I don't have the responsibility to answer someone who is angry and extremely rude, who quibbles over tiny things like whether the term "myth" can be applied to an object, and who asks sarcastic questions constantly. You've just joined a week and two days ago and I'm already sick of your posts. You're going on my ignore list.
Here, once again, instead of trying to respond rationally to anything I have written, you have chosen to speak abusively against me, calling me
"angry," "extremely rude," "someone...who quibbles," "someone...who asks sarcastic questions constantly," and telling me you are
"sick of [my] posts". All of that abusive language you have directed against me is contained in just one, your latest, reply post to me. Below, you'll find an exhibition of other instances, from other posts of yours, of you employing abusive language against me:
In
post #3 of your thread, Christ Mythicism: Recommended Reading, you said to me:
Your point is just semantics and is not even consistent with the way "myth" is used in the English language.
By saying that something I said
"is just semantics," either 1) you are saying something that is cognitively meaningful, and thus either true or false, or 2) you are merely speaking emotively, rather than in a cognitively meaningful way, and are trying to cast aspersion against me, trying to belittle me.
If #1 is the case, please tell us, by quoting my exact words, to which thing you are referring by your phrase
"just semantics," and explain exactly what you mean whenever you say that something
"is just semantics," and exactly why you are saying that what I have written
"is just semantics."
If #2 is the case, then I ask you: Do you really imagine that I am (and other readers of these forums are) not well aware of that all-too-common, vulgar shtick that many talkers so often resort to performing because they cannot answer simple questions asked them, nor respond rationally and honestly to criticism of things they have said? Crying
"That's just semantics!" or
"You're obsessed with semantics!" is invariably a loud and clear advertisement that the one crying such things knows he/she cannot respond rationally to criticism that has been leveled against his/her utterances. See, semantics is all about questions of meaning. When I ask you questions about what (if anything) you mean by certain words or forms of words you choose to use, and you react to them by crying out that my questions are "just semantics," that's you advertising that you know you cannot answer such questions.
In
post #103 of the thread, Why The Experts Disagree., you said to me:
You should turn down the aggression in your posts.
If you're going to accuse something I have written of being an instance of aggression, could you please quote my exact words, and explain exactly why you are accusing them of being an instance of aggression? Until you have satisfied this request, I shall continue to consider your saying to me,
"You should turn down the aggression in your posts," to be an attempted barb, an instance of abusiveness from you against me, your only provocation to it being the fact that you cannot respond rationally to my criticism of what you, or someone else, has said. In saying that to me, are you, perhaps, projecting onto me something you see in yourself?
In any case, would you like someone to say to you,
"You should turn down the aggression in your posts"? Is that something you'd like me to say to you?
In
post #10 of your thread, Christ Mythicism: Recommended Reading, you said to me:
Must you be so insufferable, Paul? You won't make any friends this way.
What motivated you to say this to me? Do you really not consider it base and puerile to say such a thing as what you said to me in that quote? Myself, I just can't bring myself to say such things to others as I've just quoted you saying to me. I mean, at the very best, it just is not a good look to behave that way. Wouldn't you agree?
In
post #15 of the thread, Study: Only 37% of American Pastors Have a Biblical Worldview, you said to me:
You sound like a very hostile, angry guy. You really need to calm down.
Is what you say to me in this quote not merely a slight variation of what you have said to me in the quotes I've already exhibited, above? Again, would you like for me to say to you,
"You sound like a very hostile, angry guy. You really need to calm down"? Can you, in all honesty, deny that what you have said, here, is not an instance of abusive language against me?
I tell you what, Smith: How's about you go and make a list of quotations of my exact words from my posts in these forums, about which quotes you can bring yourself to claim, in all honesty, that they are instances of abusive language against you, or against anyone else in these forums, as I've compiled this list exhibiting your abusive language against me.
You, as I quoted above from your most recent reply post to me, say to me:
"You're going on my ignore list."
Do you consider it something for you to be proud of, the fact that you feel an impulse to censor me? I mean, take a look at how relatively few posts I have in these forums, to date. It would be an easy matter for anybody to skim through them and see for themselves just what has provoked you to want to censor me. Do you imagine that anyone who would review them could, after having done so, come away saying, in all honesty,
"Oh, it is just dreadful! Alas, to behold the torrent of savage verbal abuse poor T. E. Smith has had to endure from the pen of mean, old Paul E. Michael, in the space of less than 30 posts in these forums!" You and I both know that nobody could honestly say such a thing. For you to broadcast that I'm
"going on [your] ignore list" is a further, loud and clear advertisement that you know that you cannot respond rationally to any of my criticism, nor to the questions I've asked you. You may as well think of your "ignore list" as your "chagrin bin". I can understand why you might silently put me on "ignore," but
I scratch my head in puzzlement as to how you imagine it could be to your benefit, or credit, for you to publicly declare that you are putting me on "ignore". What, really, is there for you to feel triumphant about in resorting to such a performance as that?
And, I got news for you, Sir: you're certainly not going onto my "ignore list". I'll still be able to read, criticize, and subject to questioning, as I see fit, things you choose to write in your posts. It's obviously no skin off my nose that you will, on account of your self-imposed blinders, fail to respond rationally to such future questions and criticism from me—that you will make no attempt to defend your utterances against criticism that never comes into your view, by your own choosing. Your promised, upcoming, self-imposed silence to my criticism and questions will, really, be a welcome improvement in affairs in light of the stuff you've thus far written in reaction to my criticism and questions. I guess what I'm trying to say is that your failure to respond rationally to my criticism and questions while I am on your "ignore list" will not be any more dismal than your failure to do so while I have
not been on it.
