murali@cvl.UUCP (Muralidhara Subbarao) (03/29/85)
I suggest that all of us refrain from reading (and
responding to) articles of Mr. Black and his supporters
henceforth so that this forum is rendered useless to them
to spread their propaganda.
Murali.pmd@cbscc.UUCP (Paul Dubuc) (04/08/85)
> I suggest that all of us refrain from reading (and > responding to) articles of Mr. Black and his supporters > henceforth so that this forum is rendered useless to them > to spread their propaganda. > > Murali. So has it come to this? It's for doing this very thing that some Christians have gotten belittled, the implication being that ignoring a publically stated opinion here implies consent to that opinion. Heaven forbid! Does this apply equally to unsound anti-Christian arguments that we choose to ignore, or just those that purport to carry the weight of sound Christian doctrine? It suprises me sometimes how seriously some people (including myself) seem to take this forum. I can understand the necessity to oppose other Christians with wrong minded views at times, and I do. On the other side of the coin, I think the average net.reader has the intelligence to decide for his or her self what opinions are good. To feel the constraint to defend one's arguments to the death does little respect to that intelligence. Some may have the time and energy to respond to every opposing argment. I don't, and I think it is the case with most people that they aren't so wrapped up in the USENET "community" as to derive any significant portion of their self esteem from it. Such involvement seems to drain too much time away from involvement in such things that do provide that esteem. Overprotectiveness of one's views seems to be so much wasted effort here. Not only that it--more often than not--prolongs the discusion and renders it to be so much senseless bickering. There can be more fruitful discussion on which that time could be spent, I think. Boycott, Mr. Black? Is it fair to say "I knew it would come to this"? :-) (It will fail because there are always those who can't resist useless arguing.) Anyway, I tend to skip over articles that contain other people's names in the subject line. Most often they contain personal attack that interests me not in the least. Such things are better carried on by mail, but I suppose it's more rewarding to defend one's ego in public. Each one uses this forum for their own purposes. Will it ever be any other way? Some of those purposes seem more noble than others, however. It's because of such nobility that I even bother with it at all. By the very nature of this forum people are always going to have to pick and choose on their own. I would remind those that seem to be recruting a net.police force to bring decency and order to this newsgroup, that this is an anarchy. In an anarchy there is no such thing as a police force or even an organized boycott--only lynch mobs :-). The amount of dececency and order in an anarchic forum for discusion is inversely porportional to the amount of controversy and personal intimacy involved in the subject matter. Net.religion seems to rate high in those areas. I'm not saying decency is a hopless cause in net.religion. But it depends on each individual and people can't be pressed into the service of it here. That has it's disadvantages but, on the other hand, it makes those that are voluntarily decent in their discussion shine all the brighter. Still, I thank God that society isn't so conducive to the physical complement of the verbal violence that goes on here. In an anarchy of mere words (e.g. net.religion) the decent may shine bright. In society, they are more often destroyed. -- Paul Dubuc cbscc!pmd