Articulating In The Debates; The Proper And The Improper.

Hi hooah, I'm sure you've heard the Team America "dicks fuck assholes" speech. It's true that sometimes dicks do fuck assholes and that this can be a good thing. Some assholes deserve it. On the other hand, just because you're a dick, doesn't mean that you should fuck every pussy that comes along. You're entitled to your opinion of course, but I think you're being unnecessarily harsh. Buz can be exasperating, but I don't think he's a bad guy. Ignorant? I suppose. Pig-headed? Sometimes. Sometimes not. Racist? That's a tricky one. Certainly Buz has voiced some attitudes that you or I would consider racist, but you have to remember that he is of a different generation to you or I. The moral Zeitgeist has shifted a long way in Buz's lifetime and he hasn't really caught up. Now that is certainly a bad thing, but it is at least an understandable thing. I can't read minds via ISP any more than you can, but personally, I don't get the impression that Buz is a hateful, cross-burning bigot. I might think less of him because of some of his bigoted comments, but I don't think that he is an terrible person.As for being a moron, I think that's also harsh. I've met people a hell of a lot dumber than Buzsaw. Frequently. Like, every day. Besides, what's the big deal about intelligence anyway? Some people are born strong. Some are born pretty. And some people are born smart. If we're not born clever, we can work on improving what we've got, but ultimately, we are more-or-less stuck with what God gave us, so to speak.Now I fancy myself as being a bit clever, but I don't deserve accolades simply for that. I was born that way, just as morons are born stupid and, by the same token, morons shouldn't be vilified just because they weren't born lucky. Further, it goes against the principles of honest scepticism to single out lack of smarts as some sort of unforgivable offence. Scepticism is a mental tool. You don't have to be clever to utilise it, just determined and thorough. The tool-kit of scepticism is just as available to bears of little brain as it is to those who are smarter than the average bear. If you want to attack Buz for the dumbass things he says, attack his failure to think-through, not his intelligence. You may feel that way, but others can and do judge people by what they post and how they behave online. Perhaps you don't care, but you should perhaps be aware that in a situation where you are trying to be as persuasive as possible, you will almost certainly lose people by swearing and by being insulting. If you curse or crudely insult others, people are going to regard you as having squandered the moral high-ground and, rightly or wrongly, they're going to ignore you. they're going to assume that you're not very nice, so therefore what you're saying must be wrong. That may be fallacious, but what do you expect from creationists? I think that the best way is a tit-for-tat policy. If people are nice with others, I try to be nice with them. And if they're dicks, well, I can do that too. I try to keep the profanity down to a minimum, otherwise it loses its mother-fucking impact. Of course, given some of the stupid things that are said on these pages, it can be hard too keep up. Sometimes I lose my temper. It particularly gets my goat when someone seems to think that they have somehow outwitted the entire scientific establishment and have seen the fatal flaws that the world's greatest biologists have missed, yet they cannot even compose a simple sentence in their native fucking language. Infuriating! Sometimes I just can't resist the temptation to play mock-the-idiot, but mostly, you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.On the other hand, people who won't capitalise the personal pronoun are sick freaks and deserve to have a painful and fiery doom visited upon them from on high. SHIFT KEYS PEOPLE! THEY ARE YOUR FRIENDS! Mutate and Survive

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"A curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understands it." - Jacques Monod

Challenge accepted.This board does have a search function you know. I'm not offended by swearing though. When done well, it can be very funny indeed.Mutate and Survive