Hi, Edwarda. I thought I'd reply here instead of via PM to a PM comment you made to me about how "contentious" it had gotten here lately, even more than it had been in the recent past, you felt. I wanted to say re contentious:
I think "contentious" can be fun, actually. It can even be exhilarating. I don't at all think it was contentiousness that destroyed feelies. Do you remember the echt contentious exchanges among me and Delbert and Steven and Rick Julian and Sidney and Cobe and Christine and jbe and Christopher H. and Chuzz (whom I miss so) and you and... well, I'm leaving off lots of names. The arguments were contentious, and often genuinely serious, but there was generally some intellectual content to the contending, and adhering to certain social rules of argumentation was part of the game, or contestation (or else there isn't any game, it's like it is now), and when a line was crossed, there were liable to be apologies, or acknowledgements, in PM or in public; and during that time although tempers were often short, I don't recall the casual or habitual use of ad hominem personal attacks and nasty, contentless cracks, or suspensions, or admonitions by SI Admin. Such tactics were exceptions, not continual. It was an argumentative family of really rather civilized beings here. I personally felt an almost familial connection to virtually everyone who posted on feelies then, even those with whom I disagreed and argued most heatedly. I even learned something in those days-- I got my consciousness raised, on occasion.
It changed. And the early feelies denizens are not the ones who ruined this place. Why would they? It was our clubhouse.
New subject:
I just heard about something that reminded me of some discussion we had here a while back, during which I proposed that it would be fine with me if the public schools proffered religious observances, just so long as I could have equal time to proffer my beliefs. As I recall, only one individual had no problem with my proposal, being confident enough in his views that it seemed to him unexceptionable.
It seems that in the Wisconsin State Capital, for the fourth December in a row, the national office of the Freedom From Religion Foundation has placed a freethought sign near the lighted menorah and the Christmas tree placed there by the State. (A group opposed to the separation of church and state has its own anti-FFRF poster.) The sign of the FFRF is a quote from Robert Ingersoll, and reads
At this season of
THE WINTER SOLSTICE
May reason prevail.
There are no gods,
no devils, no angels,
no heaven or hell.
There is only
our natural world.
Religion is but
myth and superstition
that hardens hearts
and enslaves minds.
Except for being turned to face the wall, the sign has been left alone, and tour guides have told media that the Foundation's sign is "a tourist attraction"!
God bless America. |
