Summations Only

I agree with you, Jar. And the sad fact is that all his recent conduct in the past days clearly demonstrate that his brain was not working. It really is tiring to try to deal with a raving lunatic (which is what he was presenting himself as being). I need to be off to salsa class right now. Hopefully he can try to actually address my post in the next few hours.

This may appear to be a response to a post by jar, but it is really a response to foreveryoung who was being quoted. I know it can be hard, but you will be more effective if you can control that rage. There are probably many quite different philosophies of life among those debating you. That many of us disagree with some of your views does not imply that we agree with one another on other things. I think I have suggested this before. Just slow down. You don't have to reply to every post that disagrees with you. If several people disagree on one point, then you can just make a single reply. And if you slow down your posting rates, that will also slow down the rate at which people respond to you.Yes, I know it is easier to say that than to do it. But at least give it a try. You might want to consider The Great Debate, where threads have a single pair of debaters.

To be honest, while I don't approve of Foreveryoung's actions, I can imagine a average person does not like his brain called broken and his whole environment labeled as insane.I have a knack for being overly pacifistic, I know this but.. I leave the question is it was justified in this case open, but I tend dislike this rhetoric on principle. I admit I'm not that jaded yet, and absolute refusal to do this is also something I hate.Bottom line is that I just tend to be saddened by this sort of conversations, and I've raged a few times on the internet before, only to just feel empty once the spur of the moment has passed.

Hi all,I'm not going to moderate this thread, or at least I don't plan to, but I wonder if I could persuade people to take it down a notch. FEY's comments might be ill-advised, but they spring from sincerely held feelings. Perhaps a few more people could try taking the high road, or try being more sympathetic or supportive?

Well, it seems that dwise1 is not so bad at understanding you as you make out. By your own account, you are suffering from an "emotional affliction". I hope it gets better; in the meantime, if you find that participating on these forums aggravates your feelings of stress, and makes you more "upset and emotional" than you would otherwise be, then I think the most friendly advice I can think of is that you should take a break.

Sorry but I do NOT agree with your assessment at all.I see no signs of a "raving lunatic".

Well, it appears you understand me just as well as dwise does. I don't have an emotional affliction like in somethings that is clinically diagnosable. I have the same emotional traumas that every single person on this board does. Some are better at burying their feelings in their gut only to have them erupt in another form at some other time. I don't push anything down at all. It is much more healthier.

I am not going to address any post of yours after you call me a raving lunatic. Sorry. No dice.I guess you have such self control that you have never gone into an all consuming rage? The rage consumes you to the point that all you want to do is express it so that the feeling can pass. If the feeling does not pass, it does not get dealt with and the mind turns it into other various forms that show up at other times in life, and you have no idea why you are acting or feeling the way you do. Dear sir, I am much more in touch with my feelings than you are. I would venture to say you are much more close to being a lunatic than I am.Edited by foreveryoung, : No reason given.

I like Foreveryoung. I think he's a much better debater than myself and a smart Creationist. One of the best this site has Seen IMO. Simply go back to when he first joined and look at his posts if not all minus the ones not related to the debate. They are Detailed to the point and on topic.We all can get emotional with the debate, at one time or another. Maybe a "great debate" would settle things down a bit. Hopefully it could be a respectful one without letting emotions get involved regardless of who participates in it.Whether there is a great debate or not hopefully these side issues can be resolved and everyone can get back to the creation/evolution debate. Edited by Chuck77, : No reason given.Edited by Chuck77, : No reason given.

I'd also like to see FY participate in a Great Debate. Actually, I'd like to see you participate in one as well, Chuck.

Not saying that he actually is a raving lunatic, but rather that is exactly how he is acting and which is just as tiring.For example:
Message 228
Message 229
Message 1
Message 1
Message 231
Message 413
Message 420
Message 421
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Message 424
Even though how he is able to create paragraphs, his content is the same. He objects to what's been written. Objects to what exactly? He refuses to say and then rants in the same vein as quoted above. What is the reasoning behind his objections? He refuses to say and continues to rant in the same vein as quoted above.It is impossible to reason with someone who refuses to think and it is impossible to have any kind of rational discourse with someone who is so strongly committed to being irrational. It's the same as trying to deal with a raving lunatic, even when the person is not actually one but rather insists on acting like one.

I was in one with Straggler. Did you have Someone in mind and a subject to debate?

But an emotional affliction as in something which is afflicting you emotionally. No, not really. I, for example, am feeling a pleasant sense of well-being right now. You are not. It is popularly believed that "venting" one's anger gets rid of it, as though it were a build-up of steam in an engine, but the evidence from psychological studies is the very opposite: expressing your anger leaves you feeling angrier than you would if you didn't. After all, anger is not really a substance subject to conservation laws, it's a state of mind. I can look up some of the studies for you if you like.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

There is rage and there is anger. You don't, however, have to express them. As adults we have to control our feelings to an extent. It doesn't mean that we have to suppress or deny them, just control how they manifest themselves.Be honest here. If you had demonstrated an outburst like the one you demonstrated here when you put on all those replies dwise1 has highlighted because you got angry in McDonalds or in class, chances are you would have been bundled off as a nutter. Now, I'm not calling you a nutter, so don't go off on one. I'm saying that the perception would be that you belonged in a white coat with fashionable long sleeves and buckles.Being in touch with your feelings doesn't mean you have to explode into incoherence. Dig down and find out the cause of the rage. It was explained to you at the beginning of this thread that your perception of how everyone felt about you was wrong. You obviously don't believe this. No-one hates you, no-one despises you because of your point of view.Can you take a step back and look at the situation objectively? I think that a lot of the pressure would be taken off you if you got involved in a one on one debate, but first I think you should take some time away from the contentious threads and potter in the lighthearted ones, or even take a break from the forum if it's having such a detrimental effect on you. NOTHING is worth all this angst.

It is a call for you to stop acting like a raving lunatic. Which you will of course refuse to do.Remember, all this row between us started when you attacked me first. So don't you dare break your promise to never reply to any of my posts again! Oh yes I have! Which is why I know, from personal experience, that what you are doing is not the way! Which is why I have been trying to get you to snap out of it and to stop and think!Now, of course you are going to take this in completely the wrong way, because you are hell-bent on do that! One thing that helps is to talk with somebody about it. I am not telling you to go get professional help, even though you will yet again misconstrue what i say. Sit down and have a long talk with somebody you trust and feel that you can open up to. It could be somebody at church. If you do reach the point of seeing an actual counselor, be aware that there are counselors who specialize in fundamentalist/evangelical/conservative Christians and are usually billed as "Christian Counselors" -- my Dan Barker reference was no joke and I have seen it in operation many times, especially when a friend talked me into DivorceCare, most of which makes no sense to a non-Christian, and in seeing presentations by two Christian counselors, much of which again makes no sense to a non-Christian.I have previously suggested -- and I sincerely hope that this is not the case -- that you might be experiencing the first stages of deconversion. You are in a prime population for it, not only because of your age and that you're going to college, but also since you are studying a science that your beliefs most likely disagree with ("creation science" certainly disagrees with geology). If that is what you are going through, then realize that you are not alone and you are not the only one to have ever gone through it. Christian youth ministers and polls (eg, Barna Group) place at 65% to 80% the number of children raised in the faith leaving it and even any religion by young adulthood; you are part of that cohort. If there's a campus ministry that offers counseling, I can almost guarantee that they've encountered it many times before. If the need is there, then there is no reason not to take advantage of their experience.And in addition, engage in some kind of strenous and non-destructive physical activity to try to work some of it out of your system. Or to at least leave you too exhausted to do anything.And do please remember your promise!