Shadowwank writes…

Les - as you said, presentation does affect people’s willingness to listen, i wish this wasn’t the case, so much so that i’m deliberately avoiding capitalizing things here to get across the point that it doesn’t mean the person’s unreasonable.

If you’re going to insist on making your point then don’t be surprised if folks ignore you. For example, this will be the last I’ll bother addressing you on this topic. The rest of your comment is just more nonsense about encouraging people to engage their delusions on the off-chance they might be real.

Thanks, but I’ll stick to the reality based frame of mind.

Shadowwank, you’re not challenging perceptions, you’re just making excuses for your laziness. If you can’t be bothered to address us properly, well, sod off.

I saw a bumper sticker once that said “Even if the voices are in my head, they have some pretty good ideas”

I laughed at the time, but it works for so many things.  I don’t care that some people say that God speaks to them.  It doesn’t matter.  What does matter is that people try to justify bad things because God told them.  That’s wrong.  The rightness of something has nothing to do with who/what says it.

If God tells you to torture and kill someone for no reason, he’s wrong.  Don’t waste your breath trying to tell me that it really was God that told you to do it.  I don’t care.  Even if it was God, he’s wrong, and you’re worse for not running it through your brain filter to realize that.  If Satan tells you to be nice to people and work tirelessly to make the world a better place, then good for Satan…. I still won’t invite him to any parties…. but good for Satan.

By the same token, crazy homeless dude should probably be arrested for breaking the law, doubly so if he really was a “Son of Man” or “Son of Israel” because he obviously should have known better.  He doesn’t get a free pass because he’s been gone for 2,000 years and can’t be bothered to pick up a newspaper now and then.  Some very dedicated people went into creating a lot of our laws.  It wouldn’t be fair if any old messiah can come along and break them, now… would it?

Les - but surely you understand what i was saying about the content mattering? i have been very reasonable, i’ve taken you all seriously, i don’t deserve to be held to prejudice like that, i’m nothing like a christian, there are so many things i’ve said that should corroborate that.

is it that you don’t want to deal with anything that may challenge that stereotype?

The rest of your comment is just more nonsense about encouraging people to engage their delusions on the off-chance they might be real

not so, it’s not because it may be real, it’s because it might comfort them and get stuff off their chests. i don’t want them to do stuff out of fear.

KPatrickGlover: Shadowwank, you’re not challenging perceptions, you’re just making excuses for your laziness. If you can’t be bothered to address us properly, well, sod off.

not so, i’m going to a deliberate effort to avoid capitals because it’s not natural to me, and my intention is to bring down the arbitary prejudice around style, i want people to look beyond that and judge writing individually for it’s content

swordsbane: I don’t care that some people say that God speaks to them.  It doesn’t matter.  What does matter is that people try to justify bad things because God told them.  That’s wrong.  The rightness of something has nothing to do with who/what says it

exactly. it’s ultimately their decision whether to act on the thoughts too, and they don’t know whether it really was god, some other being , or themselves, so they have to have some method of filtering good thoughts from bad

If God tells you to torture and kill someone for no reason, he’s wrong.  Don’t waste your breath trying to tell me that it really was God that told you to do it.  I don’t care.  Even if it was God, he’s wrong, and you’re worse for not running it through your brain filter to realize that.  If Satan tells you to be nice to people and work tirelessly to make the world a better place, then good for Satan…. I still won’t invite him to any parties…. but good for Satan.

exactly - as you said, it’s not who said it that decides whether it’s right or wrong, but what is said, and what the underlying intention is. as you say, it is our decision on what we decide to do bearing this, and our knowledge of laws and how it’ll affect people, into account

is it that you don’t want to deal with anything that may challenge that stereotype?

No - it is the fact that most of us read English. We are used to reading English. It is easy for us to read English.

When you misspell words, use incorrect punctuation and capitalization, it is no longer English. It takes much more effort to read than proper English does. Reading it is a pain. And people like yourself who cannot take the time to write properly, rarely have anything to say that’s worth reading, let alone deciphering. For me, I generally find my eyes sliding off posts as badly written as yours.

If you want us to take the time to read what you have to say, take the time to make sure it’s as easy to read as possible. It is extremely rude for you not to make the effort to write properly and then expect us to make the extra effort of deciphering your comments, which as I said earlier we would not expect to find worth reading in the first place.

Nobody is expecting perfect spelling, punctuation, capitalization and the rest of it, but you are not even making a bare minimum of an effort.

And that’s the last I’m going to say about that.

BTW is the UK flag not showing for everyone or am I the only one?

It’s not showing for anyone. Not sure why. Been meaning to look into it.

Julian, looks like the UK flag is MIA. It’s odd, because the image file is still present.

Oh, and I’ve added shadowwank to my twit filter.

Julian - i just spell checked my last comment - honestly the only non-capitalization error was the word ‘arbitrary’ which i spelt ‘arbitary’.

how can it be that hard to read when the main body of normal text is lower case? puncuation is there too to seperate points. all i want on this point is a genuine acknowledgement that style doesn’t strictly correlate to substance - you still hold the prejudice that it’s not worth even reading just because of style and the angle you all percieve i’m coming in from without engaging with my points directly.

les also dismissed the rest of my comment as nonsence without dealing directly with those points, and now some of you are withdrawing yourselves from the discussion, presumably to save face, so you won’t be forced to acknowledge my point. if me saying that annoys you lot, i gather your response would be just to say the same thing again backed up with more frustration - that won’t work on me, i won’t get suppressed into backing down

unfair as it may feel for me to not use capitalization, it’s also unfair on other people who post here who get their ideas dismissed purely on prejudices like this - i’m doing this to make it fairer on them. i accept that a lot of them may be idiots, but i stand for work to be judged on the merits of it’s content rather than how it looks and what religious stance the person who says it takes, otherwise you’re no better than the theists who discriminate against atheist because of what they stand for and how they do things - the very people who cause your alienation with the idea. i want you to disconnect the ideas from the people who promote them - deal with them as valid thoughts in their own right without disregarding them just because the most vocal people who promote them may be idiots

the ability to see writing for what was intended for and what it really says rather than what it looks like deserves credit - don’t judge a book by it’s cover

Sorry Shadowwank, but I won’t be baited back into the discussion by claims that I’m afraid to address the points.

You want to insist on being treated like an adult while still acting like a child and you want in on the discussion, but you want to dictate the terms on which it happens. What you don’t seem to realize is that we also have the right to write you off as a childish twit for stomping your feet and whining about how mean and prejudicial we all are.

Ironically by acting in this manner you’ve derailed conversation away from whatever ideas you have about God and made it all about you. Essentially defeating your own purpose in participating.

Les - look back to the start, from early on the comments to me had a tone to them that felt uncalled for, and a lot of it was assumed about me based on how you all view theists, even though i agreed with a few of you on certain things and said things that should’ve indicated that i don’t fit the stereotype of the typical theist who comes here

towards the end it was not on the points i was making, and even in the beginning it was straight away assumed that i was trying to subvert people into believing things, that was never my intention, and my goal was never to convert people, i have said a few times that all i wanted on that topic was for people to feel able to talk to “it”, whatever it may be, if ever it might help, but to ignore it if it doesn’t. all i’ve done in terms of ramping up the pressure is in responce, because i felt that the only way i stood any chance at all in being taken seriously here would be to make you realise that you were writing me off from the beginning, before you even gave me any chance at all. it may be too much to hope for that this would ever change, you don’t know how i feel

i have no control over how you view me, or how any of you discuss, that’s ultimately your decision, but you don’t really understand me unless you put your feelings about me to one side when you read it, and give it a chance to make it’s point and be fairly considered - to do that you can’t second guess their intentions before reading it.

shadowwank - Yet you still refuse to use good grammar, and you’re worse than those who don’t know how, because you do.

Good grammar and punctuation and spelling are part of the merits of a post.  It is about communication.  If you can’t be bothered to construct your sentences in a way that doesn’t distract the reader from their meaning, what does that say about the care with which you construct your arguments?

What you say is different than how you say it, but both are important.  No, how you say something has nothing to do with the truth of it, but it has everything to do with taking an idea from your brain and recreating it without alteration in the brain of another.  If you can’t communicate properly, you can’t do that recreation and then it doesn’t matter if what you say is true or not.

You’re not taking a stand when you don’t capitalize.  You’re just appearing sloppy.  It is YOUR responsibility to speak in a manner that other people can understand.  It is not their responsibility to somehow understand you.  The best way to do that is if everyone knows the rules of a common language that everyone understands AND USES THEM…. all of them.  This means you.  If you don’t, and people begin ignoring you because of it…... That’s your fault, not theirs.

i have no control over how you view me

Yes you do.  There are people who come here and debate and end up as respected enemies rather than as childish and stubborn, even if nothing is resolved by the debate.  That is the difference between an argument and a debate, and you get to choose which side you’re on.  You choose how your opponent sees you.

This board has a history.  You have no excuse for not having some idea at least, how your views will be received, and what might be seen as valid and what might be seen as childish.  You certainly should have known that bad grammar wasn’t going to make you many friends.

In addition to what Swordsbane said I’ll comment on the following:

i have no control over how you view me, or how any of you discuss, that’s ultimately your decision, but you don’t really understand me unless you put your feelings about me to one side when you read it, and give it a chance to make it’s point and be fairly considered - to do that you can’t second guess their intentions before reading it.

As already pointed out, you do have some control over how others view you and have even been told how to improve your standing in other people’s eyes. Your response has been to stomp your feet and whine about how you are intentionally doing something that makes you look silly to make a point.

You made the decision to be antagonistic so I’m not sure how you can try to claim that you have “no control” over how others see you. Putting our feelings about you aside to consider your points would be easy enough to do if you weren’t insisting on using a style of presentation that makes you look like an idiot. In the arena of ideas presentation does matter. This is proven by the fact that there are plenty of bad ideas that have become accepted because they were presented well.

Hmmn, Do you think that we are overreacting a little here? From what I’ve seen Shadowwank has some honestly good points about the way that we should see things such as Schizophrenia,(I mean, if we can find a form of it that will prompt people to become more productive, happier beings, then why not keep it, induce it even?), however this message has been lost through a combination of his stubborn refusal to change his grammar for the sake of making a completely unrelated point (that may or may not be valid), and our stubborn refusal to concede that we may (or may not. I am definately not getting involved in that one!) judge people more than is necesary, based upon how they present their ideas.

By the way, I just read through my post, and realised how condecending it sounds. I am really sorry, I do not mean to sound that way, but I cannot rephrase what I have said in a way that keeps the message and does not come across that way.

Speaking for myself only, I find it only careless when someone makes honest mistakes in grammar or punctuation or spelling.  I do it too, so I’m not trying to take the moral high road here too.  I can, and do forgive that easily.

On the other hand, when someone deliberately refuses to use good grammar and when called on it says that he was trying to create an effect no one here seems to have understood, then tries to defend it further by saying that good grammar isn’t really important anyway… I have to say it’s a little more irritating than “Oops! Forgot that comma.“

Sorry if that sounds petty, but trivializing the importance of good communication kinda gets under my skin.

BeSiDeS.  If aLl mY CoMmEnTs wErE SuBmItTeD LiKe tHiS, eVeRyOnE WoUlD gEt oN mY CaSe, No mAtTeR wHaT mY PoInT wAs.

So yes.  Good grammar is important.  Deliberately not using it is insulting…. very irritating at the very least.

Les + swordsbane - the only real issue about my english was the capitalization - other than that the spelling, grammar and punctuation were all the way i would normally talk, it’s not that bad, and certainly not like the example swordsbane gave just above, that’s taking it out of context - what i write all reads pretty much normally after the beginning of the sentance

it’s not my goal in life to get people to like me or get what’s best for myself - you can’t make many points in life if you’re always trying to please people, i wouldn’t be able to demonstrate that point if i did - and i would probably face exactly the same conflict if i debated this issue with perfect grammar. people’s ideas about things like grammer do invoke feelings, but nobody should be restricted by the feelings of others - people limit each other unless they grow thick skins to tolerate each other

we make our points any way we think might work, then it’s the reader’s decison how they choose to respond - just like people decide to crack if they’re under pressure, decide to get angry if frustrated, or they decide to suicide if depressed, it is nearly always someone’s decision whether to give in to their feelings - people wrongly draw an arbitrary line of when they’ll stop tolerating

Edd - I really do admire your ability to recognise the point behind it, and see the point for what it is . Also not condecending at all - you said what was on your mind, what you thought might help, that was all

I am stubborn my end because (generally) I refuse to be pushed into conforming - I stand my ground, which makes it more likely they’ll eventually be forced to understand, if they don’t withdraw. It is my belief that people should not be held to ransom by the dependancies of others, which could be on any scale - if we always gave in there’s no limit to how far they could push it - not just on the subject of spelling, but general standards in a lot of things where any line you do draw is arbitrary and could eb pushed further (i.e. hygene)

I recognized your point shadowwank and commented on it.

My objection to you is not that you didn’t use proper grammar, but that you knew proper grammar and refuse to use it in a medium that is literary.  You also refuse to acknowledge the importance of at least trying to be precise in your speaking, and even admit that improper grammar is a “tactic” in your writing, a tactic that seems to have failed miserably.

Please go away.  I may agree with your general point, but you have none of the small respect I had for your opinion when I saw your first post.  Congradulations.

swordsbane - i’ll admit it was a tactic - i’ve tried to say it but maybe didn’t find those words, i also try to be precise with my words but maybe i’m not as precise as i would like to be - but still that shouldn’t need to matter that much, people should be able to pick up the general gist in writing that may still have minor wording errors - otherwise it’s just deliberately looking for ways to pick it apart. - if you had a scratched cd you’d rather your computer was able to salvage some information from it rather than just dismiss the whole thing as broken

i know that spelling affects people’s willingness to listen, i have acknowledged that, but i choose to make this point. any tactic i use can only be as successful as far as people are willing to listen - and i don’t know any way to get across this point. it’s also unnecessary to try to demoralize me - i don’t do that to you lot

finally i’ll admit stubborness myself, but say that most of you are stubborn on this point too - it takes at least 2 stubborn people for a prolonged arguement, i can’t be the only one who is stubborn

I never said I wasn’t stubborn and never claimed that it was necessarily a bad thing.  Admitting your mistakes is good too.  Since your last post still has no capitalization, I can only surmise that you don’t subscribe to that either.

However, your last point is a good one.  It does take two to argue.  I seem to be the last one willing to respond to your lameness.  Please allow me to remedy that.

Good day.

swordsbane - Thankyou - I’ll now offer peace on this issue to you since you’ve been reasonable - I feel I’ve made my point now, at least to you, so I won’t press you on it (that’d be unreasonable), unless you want that is. I had thought about using capitalization in the last post, but I wasn’t sure, now is better because it’s because I think you deserve it, rather than me doing it out of capitulation.

OK, some see stubbornness as good, some see it as bad - I was described as stubborn, almost used against me - I felt I needed to get it recognised that I was not the only one, so it can’t be used against me, or at least it’d be hypocritical if it did.

Anyway hopefully I’ll see you some point later, though I do not expect it - time will tell and hopefully you’ll get a chance to see my peaceful side

I bet that is indeed Sonny, the same “spiritual advisor” who convinced the Browns that the key to getting their convictions thrown out was to sign only their first name, followed by “a Living Soul, in the Body of the Lord, of the House of Israel”.  According to Sonny, that stopped the government from having jurisdiction over them, by invoking heavenly jurisdiction. 

Not at all surprisingly, it didn’t work, but nobody can claim the Browns didn’t try their best.

Obviously Sonny-boy needs a psychiatrist, but then again, so do Ed and Elaine.

I’m pretty sure that house now belongs to the federal government, seized because the Browns owed about a million bucks in taxes.  It was supposed to go on the market, and it’s one helluva house, but I decided not to bid on it after the feds found that the entire house and property was rigged with bombs and booby traps.  Also, I kind of figured that it would attract weirdos for some time to come, given what happened there, and you couldn’t pay me to put up with that kind of crap.

Here’s a photo of the house in question:
http://www.thewe.cc/thewei/&_/__/prisonplanet/140607brown_house.jpe

Strange aside on this case .... after the Browns were finally arrested and sent to serve their prison sentences, it was revealed, by someone who lived on their property in an RV through the entire standoff (supposedly guarding them from the feds), that Ed Brown planned to murder Elaine, and blame it on the government.

There is just no end to the weirdness in this case.

But, don’t fundamentalists argue that their “Bible” was written by God? Or, at least men inspired by God. How, then, can they deny that this person may, in fact, be God? I do recall something about “by their fruits ye shall know them” as a key to “false” prophets. Who has the authority to judge which of the fruits or accomplishments of God in the Bible will make the case? If the “prophet” dashes infants heads against rocks, does that make him a “true” prophet? If he practices genocide, does that make him a “true” prophet? So many miracles, so few manifestations!!!