mitchellmckain wrote:You know this "intellectual bullying" charge is rather amusing. I mean how dare I disagree with people and support my disagreements with good arguments. I guess that is something that a lot of people don't like in the deep south whether they believe in God or not.
Please feel free to disagree with people, Mitch, but consider treating others with some respect. At the very least, don't assume the motivations of other members is intolerance and bigotry when you don't know anything about them other than a post. And yes, we do value respect in the South.
Jim is exactly right in his response to this. He hasn't said anything different than what I've stated. It's outrageous that Mitch is so quick to condemn others for not tolerating disagreement when that is exactly what he does on a regular basis. He characterizes his attacks as just calling out the intolerance of atheists, and I think it's fine to challenge badly reasoned ideas or conclusions, but I think it's quite hypocritical to say that it's OK for to use words like intolerant, bigot, and liar and expect others to just take that kind of abuse without a reaction. It's actually quite stupid if you ask me; people just typically don't take insults like that and not respond. So, all alone I've been saying that if Mitch feels the need to criticize other's comments, that's fine. It's part of posting on a forum. But by now you would think he would understand that the nastier his remarks, the nastier the flame war that ensues will be, and he always characterizes flame wars as a waste of time and he always criticizes others as assassinating his character, when it was he who started it by calling someone a bigot. If calling someone a bigot is not character assassination, I don't know what is.
Mitch feels that it is OK to demean the statements of others when he doesn't consider them worthy opinions or comments. What he overlooks is that whether these are opinions he likes, dislikes or just can't stand, they are still opinions that people have a right to hold. And these opinions weren't likely formed in an instant; there are usually years of experience and information that inform these opinions. Just as a Christian has years of experiences and knowledge that informs their belief. If I call a Christian an intolerant bigot, I would be doing the same thing that Mitch does because I don't agree with their opinions and I don't respect their right to have a belief that I consider inferior. That's pretty much Mitch's M.O. If anyone were to examine my posts here, they would see that I often disagree with Christian beliefs and ideas, but I don't call them bigots or liars because of that, I just state my disagreement and reasons why I disagree or why I think they are wrong. This way, I'm not denigrating them or their right to hold differing opinions, I'm just stating that my view of things is different and why. I don't even claim that I am the right one, but I certainly state when I know some facts that may not have been taken into consideration.
Mitch embraces a completely different method of interacting with people that he disagrees with, and he's explained that he knows how different it is and basically he just says people need to learn to deal with it. Well, I find his approach coarse, unappealing, unconvincing and offensive. Whether or not he has something valuable to say, I am not likely to hear it when he gets into his superiority mode because to me,
Process is important. It's not just about the end result, which may be learning something new or coming to terms with an opponent. This is my preference and I value it and I try to live by it. I have never tried to enforce it upon anyone else, except that I won't tolerate the kind of harassment Mitch typically deals out. Mitch, by default, does try to enforce his methods on others by way of his interaction with them. When they rebuke him, he merely increases the attack. So, I would be happy if he put me on ignore because I would rather not have to listen to his irritating rhetoric; it puts me in a bad mood and, as I've tried to explain to him numerous times, people don't learn new things when someone is beating them over the head with it. I don't come here to argue over who is the biggest asshole; I come here to discuss topics of religion and atheism. Mitch's inane forays take away from this, derails threads and causes people to generally not like coming here. So, to me, his methods often result in people not communicating, which I thought was the whole point of this forum.
