I am cross-posting here a messsage I just wrote for my religious discussion forum. The reason I am cross-posting it is because I think it is interesting. I touches upon some of my views regarging the entire purpose of online discussion to begin with. And, hey, it bumps the page.
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"An open invitation to new members to this moderated forum"
Welcome to this safe haven. I know many of you only feel safe in the confines of a forum that is devoid of strong language and personal attacks. Here you will be at peace.
Feel warm, comfortable, and safe in this haven. Feel free to create fake shill accounts through hidden IP addresses and temporary email servers.
We don't mind. We just love the dialectic struggle.
Share your thoughts here on topics of a religious nature, all the time feeling safe and secure that no one can attack your person.
Please act as a troll.
I welcome trolls.
I love trolls.
Do you know why?
Because trolls (good trolls, the best kind of trolls of all), spawn fresh discussion and dialouge. And..nothing could be more boring in a message forum than dead, lifeless, and pointless dialouge. Gossip and trivia are the cancer of a good message forum. Yes men (and women) are the death of discourse. If you can't engage people in contrary points of view, what the heck are you arguing about to begin with?
Does not entire concept of an internet discussion forum exist for the sole purpose of executing the dialectic struggle? You know, that effort to convince me that you are right and that I am wrong? If we aren't here for that, what are we here for? I certainly have no interest otherwise.
A good debator doesn't even care whether they take the 'pro' or 'con' position. The point of the game, the hunt if you will, is the debate itself. Like moving chess pieces on a board, we put out our pieces of argument making our points upon the shaky ground of shared premises, until someone concedes the game. How much fun is that I ask?
Only someone who barrels into a forum, beating their chest, and shouting out their beliefs with great gusto can engage the masses in such a way as to produce a thread worthy of Osiris.
It doesn't even matter if you believe the things you post. A good troll realizes that the most important thing of all is to stimulate discussion.
Belief systems are amorphic anyway. They change constantly. Heck, you can wander into a guy in a bar, have a late night discussion, and change your belief system radically. Or, by contrast, you can wander into the tent of a revivalist minister and produce the same result.
It is my belief that it is never safe to be too certain about anything. Afterall, you might be wrong.
It is my belief that people who have entrenched belief systems cause their brains to atrophy. The human brain is a complex biochemical machine that, on a good day, is rewiring itself.
However, fanatical belief systems create a feedback loop in this neural net causing the system to 'jam up'. It becomes so hard wired into a single point of view that any exposure to a contrary system of thought actually causes pain. This is part of the territorial response system in primates.
Because we are slightly more sophisticated in our thinking that the average monkey, we react to attacks on our hard wired belief systems in the same way an ape reacts to an intruder on their territory. We defend our 'belief' in something as surely as any other primate defends it's territory; the thing it believes it owns.
It is my belief that reprogramming the human-biocomputer is a generally healthy exercise. This life, this existance, that you have is best experienced in a highly interactive and adaptive fashion.
Can you simply imagine running your entire life believing only a single thing to be true? With absolute certainty? To the exclusion of all others? And defending it with a sense of territorialism that would do a pit bull proud?
I'm not sure I want to live that kind of life.
That's why I'm an atheist who believes in God.
That's why I'm a skeptic who believes in UFOs.
That's why I ridicule New Age belief systems while embracing the writings of a ghost.
It's all about cognitive dissonance. Holding contraditory belief systems in your mind, on a cusp, and uttering the single most profoundly spiritual words known to man possible "I don't know."
What I do know is I welcome my friends from CARM, afraid of bad words, bad images, or attacks upon their person, so that they may flock to this single refuge, this 'undiscovered country', where they can discuss their wants, needs, desires, and innermost convictions with absolute certainty that they can hide behind a shill account safe from reprisals or any other negative repercussions.
Welcome my brothers and sisters to this sanctuary....
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"An open invitation to new members to this moderated forum"
Welcome to this safe haven. I know many of you only feel safe in the confines of a forum that is devoid of strong language and personal attacks. Here you will be at peace.
Feel warm, comfortable, and safe in this haven. Feel free to create fake shill accounts through hidden IP addresses and temporary email servers.
We don't mind. We just love the dialectic struggle.
Share your thoughts here on topics of a religious nature, all the time feeling safe and secure that no one can attack your person.
Please act as a troll.
I welcome trolls.
I love trolls.
Do you know why?
Because trolls (good trolls, the best kind of trolls of all), spawn fresh discussion and dialouge. And..nothing could be more boring in a message forum than dead, lifeless, and pointless dialouge. Gossip and trivia are the cancer of a good message forum. Yes men (and women) are the death of discourse. If you can't engage people in contrary points of view, what the heck are you arguing about to begin with?
Does not entire concept of an internet discussion forum exist for the sole purpose of executing the dialectic struggle? You know, that effort to convince me that you are right and that I am wrong? If we aren't here for that, what are we here for? I certainly have no interest otherwise.
A good debator doesn't even care whether they take the 'pro' or 'con' position. The point of the game, the hunt if you will, is the debate itself. Like moving chess pieces on a board, we put out our pieces of argument making our points upon the shaky ground of shared premises, until someone concedes the game. How much fun is that I ask?
Only someone who barrels into a forum, beating their chest, and shouting out their beliefs with great gusto can engage the masses in such a way as to produce a thread worthy of Osiris.
It doesn't even matter if you believe the things you post. A good troll realizes that the most important thing of all is to stimulate discussion.
Belief systems are amorphic anyway. They change constantly. Heck, you can wander into a guy in a bar, have a late night discussion, and change your belief system radically. Or, by contrast, you can wander into the tent of a revivalist minister and produce the same result.
It is my belief that it is never safe to be too certain about anything. Afterall, you might be wrong.
It is my belief that people who have entrenched belief systems cause their brains to atrophy. The human brain is a complex biochemical machine that, on a good day, is rewiring itself.
However, fanatical belief systems create a feedback loop in this neural net causing the system to 'jam up'. It becomes so hard wired into a single point of view that any exposure to a contrary system of thought actually causes pain. This is part of the territorial response system in primates.
Because we are slightly more sophisticated in our thinking that the average monkey, we react to attacks on our hard wired belief systems in the same way an ape reacts to an intruder on their territory. We defend our 'belief' in something as surely as any other primate defends it's territory; the thing it believes it owns.
It is my belief that reprogramming the human-biocomputer is a generally healthy exercise. This life, this existance, that you have is best experienced in a highly interactive and adaptive fashion.
Can you simply imagine running your entire life believing only a single thing to be true? With absolute certainty? To the exclusion of all others? And defending it with a sense of territorialism that would do a pit bull proud?
I'm not sure I want to live that kind of life.
That's why I'm an atheist who believes in God.
That's why I'm a skeptic who believes in UFOs.
That's why I ridicule New Age belief systems while embracing the writings of a ghost.
It's all about cognitive dissonance. Holding contraditory belief systems in your mind, on a cusp, and uttering the single most profoundly spiritual words known to man possible "I don't know."
What I do know is I welcome my friends from CARM, afraid of bad words, bad images, or attacks upon their person, so that they may flock to this single refuge, this 'undiscovered country', where they can discuss their wants, needs, desires, and innermost convictions with absolute certainty that they can hide behind a shill account safe from reprisals or any other negative repercussions.
Welcome my brothers and sisters to this sanctuary....
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