incredibly naive, or alternatively disingenuous.
    Okay, but I wonder why you would accept the beliefs of people two thousand years ago more than the objective * evidence we have today?

    *If |I could do tiny fonts to show I was whispering the word, I would have put this word in such a font!
  • mr cheesymr cheesy Shipmate
    edited August 2018
    SusanDoris wrote: »
    BroJames wrote: »
    That understanding of the nature of historical ‘facts’ seems basic to me, and I believe the resurrection to have been a historical fact. In the light of that understanding, your call for ‘one fact’ seems to me to be either almost incredibly naive, or alternatively disingenuous.
    Okay, but I wonder why you would accept the beliefs of people two thousand years ago more than the objective * evidence we have today?

    *If |I could do tiny fonts to show I was whispering the word, I would have put this word in such a font!

    Because, as people have been trying to get you to understand since whenever, faith is not the same as fact. Science is not the same as poetry. Stories can be uplifting and useful even when the details are unproven by science.

    Ideas from religion and philosophy (and even history) cannot be interrogated with the blunt instrument of science particularly when you are not even competent at welding it.

    You are like a whining child, constantly thinking that you are clever - because you ask questions nobody can answer in the way you insist they must be answered.

    Some of us like the questions. Some of us like the ambiguity. Some of us take meaning from theological concepts that cannot be tested with a Bunsen burner.

    I get it that you don't. I understand that you think the world can be divided into "truth" that is can be measured by science and "guff" that is everything else.

    But some of us like the guff.

    That's all there is to it.
  • How can the resurrection be a historical fact, if it's supernatural? The two things don't meet, and historians ignore supernatural stuff, it's not within their ambit, although people's beliefs are. I think this is over-reaching, and turning faith into history. So I don't think SD is naive here.
  • finelinefineline Kerygmania Host, 8th Day Host
    I would contest that, Mr Cheesy. While I really like the analogy of poetry and science, I don’t think SusanDoris is like a whining child. I don’t think she whines at all. I’d say she is more like a curious child who keeps asking why. Which I guess I have quite a bit of patience with, as the same could be said about me. Though I really do whine sometimes too! I don’t see SusanDoris whining, ever.
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host
    @SusanDoris, you say
    There is, however,
    a huge difference between a fact about an event in a person’s life and a fact about God
    which is I deliberately chose the examples of two events in the past. You’re right that it is unlikely that anyone would want to contest my personal story, but that doesn’t change the issues around how I could prove it was true. Because, as you say, it would be insignificant for most people, they’d probably accept the ‘facticity’ of it without question.

    Which leads me on to the second thing. You say
    Okay, but I wonder why you would accept the beliefs of people two thousand years ago more than the objective * evidence we have today?
    The answer is that if I want to know about an event in the past, then my first and arguably best access to it is through the testimony of those who were there at the time. The evidence for Jesus’ resurrection seems to me to be as strong as the evidence for many other events in the past which we accept without question. I don’t know that we have any better objective evidence today to contradict that.

    (Of course some people begin from an a priori position that resurrection couldn’t have happened - in which case no amount of evidence that it did is likely to convince them. Our
    knowledge gained since that time on the physical nature of life and all animal and mammalian species
    tells us that we don’t know how it could have happened, but they don’t, indeed can’t, tell us that it couldn’t have happened.)
  • That's the premise that the Frank Morison book, Who Moved the Stone? starts from, that the resurrection could not be possible and, according to the blurb, that's what he intended to argue. However, he found that there was a significant body of evidence that something happened: why else would the frightened disciples, running for their lives and hiding, come out into the open and start broadcasting the Christian faith?
  • fineline wrote: »
    I would contest that, Mr Cheesy. While I really like the analogy of poetry and science, I don’t think SusanDoris is like a whining child. I don’t think she whines at all. I’d say she is more like a curious child who keeps asking why. Which I guess I have quite a bit of patience with, as the same could be said about me. Though I really do whine sometimes too! I don’t see SusanDoris whining, ever.

    Ok perhaps whining is the wrong word.

    My child used to do this thing when they were about 5; the conversation would start very broad and within a couple of questions it would be beyond the limits of my knowledge.

    And I'd say "I don't know, B."

    But they'd keep on, presumably believing that finally they'd got their Dad on the mat. They'd reformulate the questions, sometimes they'd stop listening to the answers and continue going like a machine-gun into realms that nobody could answer.

    The answers became less important than somehow proving by weight of questions how clever they were and how dumb I was.

    It was a relief when my child learned about books and the next time we went down this spiral about genetics, I took my undergraduate textbook from the shelf and went through the pictures.

    These days my child holds onto tough questions and we talk about them - not as a battle to see who is the most intelligent but so we can hear the struggles that we are both having grasping towards an answer.

    Susan doesn't seem to have reached that stage. Whining in my mind was associated with deliberately using "clever" questions in a battle of wits.

    It was the wrong word, I apologise for that.
  • finelinefineline Kerygmania Host, 8th Day Host
    SusanDoris - something occurs to me. Have you ever created a Purgatory thread specifically about ‘Can/should God be scientifically proven?’ I think it’s a fair question to ask - I know quite a few people who ask it, including atheists, agnostics and religious people. Then people could discuss this in detail. You could get more of a sense where people are coming from, and you could also express very clearly that you personally would require some phyical, tangible evidence.

    The issue here seems to be more that you are repeating versions of the same question in many threads, rather than understanding/accepting that people are not claiming that God can be proven, nor that this is necessary for faith - in fact it might kind of contradict the concept of faith. I do think it’s an interesting topic, and certainly one that I enjoy discussing. But so far, unless I’ve missed a thread devoted to it, it seems more that it’s been a repeated side topic in threads that have a different focus, so doesn’t get fully explored, and then it also annoys people because it’s not the point they are discussing. I think, for instance, mr cheesy’s analogy of science and poetry deserves further exploration in such a thread - a serious thread rather than a hell thread where people are also throwing in insults.
  • I don't think historians state that the resurrection could not have happened, but that supernatural stuff is outside their remit. Hence, it's not an event at all.
  • mr cheesymr cheesy Shipmate
    edited August 2018
    Another thing that occurs to me: people exist who use science as a sword - music is just air vibrations in the ear, painting is just pigment on canvas, books are just ink on a page. Love is just an emotion that we have evolved to care for our children.

    Whilst acknowledging Susan's sight issues, I can't think of any other way to describe this way of seeing and experiencing the world than grey.
  • finelinefineline Kerygmania Host, 8th Day Host
    Thanks for clarifying, mr cheesy. I haven’t interpreted it as SD trying to be clever, but I don’t know. I know for myself I once made a thread years ago questioning the Trinity, and people thought I was trying to be clever or original. And they were saying that this was that this was a topic that had been resolved by the early church and I had to read church history and learn.

    But for me, it was a topic that simply wasn’t self-evident and I wanted people to talk about their understanding of it and I wanted to express why it wasn’t obvious to me - to have that interaction rather than just read a book, so I could ask questions and express my confusions.

    It can be hard when something is self-evident to everyone else but not to you. Questioning and expressing this isn’t always trying to be clever.

    What I learned from my Trinity thread was that I was a heretic (or else a troll) and I shouldn’t ask such basic questions and I would get sent to Hell (the Ship one, not the actual fiery furnace!) if they continued! I still have unanswered questions about the Trinity. Surely there is some room to incorporate genuine questions that deviate from the C of E norms, rather than assuming someone is trying to be clever?
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host
    edited August 2018
    I think, @quetzalcoatl, it’s more that the event itself is capable of historical investigation, but not the question of supernatural agency. So, technically at least, the question whether Jesus was seen alive after his crucifixion is a historical question. The suggestion that it was God who brought it about is not a historical question.

    In practice, however, the resurrrction is rarely subjected to dispassionate historical investigation because people on both sides are heavily invested in the outcome.
  • That's the premise that the Frank Morison book, Who Moved the Stone? starts from, that the resurrection could not be possible and, according to the blurb, that's what he intended to argue. However, he found that there was a significant body of evidence that something happened: why else would the frightened disciples, running for their lives and hiding, come out into the open and start broadcasting the Christian faith?

    Well, you must have heard the argument from jihadists on that score, why else would men and women pledge their lives to a cause unless it was true? A poor argument, which can probably be repeated endlessly about many causes..
  • mr cheesymr cheesy Shipmate
    edited August 2018
    I think most of us can tell genuine questions from playing games.

    I don't think I've ever seen anyone called to Hell (the board) for saying heretical things. I'd certainly defend them if that was the only reason.
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host
    That's the premise that the Frank Morison book, Who Moved the Stone? starts from, that the resurrection could not be possible and, according to the blurb, that's what he intended to argue. However, he found that there was a significant body of evidence that something happened: why else would the frightened disciples, running for their lives and hiding, come out into the open and start broadcasting the Christian faith?

    Well, you must have heard the argument from jihadists on that score, why else would men and women pledge their lives to a cause unless it was true? A poor argument, which can probably be repeated endlessly about many causes..
    I think the argument that is made is about the genuineness of the disciples’ belief in the resurrection. It is made against the suggestion that the disciples knew, really, that there had been no resurrection, but had some motive, such as perpetuating the memory of Jesus, for making up a story about his resurrection.
  • Apologetics are slippery.

    I read both Frank Morrison's 'Who Moved the Stone' and the far less impressive Josh McDowell, 'Evidence that Demands a Verdict' stuff as an earnest young evangelical seeking certainty and validation for my new found faith.

    Even as an earnest young evangelical I didn't find either particularly satisfactory.

    I'd agree with CK that 'something' must have happened to turn a bunch of frightened disciples to come out of hiding and start broadcasting their faith even at the expense of persecution and martyrdom.

    That in itself is not proof positive for the Resurrection nor is scientific. One might just as well suggest that there is 'something' there for jihadists to strap on suicide vests and detonate them in crowded places. Because they are prepared to do that then, the argument could run, there must be something in their jihadist conception of Paradise ...

    Yes, I do believe in the Resurrection but it strikes me from the Gospel accounts that it's something far more mysterious than a straightforward resuscitation - if we can put it like that.

    Would I expect to be able to test the Resurrection in a bunsen burner or for someone to take a photograph of it or produce a post-Resurrection video interview with Christ?

    No.
  • BoogieBoogie Shipmate
    And we’ll never know until we die ourselves.

    That’s the point of faith, isn’t it?
  • Why are we talking about the resurrection in a hell-thread?
  • Because we're trying to use Hell as a place for resolution of conflict rather than a slanging match.
  • But it is weird to talk about a thing that someone else doesn't believe without that person being involved.

    At best that's a purgatory thread.
  • finelinefineline Kerygmania Host, 8th Day Host
    edited August 2018
    mr cheesy wrote: »
    I think most of us can tell genuine questions from playing games.

    I don't think I've ever seen anyone called to Hell (the board) for saying heretical things. I'd certainly defend them if that was the only reason.

    No, you can’t tell, not always. That was my point. Several people thought I was trying to be clever, or that I was disingenuous, or a troll, or a sockpuppet. I would have been sent to Hell for trolling - though I wasn’t. My questions do sometimes - on other sites too - get misinterpreted this way. When everyone has certain shared beliefs/understandings, it apparently can seem like someone is asking a question that is so wrong/heretical/obvious/basic/childlike that they can’t be serious.
  • I don't know the thread you refer to, but having been in these parts a long time, I find your self-reported impression to be highly unlikely.
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host
    I see what you mean, @mr cheesy, but it began with me following on from @SusanDoris’s comment about a fact.

    The reason for picking up on it is because her reasoning about ‘facts’ seems to be (as I said) very naive, or, to some people, disingenuous. And that, it seems to me, is at least partly what lies behind this Hell call.
  • As a general rule, a person being annoying and saying that no, they're not trolling or being clever, is not using given a whole lot of weight in a hell thread.
  • BroJames wrote: »
    I see what you mean, @mr cheesy, but it began with me following on from @SusanDoris’s comment about a fact.

    The reason for picking up on it is because her reasoning about ‘facts’ seems to be (as I said) very naive, or, to some people, disingenuous. And that, it seems to me, is at least partly what lies behind this Hell call.

    Ok I see what happened, but we seem to have degerated in part into an argument amongst other people about the resurrection. Which seems more than a tad pointless in this thread.
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host
    I see what you mean, but I’m still interested in SusanDoris’s response
  • New thread on the Historicity of the Bible in Purgatory
  • There have been many, many atheists on these boards over the years with many valuable contributions from them. Unfortunately Susan isn't one. Time has revealed that she posts in exactly the same way down through the years on almost every thread she starts or contributes to. If you turn it around in the other direction it becomes obvious what she is doing and the kick she gets out of it. If a devout religious believer joined an atheist forum somewhere and repeatedly posted or opened threads that repeatedly (or in Susan's case, every damn time) wandered down the line of 'your thinking is stupid and backward and my thinking is superior and true' then they would be quite rightly savaged by the wolves of those boards. Activity like that would be undoubtedly disingenuous and disruptive because it's not about genuine enquiry; it's only about looking for opportunity to be disruptive and announce your self-perceived superiority.

    I admit that I waver between seeing her as either a complete innocent with a somewhat fundamentalist attitude to life, or a deeply sophisticated troll. Regardless, her contributions on threads very often spell their death because people get caught in the web of responding....endlessly going round and round until they are all tied up and come back to her original assertions about atheism, very often on threads that have nothing whatsoever to do with atheism. It would be nice to have a conversation, to explore ideas, to have questions; but the answer has already been arrived at before the thread starts. Many of us do this too to some degree or other if we care to admit it, but we probably hold the thought in our heads and don't have any urge to endlessly post it repeatedly on every thread we participate in.
  • finelinefineline Kerygmania Host, 8th Day Host
    mr cheesy wrote: »
    I don't know the thread you refer to, but having been in these parts a long time, I find your self-reported impression to be highly unlikely.

    Well, sure, you can simply assume I’m not telling the truth, or you are free to search for the thread in the old ship (it’s in Oblivion, I believe) and realise my memory is pretty accurate. However, my point was not to be accusatory or to argue, but to simply point out that people are different and sometimes wrong assumptions can be made. And my point stands that you can’t simply assume that SD is trying to be clever. She may just really feel the need to have this discussion and express why she can’t accept what others accept. And that is something I personally understand from my own experiences.
  • fineline wrote: »
    mr cheesy wrote: »
    I don't know the thread you refer to, but having been in these parts a long time, I find your self-reported impression to be highly unlikely.

    Well, sure, you can simply assume I’m not telling the truth, or you are free to search for the thread in the old ship (it’s in Oblivion, I believe) and realise my memory is pretty accurate. However, my point was not to be accusatory or to argue, but to simply point out that people are different and sometimes wrong assumptions can be made. And my point stands that you can’t simply assume that SD is trying to be clever. She may just really feel the need to have this discussion and express why she can’t accept what others accept. And that is something I personally understand from my own experiences.

    And self-impressions and memory can be unreliable. That's my point.
  • finelinefineline Kerygmania Host, 8th Day Host
    mr cheesy wrote: »
    fineline wrote: »
    mr cheesy wrote: »
    I don't know the thread you refer to, but having been in these parts a long time, I find your self-reported impression to be highly unlikely.

    Well, sure, you can simply assume I’m not telling the truth, or you are free to search for the thread in the old ship (it’s in Oblivion, I believe) and realise my memory is pretty accurate. However, my point was not to be accusatory or to argue, but to simply point out that people are different and sometimes wrong assumptions can be made. And my point stands that you can’t simply assume that SD is trying to be clever. She may just really feel the need to have this discussion and express why she can’t accept what others accept. And that is something I personally understand from my own experiences.

    And self-impressions and memory can be unreliable. That's my point.

    Of course it is my impressions and interpretation - I am explaining the experience of being on the Ship if your way of expressing yourself isn’t the norm. Though, as it happens, I have a highly visual memory for the written word, and could tell you the details of all sorts of things said to me in that thread, some of which were very interesting, and I remember also the thread I made afterwards about reading church history, and the particular book that was recommended to me.

    Gamma was the guy who thought I might be a troll and told me he was thinking of sending me to Hell - though he changed his mind, and we had a laugh about it recently in another Hell thread when I mentioned it. It was many years ago. There were specifically comments that I was thinking I’d come up with something original when I was simply asking the same questions that people had asked hundreds of years ago and which had been answered then. But to me I was asking the questions because I was curious and wanted to understand - I don’t think about myself in those sort of terms, being clever or original, because that is a kind of multitasking I can’t do when I’m focused on asking a question.

    Similar conversations have happened elsewhere, if you wish to disbelieve this could possibly have happened on the Ship. Location isn’t important, My point is about not making assumptions as to what is going on in someone’s head.

  • fineline wrote: »
    mr cheesy wrote: »
    I think most of us can tell genuine questions from playing games.

    I don't think I've ever seen anyone called to Hell (the board) for saying heretical things. I'd certainly defend them if that was the only reason.

    No, you can’t tell, not always. That was my point. Several people thought I was trying to be clever, or that I was disingenuous, or a troll, or a sockpuppet. I would have been sent to Hell for trolling - though I wasn’t. My questions do sometimes - on other sites too - get misinterpreted this way. When everyone has certain shared beliefs/understandings, it apparently can seem like someone is asking a question that is so wrong/heretical/obvious/basic/childlike that they can’t be serious.


    Your Trinity thread (which I don't remember) may have been the victim of suspicion due to an old poster on the old boards who posted very prolifically on the subject and in a deeply irritating and trolling manner.
  • finelinefineline Kerygmania Host, 8th Day Host
    That may well be the case, Fletcher Christian. I am not being accusatory about it - I understand people answered according to how they understood it, and I am aware I somehow do seem to express myself in a way that comes across as disingenuous when people don’t know me. I seem to remember you posting on the thread too, though I’m not good with remembering names, but I knew your name from the chat room.
  • BoogieBoogie Shipmate
    Would you join a discussion when the assumptions it is based on go against everything you believe?

    For example. If I came upon a discussion about which collar was best to stop a dog barking, a citronella collar or a buzz collar - I simply couldn’t join in without disrupting/arguing/trolling.

    That’s because I am strongly and fundamentally opposed to both kinds of collar. They go totally against my belief and practice in dog training which is PRT (Positive Reinforcement Training). I might say ‘I would use neither’ and explain why if asked. But it’s very hard to change folks minds when they are set in their ways/beliefs.
  • finelinefineline Kerygmania Host, 8th Day Host
    And I will add there were interesting posts on it too, points that made me think - it wasn’t purely about people thinking I was a troll or trying to be clever. But my question wasn’t answered in the way I wanted it to be answered - and maybe, as with SusanDoris’s questions, that is because it can’t be answered in that way, or maybe I was asking the wrong question. But, as with SusanDoris (or at least how I interpret her) it was a conversation I wanted to have, and maybe I didn’t have the particular vocabulary/wording that others are used to and would understand in order to express it.
  • I miss the chat room. It held an important role in expunging misunderstanding, among many other qualities that improved ship life. I have two very fond memories of it: one exposing Max's utter innocence and the other of a gigantic scary rabbit appearing.
  • finelinefineline Kerygmania Host, 8th Day Host
    Boogie wrote: »
    Would you join a discussion when the assumptions it is based on go against everything you believe?

    This seems to be the nub of it. Personally, if I found the people intelligent, open and willing to discuss, and I really wanted to understand the reasoning behind their assumptions (which my own logic couldn’t bring me to assume), I would want to have a separate discussion about these assumptions.

  • MrsBeaky wrote: »
    I am very much aware of the warning attached to posting in Hell and will keep my eyes open for any bulls-eyes I may be painting onto myself...but this time I really want to say a couple of things.

    Firstly, I am not comfortable with talking about people which I know is part of the fun here but I prefer talking to people so I am glad SusanDoris has responded to this hell call.

    SusanDoris this is what I would like to say to you.

    It feels like often when you post on threads that you are not engaging with what is being said. I once had a pupil in my one of my classes who was responding to another who had said something about God. The young man vehemently denied God's existence- all of which was fine. He then moved on to state emphatically that Jesus Christ had never existed and no amount of persuasion by others in the class to explore what they had to say about historical sources would get him to engage in an actual discussion about what they thought. He continued to reiterate what he believed in general rather than engaging with the specifics.
    When I read some of your posts on some threads it feels similar and I can understand other people's frustration.
    I understand the technical challenges you face in contributing to these boards but I don't think they explain why you seem to not actually engage with what people have written but reiterate your general position.

    I'd be really interested in reading any response and more in depth engagement you might have with BroJames's post a little bit up thread.
    Thank you – I have listened a couple of times.Actually, the use of my software is good for maintaining my marbles, I suppose, since I have to remember what has been said! In any case, it is not something I use as an excuse – if you catch me doing so, I’ll apologise! - but is simply a matter of fact.
    You use the word ‘engage’ and I have checked the definition. My posts comply with that. Perhaps there is an assumption that engaging in discussion of a topic here in SofF should in some way agree with the beliefs put forward. It would be interesting to hear a few examples of what you (i.e. general ‘you’, not specific. ) think I should say to ‘engage’ differently.
    Regarding the example you gave - and I appreciate of course that it was an example only and not the main point of the post - the only right answer is that we don't know, but the probability that a man …whose life gave rise to a new religion existed is high.
  • That's the premise that the Frank Morison book, Who Moved the Stone? starts from, that the resurrection could not be possible and, according to the blurb, that's what he intended to argue. However, he found that there was a significant body of evidence that something happened: why else would the frightened disciples, running for their lives and hiding, come out into the open and start broadcasting the Christian faith?
    Who is denying that something happened? Certainly not me. I most certainly dispute the interpretation though.

  • mr cheesy wrote: »
    I don't know the thread you refer to, but having been in these parts a long time, I find your self-reported impression to be highly unlikely.

    Well, as Fineline has said, I was the Shipmate who originally considered her to be a troll and threatened to call her to Hell.

    I was wrong.

    I didn't call her to Hell.

    And yes, we have had a laugh about it since.

    A lot of water has passed below that particular bridge and I can't for the life of me now imagine how or why I took Fineline for a troll. I suspect there was an apparent naivety or Polly Anna-ish quality about her initial posts which I mistakenly took for faux-naivety on her part.

    Similarly, I'm embarrassed to admit that I clashed with CK a few times in the early days, both on the main boards and in the chat room. We quickly ironed that out and we've met and got on well in real life.

    It's partly about getting used to people's posting styles and appearances can be deceptive, as in my initial reaction to fineline's posts.
  • finelinefineline Kerygmania Host, 8th Day Host
    I used to also clash with CK, in the chatroom. We used to think each other was rude. It is a lot of very different personalities here, and very different styles of communicating.

    I tried to find that old thread about the Trinity, out of curiosity, but couldn’t. It must have been before March 2011 though, because I did find a little Gilbert & Sullivan style ditty I later wrote about the experience (I had never been called a heretic before, and wasn’t even sure what one was, so I guess that stuck in my mind!), in a very fun thread that Gamma started - fun threads like that made me decide it was worth staying on the Ship. :smile:
  • Yes, I've mellowed. So I'm prepared to explain why there might be a problem and discuss it, rather than enjoy throwing insults around. And not get involved in Hell threads unless I believe that there is a problem to be resolved, or at least attempted to be discussed.
  • SusanDoris wrote: »
    Thank you – I have listened a couple of times.Actually, the use of my software is good for maintaining my marbles, I suppose, since I have to remember what has been said! In any case, it is not something I use as an excuse – if you catch me doing so, I’ll apologise! - but is simply a matter of fact.
    You use the word ‘engage’ and I have checked the definition. My posts comply with that. Perhaps there is an assumption that engaging in discussion of a topic here in SofF should in some way agree with the beliefs put forward. It would be interesting to hear a few examples of what you (i.e. general ‘you’, not specific. ) think I should say to ‘engage’ differently.
    Regarding the example you gave - and I appreciate of course that it was an example only and not the main point of the post - the only right answer is that we don't know, but the probability that a man …whose life gave rise to a new religion existed is high.

    SusanDoris, thank you for responding to my post which I have not included in this reply so that you don't have to listen to it all before getting to this response- at least I hope that's how your software works.....!

    Not sure how to clarify what I am trying to say but I'll have a go. I certainly don't mean that in order to engage in a discussion that you have to agree with the beliefs put forward. Any number of threads here on SoF would support the fact that on lots of different topics there is a considerable degree of difference of opinion.
    But often in discussion people will look at the detail of what someone has said and stay in discussion with that rather than restating their more "blanket" position on a topic. Though it has to be said not all of us manage to do that...
    So I think that is the heart of what I am saying. For some reason that does not seem to be happening with some of your posts - that is what I meant by engaging, this participating in the detail.
    Just for the record I'm not entirely happy with how I've phrased this reply but it's the best I could come up with.

  • mousethief wrote: »
    [context lost -- this is a reply to lilBuddha]

    I'll give you this: it's about her atheism inasmuch as she makes it about her atheism. She's so much more rational than we are (to hear her tell it) because she doesn't believe things that are based solely upon feelings or things made up in your mind (or whatever other descriptions she uses). Therefore she sets herself up as a beacon of reason.
    At this point, I think I'll just say that some of you have over-active imaginations! :) I'm just another old lady in this area with many of them!!
    Then when she is called on her lack of reason in some way or another
    An example would be helpful,although I will not ask you to look back as that's not fair. Look out for the next time.
    she gets more, not less, unreasonable. She refuses to "play by" the standard she herself has set up. So I can give you that -- she equates atheism with reasonability, and then is unreasonable, so complaints about her discussion style (I say "discussion" rather than the more accurate "debate" because she has an unreasonably rigid and narrow definition of "debate") are in that way "about" her atheism.
    Yes, my lack of belief is an essential part of me while belief is that of most members here. However, it is not rigid - that would be unreasonable, but what do you think should change my mind?

  • Nick Tamen wrote: »
    Boogie wrote: »
    So I assume it’s Susan Doris’ atheism that folk really have a problem with, not her posting style.

    🤔
    Nope, not on my part. I have no problem with SusanDoris’s atheism or anyone else’s atheism.

    What I have a problem with is a posting style that often seem to mix politeness with condescension. And I have a problem with, as @mousethief suggests, SusanDoris’s frequent unwillingness to hold herself to the standards she holds others to, or to even engage in discussion about the disconnect there. I’d have a problem with that if she were a Christian, a Muslim, or any other kind of believer instead of an atheist.
    I certainly apologise if there is condescension. I very much dislike condescension and in future will do whatever I can to use words which might appear to indicate it.
This discussion has been closed.