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Politics : Evolution -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jacques Chitte who wrote (10612)	12/8/2010 6:04:18 PM
From: Solon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 69300

“I would not venture so far as to accuse Solon of civility. “ Thank you! Let me tell you Solon’s Tale. When I decided to put out a thread entitled “Should God Be Replaced” it was (of course) somewhat frightening and intimidating. I knew it was right, but I also knew that it would mean an overwhelming force of religious hostility (not a small element in our society) directed against me. I knew I was going to deal with religious fanatics who believed that donkeys talked and that rainbows did not exist until after the first experiment looking into a better way of dealing with problems than genocide. I decided from the “git go” that “nice” was not important in the mix considering that to a fanatic I was ALWAYS going to be wrong and always going to be evil! If I say donkeys don’t talk, I am wrong. If I say Jonah did not live in the belly of a fish I am wrong. If I say genocide and rape are evil, I am wrong. If I say the magicians of Egypt did NOT create life, I am wrong. And alongside of being wrong, I would be (of course) in league with an imaginary (an supposedly evil and vicious) old gentleman known as Old Scratch, or Beelzebub! My sole focus was and is on rationality and truth. If I am “ugly” to Eeek it is not because I wish him ill. If he will talk straight he gets straight talk. When he talks evil he gets evil talk. *As you might expect, he ALWAYS talks evil--c’est la vie.* When one deals with religious hysteria (and he is extremely hysterical) one can only we wrong. I knew that also before I embarked on that thread. Religious people are always right because they KNOW the TRUTH.** That creates guaranteed discord and invective. I knew it would be so from the beginning, but I still chose to proselytize for human rights and reason in my small way. Do I care about being “nice” to Eeeek? Not a bit. He had his chances over thousands of posts. He has misrepresented and with malice aforethought doctored quotes and mangled contexts and ignored explanations as he acted very much like an old Hebrew Warrior smiting and smoting till he ran out of breath! Do I speak with some little civility to you? Of course. Because I do care what intelligent and moral people think.