mitchellmckain

Not much is provable. But science definitely has some advantages if that is what you mean. From a non-Christian perspective what does Christology have to do with anything? Well, regardless of whether you accept the beliefs of Christianity, it is as much a fact of our world as the existence of birds. So if nothing else, Christology may help the non-Christian understand the issues which underly its bewildering variety, and understand the growing unity among Christians as well, according to the consensus about what is really Christian. As for myself I was not sure that the question of Jesus divinity was such an important one. Even in my post above you will find me saying, that this belief that Jesus is God, is not central to my own faith. But having time to think it over, I have changed my mind. It is quite central to the Christian faith that the saving power of Jesus' death on the cross comes from the realization that human beings tortured and murdered the one being who loves them more than they could ever imagine. This event reconciled man to God, because it makes us realize that this being who loves us is the very one who created us. It makes us understand how much He loves us because it shows His willingness to bear the consequences of our sin. And finally, it brings home to us the devastating consequences of our sin by showing us that it caused us to torture and murder the God who loves us. The comprehension of this event presents us with a choice between the sin that makes us do such things and the loving creator who is willing to bear such consequences. If you take away the divinity of Christ then what is left of this? We have a man who would reconcile us to God and whose best intention brought him into conflict with an evil world. We may love and admire this person, but no matter how innocent, loving and good He is, He is still just another victim of evil. Yes His spirit triumphs in the end as we believe all such victims do. But how shall this make us see God except to lay another injustice like this at His feet. I see no reconciliation with God in this at all. It seems to me that the only other theory that makes sense is the adoptionist one of the moonies and other dynamic monarchians, that the man Jesus reconciled us to God by being the first human being to become all that God hoped that man should become. I think this works logically but I also think that the result is not even remotely Christian, for in this case we are not saved by the power of God but by our own effort. This theology gives religious organizations the task of showing us how this may be done. Telling us what we must do for eternal life, however, is a rather great deal of power to be in the hands of a human organization, don't you think? In conclusion I must say that the divinity of Christ is indeed central to the faith of any Christian (whether He knows it or not).

There is no doubt that questions about the nature of Jesus has been a source of trouble in the understanding of Christian doctrine and scripture from the earliest days of the church. The question of whether Jesus is God belongs to the branch of theology known as Christology. Christology has been an unholy mess and numerous attempts to solve the mysteries involved have been declared heresies by the eccumenical councils. Ten of the seventeen major heresies have to do with Christology. Arianism: Jesus was originally created by God the Father. Apollinarianism: Divine will overshadowed and replaced the human in Jesus. Docetism: Jesus only seemed to be human, but was really divine. Monophysitism: Jesus had only divine nature not human nature. Nestorianism: Jesus' divinity and humanity were separate in two distinct persons. Tritheism: Jesus is a separate god from God the Father. Socinianism (Unitarianism): The Holy Spirit is God's power and Jesus is a deified man. Modalism (Modal Monarchianism): Jeus is a mode of God the Father. Kenosis: Jesus gave up divine attributes while on earth. Adoptionism (Dynamic Monarchianism): God gave Jesus his powers and adopted him as a son. In rejection of these ideas the eccumenical councils affirmed "hypostatic union" that Jesus is fully man and fully God, and His two natures of human and divine are neither mixed nor separate but united in one person. This is part of the doctine of the Trinity, that there is one God but three persons. But back to the question of whether Jesus is God, when we look up the question we will find these references to scripture used to establish that Jesus is God: John 10:30-38, Matthew 16:13-17, Mark 14:61-64, John 14:6, Hebrews 1:8, Colossians 1:16 and John 12:40-41. However.... Matthew 16:13-17, Mark 14:61-64 only says the Son of God. But... Hebrews 1:10 and Colossians 1:16 say that Jesus is the creator of heaven and earth, which is certainly something we associate with God. Furthermore Hebrews 1:8 gives him the title of God and Colossians 1:19-20 explains that in Jesus all the fulness of God dwells so that in Jesus all things of Heaven and Earth are reconciled to Him. Then of course there is the gospel of John chapter 1 where it says that the "Word" was God and in the beginning with God, that through the "Word" all things were made, and then in verse 14 that the "Word" became flesh (a man) and dwelt among us, and finally John the Baptist bore witness that Jesus was that man. In John 10:30-38, Jesus says "I and My Father are one", in John 12:45, He says, "And he who sees Me sees Him who sent Me", and finally in John 14:7-10, He says, "If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him. Phillip said to Him, 'Lord show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us.' Jesus said to him, 'Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Phillip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, Show us the Father? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you, I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works.'" The closest thing to this in the first three gospels is Matthew 11:27 "All things have been delievered unto Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him", which does not say quite the same thing, or at the very least, is no where near as clear. My conclusion therefore is that although there is no clear declaration that Jesus is God in the first three gospels, it is the clear position of the gospel of John that Jesus is God, and likewise it is clear that the apostle Paul acknowledges and embraces this teaching of John's gospel in His letters. So whether you argue or not that this idea that Jesus is God was added by those who came later, you cannot hold the gospel of John and the letters of Paul to be authoritative and also repudiate this doctrine that Jesus is God. So even though in my own case, the affirmation of the divinity of Jesus is not central to my own faith, I cannot deny it and I even defend the doctrine, for I see sufficient support for it in scripture and I see no contradiction in it. Perhaps I should explain. In the concept of "hypostatic union" (fully man and fully God), it is apparent that the categories of man and God are not mutually exclusive. This does not mean that finite man (though he may have infinite potential) could ever be God who is infinite in actuality. However, it is not beyond the ability of God to become a man. In fact it is clear that God did not simply assume the form of a man, but became as all men begin in their mother's womb, a single cell growing until that time they are born a helpless infant. But now here is the confusing part. Was Jesus a helpless infant? If the infant was God then it seems obvious that the infant could do anything, and was therefore anything but helpless. This seems troublesome to me because if Jesus was not a helpless infant then in what way was He a man since all men are born as such. Yet it is clear that God did nothing that an infant could not do. So I cannot help but conclude that God decided that He would not do anything that a helpless infant could not do. But we are inclined to say, He could have changed His mind! Perhaps He could. But God does not do that. God's decisions are the laws of the universe. It was His decision that gravity would hold us in a certain way to the earth and that decision is the law of gravity. His decisions make everthing in this universe what it is. Therefore if God decided that He would not do anything that an infant could not do, then that is the law of its nature and we can say that God was in truth an infant in every sense. Thus by His own decision, for a time on earth, He was by His own choice emptied of infinite knowledge and power to become the helpless infant Jesus, to learn and grow in wisdom and strength as all men do. Phillipians 2:5-8 "Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross," Luke 2:52 "And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men." But if God bound himself to the limitations of a human being during His time on earth, then there was nothing that Jesus did that we also could not do. This idea would cause some consternation among Christians who like to point to the miracles that Jesus did and say that no human being could do such things. Well they would be right that only God could do such things. But it also clear that Jesus sent out His disciples to do everything that He himself had done, and they could do it because God would answer their prayers. Jesus said in Matt 17:20 that if they had but the faith the size of a mustard seed, they could command a mountain to move. The point is that power of God is available to all human beings for the asking, so Jesus did not in fact do anything that human beings could not do with a little faith. Thus Jesus was fully man. But without infinite power and knowledge in His own person, how was it that Jesus was God? Well God is not just a human definition of power and knowledge, but a real person. That helpless infant was still the person who created the heavens and the earth. We could say that just because God decided not to use His infinite power and knowledge, why would this mean that He was not God? Ok yes God decided before hand that He would not and this decision is the same as a law of nature, so even though we can say that He merely did not use His power, we can also say that laid it aside and subjected Himself to this limitation. But now this sounds a great deal like the heresy listed above as Kenosis. This was declared a heresy because it was thought that if Jesus was not fully divine, then His atoning work would not be sufficient to atone for the sins of the world. They were aware that, declaring that Jesus retained all the infinite power and knowledge of God, was in clear contradiction of scripture (for example Mark 13:32, "But of that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.") But, I deny that the infinite power and knowledge of God is necessary to His divinity. God is not our human definition of omniscience and omnipotence. Our definitions do not bind Him, such that He cannot do anything which seems to contradict them. God is just as capable of risk, self limitation and sacrifice as any of us. It is not this power and knowlege which makes God what He is, no more than it defines who we are. If we were to lose power or knowledge in any form or by whatever means, it does not change who we are! Nor does it change who God is because God is also a person not just some theological definition. If God is defined by anything it is goodness and love. This is not a human definition, for goodness and love is not defined by men but by God. All understanding of goodness and love by human beings are a shadow and distortion of what is truly good and loving. Pure goodness and love is found only in God. I think that there are some things that are worth any sacrifice and which justify defying even a god of knowledge and power. I think that such a circumstances would "strip God of His divinity" (so to speak) more surely than any lack of power and knowledge. Therefore it seems to me that God cannot be opposed to any cause that is truly founded in compassion and justice. Any opposition to God must ultimately derive from some fault of our own that calls some selfish conceit of ours, love or justice merely for own convenience and self-justification. So I believe that I uphold "hypostatic union" (fully God and fully man) when I say that "in becoming a human being inside of time and space God shed all of his infinite power and knowledge (humbled himself) to become an innocent and helpless infant". For I say nevertheless, this infant remained fully God and fully man because being helpless does not preclude divinity, no more than losing an arm or a leg deprives a man of his humanity. Not only does this make the idea of Jesus being fully man make a lot more sense but it is much more fully compatable with scripures such as Luke 2:52 and Mark 13:32. Even though I deny that infinite power and knowledge is necessary to God's divinity, I do think that our finitude is very much a definitive part of the circumstance of being human. For God to take the form of human being without sharing in our finitude, would be nothing more than play acting. Thus I believe that I can say that this is not the heresy of Kenosis, for I do not claim that in becoming a man, God emptied himself of His divinity, but according to scripture (Colossians 1:19-20) reconcilled in Himself all things of heaven and earth to become fully God and fully man. However, I will say that this interpretation explained above is only my opinion and my interpretation, and I would not dream of saying that anyone must agee with me. I take no authority upon myself in regards to the truth or in regards to the interpretation of scripture. The Bible is the word of God and in my view it is the only authoritative statement of truth for everyone to understand as best they can.

This computer is about 4 years old and has 256MB memory. This problem caused me to buy a new computer with 2GB memory etc..., but instead of retiring the old computer, I will retire the oldest in my LAN of four computers. I bought a new hard drive and installed the OP (Windows XP home ed) on the new hard drive for this old computer, BUT I want to understand what went wrong in order to avoid this happening again on the new hard drive. In particular I want to reassure myself that sp2 will not destroy the usefulness of the computer before I install the thing again on the new hard drive.I tend to remove nearly every startup entry so there is none that I feel is non-essential. That is why I am looking at the services as a possible cause of the problem. But do you think 256MB is insufficient to run sp2? Since I can always add more memory to the computer if that will help. As for removing something I shouldn't have, it is always possible, but that would be good news, since it is less likely to reoccur on the new hard drive.The comments about ZA is appreciated and I had already just about given up on this program. The Windows firewall seems to be working fine, on the other computers and since they connect to the internet through a router maybe it sufficient. Thanks for the help.

I am trying to figure what is wrong with this one copy of Windows that has slowed to crawl since I installed sp2. I certainly hope that sp2 is not the cause so I am searching for malicious software undetected by spybotS&D, avast, and AdAware.My troubles with ZoneAlarm has left my computer unprotected by any firewall at times and then the efforts to fix my DSL connections had me connecting directly to the modem rather than through the router as I usually do. So it is possible that something has gotten through.I am particularly suspicious of the services I cannot see that run hidden under the name of svchost.exe

Something rather odd happened and I wondered if anyone knows how I can avoid this happening again.I used msconfig to disable startup features and suddenly Windows says that excessive hardware change means that I am required to reactivate Windows XP. Well I don't want to go through that repeatedly or Micrsoft will think I am pirating their software.I am trying to figure out what is wrong with the copy of windows on this particular hard disk that has slowed to crawl and so I want to disable services that may be responsible, since avast and spybotS&D and adaware are not detecting anything.

Indeed, for while I cannot fault fundamentalist Christians (and Muslims) in their judgement that their faith is far more important to them than human logic, reason and science, I find it sad that they perceive science to be such a threat to their faith that they have closed themselves off to the possibility that science can be as much a source of truth as their scriptures. It is even a greater tragedy that in the defense of their faith, they refuse to understand the difference between the methods of science and pure rhetoric, feeling it neccessary to put forward this pseudoscience of Creationism.

Yes indeed, but the question is why should the existence of God change any of this? The whole problem of evil and suffering is a proposed contradiction between this state of affairs you describe and the existence of a good and loving God. But it is my argument that it is the same as a fundamental question of parenthood on a larger scale. Sure parents do not have the power and knowledge to absolutely prevent evil and suffering among their children, but if they did have such power and knowledge, should they try? Can parents take away the possibility of evil and suffering from their children without taking away all the freedom and meaning of their lives? There are cases of parents with a great deal of money and power who try and in all such stories that I have heard the result is not good. These children quite often rebel and/or self-destruct. These are clearly examples of bad parenting. I believe that this reveals the flaw in the argument represented by this problem of evil and suffering.

You know after watching a film like "Water" one can really get the impression that religion is a tool of those in power to get those without the power to tamely accept their abuses and injustices without fighting back. But what this point of view fails to realize is that these religions were not constructed for this purpose but twisted later for this purpose. Anything can be twisted and abused as tools for those in power and I don't even think that this is done consciously. The real problem is lies in the nature of human beings to manipulate others and everything else to serve their own desires. We are all victims of a spiritual disease that make the maxim "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely", a fundamental truth of human nature.The irony is that many if not all religions seek to combat this very spritual disease. Yet as always in the battle between good and evil, evil often seems to have the upper hand, and as a result even the small victories of good requires some faith that a victory is possible, because the evidence often makes it look rather hopeless. Building and creating things requires hard work and imagination, but destruction is so much easier. Evil derives from laziness and complacency.

This post is inspired by the cable TV series "4400" in which mankind of the future has abducted, altered and returned 4400 people in order to alter the course of history and save mankind. While watching the show I thought how pointless it was to resist the aims and goals of these future humans. And then it occured to me that relative to the humans of the present these future humans were effectively equivalent to God in power, knowledge and sovereignty. The idea is not a new one. It has been entertained in a number of science fictions stories like "Dune" by Frank Herbert and "The Redemption of Christopher Columbus" by Orson Scott Card. In Card's book however the intervention is much smaller, consisting of only 3 people sent back. In "Dune" it is only one man (and his children) who has the ability to see the future and alter its course, only I think this book sees beneath the superficialities to the underlying truth, that such an ability spells the destruction of human potentiality. Therefore the son and God emperor of Dune, spends a thousand years breeding humans for an immunity to his own ability to see the future. I think this idea raises some interesting theological questions. It is so easy for us to imagine people with just this one ability of forknowledge and no other qualifications, who for all intents and purposes, take upon the role of God. However when I look at the state of the world and consider that God is its creator, I cannot help feeling that this ability of foreknowledge actually trumps the power of God rather than merely immitates it. Otherwise we are logically forced to the conclusion that evil is necessary for the greater good and therefore justified. But this is something I could never accept. The possibility of evil, may be necessary for a greater good, as an inherent risk in the existence of life, by its very nature, but I repudiate the idea that evil itself could be neccessary or justified. Therefore I agree with the conclusions of "Dune" that existence of forknowledge by any being, including God, is destructive of the potential of life. I believe it reduces life to non-life, turning all subjects into objects. Therefore if God has the power of foreknowledge, then I believe he must have imposed limitations upon himself in the creation of life so that His forknowledge would not include our choices. That puts me within the bounds of the controversial doctrine of Open Theism.

I don't think so. After the connection fails I usualy close the browser and reopen so that it attempts to open my default page for which I use my ISP (Earthlink) homepage.

You know I have seen a lot of marketing schemes and mail order companies that operate a lot like a religion in the way the promote their product (Usana for example). It is that blurring of the lines which makes it particularly hard to classify scientology. Is this simply a new type of non-traditional medicine? Is it a new pyramid scheme? Or is it a religion in the tradition of the far east like Buddhism which does not claim divine revelation. It certainly partakes of many of the aspects of a self-help organization as well. Scientology certainly has been targeted by more than the usual number and severity of allegations leveled at a new religion. This could be because it does not include any kind of moral standard or objective. The practice of paying members commissions on new recruits they bring in, is one of the more decisive indications that this is more of a pyramid like business than a church.

Oh well, I did hope so, but no dice. The problem did recur. And it does not pop up a blocked message in the alert log every time the connect attempt is made and the other recent blocked programs although outgoing were not given names.

It is possible that turning the Automatic lock on and then off again has cleared up the problem for since doing so I have had no more problems with my connectivity.

LOL Yeah sure, there are limits. There are a certain type of symptoms (especially the combination of fever and rash in that example), not to mention broken bones, open wounds and other life threatening symptoms, where a physicians help is wise to say the least. These are after all the sort of situations in which Western medicine especially excels. In other types of sympoms like chronic annoyances and discomforts, rushing to Western medicine for a rescue may be over doing it. LOL Some degree of reasonable belief is required for the placebo effect to work and not every one is dumb enough to believe in cure-all magnetic head bands. ................But if it works?..............shrug....

That was a very reasonable theory. However, unless my copy of ZoneAlarm is corrupted, that is not what is happening. In the English version it is under Program Control, Main tab and it is called "Automatic Lock". Mine is disabled Well I really need to wait until I get locked out again to try it, but I see a number of outgoing that are blocked with no program name given.

I have just about had it with ZoneAlarm. It interferes with so much neccessary software. I have no doubt that if I just knew what software to make ZoneAlarm ignore it would solve some of my problems.The problem which has me fed up at the moment is my connectivity with Earthlink DSL. When I go long periods without internet traffic, the Earthlink DSL goes into some kind of sleeper mode and the ZoneAlarm prevents the signal that will wake it up again. So I have to shut down ZoneAlam in order to reactivate my internet connection, but turning Zone Alarm on and off is pretty time consuming.Any advice?

I think that the determination to eliminate the placebo effect is part of what is wrong with Western medicine. Logically it seems that if the placebo effect can cure something then a drug which has a significantly greater effect than the placebo effect must be better. But the fallacy lies in the fact that these drugs with their objectively measurable effect have undesirable and insuffienciently understood side effects. The problem is that the drugs are often too strong and even harmful. In the pursuit of this ideal to rule out the placebo effect, Western medicine has violated the Hippocratic oath, which was to, at least, do no harm. And so in the effort to cure one ill, modern doctors damage other parts of the body. The use of chemotherapy in the treatment of cancer is typical of Western medicine in the attempt to kill off the cancer before you kill the patient himself with the poisons you put into him. With these alternative forms of medicine, whether it is homeopathy, herbs, nutrition, crystals, accupunture or even a chant, at the very least you are employing the power of the placebo effect (which is very real and substantial) without doing harm in the process! Furthermore, I would not discount the possibility of effectiveness beyond the placebo effect. They could very well fail to produce statistically significant results because they only work on some people and not others. Certainly nutritional healing has a very sound rational to it. But regardless, I would prefer all of these alternative forms of medicine for the simple fact that they are far more likely to be harmless if they are not successful.

But I said just the opposite. I said that neither science nor religion really change very much at all except in the very beginning when they are still trying to figure things out. Sure Relativity and Quantum mechanics was a big change, but so was the Protestant reformation (and counter-reformation), but on the other the other hand these changes left the core of both science and religion unchanged. We still teach Newtonian physics in high school and in a college introductory physics course, just as Christians still hold to the same cannon of the Bible and the Nicean creed. I was simply making the point that the changes which do occur do not invalidate them but just the opposite that they indicate their continued strength and usefulness. In fact, just as you say, the greater willingness of science to change is an advantage in science rather than a weakness.

My disagreement with this is stronger than any disagreement I have ever had with anyone in the astohost forums (or any other forums for that matter). I strongly believe in religous freedom and a multicultural society. I rejoice in the diversity of human belief for I see in that diversity great beauty and strength. Threads like this are extremely valuable for it helps people of diverse beliefs like CaptainRon and myself learn to communicate more effectively. Through that communication peace becomes a more certain possiblity and mankind becomes a stronger whole. If people feel threatened by some thread they do not need to read it, post in it, or participate in any way. The internet is worldwide so if you participate you should be prepared to make your own decisions about how much you want to be exposed to the world. But in that diversity there are those opposed to this point of view, atheists like Hitler and the communists who irrationally believe or hope that religion will fade into obscurity in the light of reason and science. I am a scientist myself and strongly defend the methods, validity, and value, but I find this atheistic point of view very foolish. I may not agree or find much merit in CaptainRon's belief in these "yuga" as a process of history, but I vigorously defend His point of view as no less valid than any scientific perspective. If he were claiming that two different parallel lines on a Euclidean plane meet somewhere at a point then I would have cause to challenge his understanding of the concepts involved. But scientific conclusions are not based on proof and only a non-scientist unfamiliar with the methods of science would think such a thing. This idea is in fact typical of an atheist who has made science into his religion. But this religion has nothing to do with real science. Well you are welcome to your opinion but I do not agree with your characterization of religion at all nor with your conclusions about its role in the progress and dreams of people. The religious diversity of mankind forces us to deal with our essentially subjective nature, so that we do not become lost in the vanity that our abstractions of ojectivity inspire. To allow this God would indeed be encouraging stupidity in mankind, and our progress would come to a halt as our prejudices remained unchallenged by different points of view. We human beings are more complex than you seem to think for within our bodies lives another lifeform of a completely different nature than the biological forms of life on this planet. This lifeform is commonly called the human mind, and it is so much more alive and aware than other lifeforms on this planet that its potentiality dwarfs all these others to near insignificance. God would encourage our minds to be stronger and assert greater control over our body as part of the process of maturity and assuming responsibility. The point is that we are to use our instincts and not be used by them, for that would diminish the life of the human mind. In this way we can become aware that our life is not simply a matter of providing for the needs of our body alone, but that all life on this planet is interconnected and part of a single whole, which we need to protect and care for. No other life form on the planet is capable of this.

People use the same BS arguement to say that science keeps changing its mind about things and therefore it is meaningless. The truth is that both religion and science change their mind about almost nothing and this argument is a silly product of rhetoric which can only convince fools. The fact that both science and religion adapt only means that they are alive and well and nothing more. Commercialization is a pervasive fact of modern society which affects only "public" perception of everything but really affect nothing for those who are actually involved and take it seriously. Science is an excellent example of this as well.

Well the question is whether everything real is necessarily objectively observable, and many people, famous physicists included, find reason to answer this question with an emphatic, NO! Instead such people see this restriction of science to what is objectively observable as a rather limiting kind of filter, which produces a very narrow view of the world. Most people in fact would find the idea of limiting reality to measurable quantities and the mathematical relationships between them as rather absurd, but that is exactly what physics does.

This is not quite accurate. God is not a meaningful object in any scientific statement, for science restricts itself to that which is objectively observable or measurable. God is clearly not objectively observable or measurable. Therefore Science cannot say that God does not exist any more than it can say that God does exist. Science cannot say anything about God at all. God would not be a legitimate part of any scientific hypothesis and therefore God could not be a part of any scientific conclusion. Mathematics rests on proof not science. Science rests on observational data, by accepting or rejecting hypotheses as result of experimental observation. Yes God is an big unknown to science because nothing which is known about him is the result of any objective observation or measurement. As a result, God is useless as a scientific explanation. As an explanation for things God is a black box into which questions disappear without a trace with words like "because God made it that way" and "that is how God obviously wanted it to be".

I am familiar with the linguistic/genetic connections and Hitler's crazy ideas, as well as the pretext used by the British to support their racist attitudes in India. The connection is very old and there is no reason to see any substantial link to culture and I certainly will not support the racist ideas, fostered by the British, that tries to make the lighter skinned Indians out to be superior to the darker skinned. In any case, there is no denying, that rhetoric is an invention of ancient Greek culture deriving largely from their practice of democracy. Aristotle made a detailed analysis of rhetoric and contrasted as the antithesis of scientific thinking. The adoption of democracy and Western legal practices in India has no doubt made rhetoric a part of modern Indian life in the form of politics and courtroom dialogue, but there is no doubting that the practice of rhetoric has deeper roots in the West, especially in the US whose society was built from its practice nearly from scratch. This is not a matter of pride (let alone racial pride since I doubt I have any Greek ancestors). Rhetoric has often been considered a plague of Western society starting with the criticisms of Plato, for the distortions of truth and justice which it often fosters. There is no need to be defensive for I make no assumption that western culture is the be all and end all of modern society. I point out the cultural differences only to understand what we find so annoying about the way we express ourselves so that in understanding this we can communicate better.

Well extremists like Eternal_Bliss, CaptainRon and myself are going to object to this. I consider myself a moderate, but I can take things pretty seriously in support of my moderate point of view, which makes me an extremist by your definition. Suffice to say that the term "extremist" is a very relative term, and most people feel strongly about something which they take very seriously relative to other people.

I have been searching through the thread to find out where this impression of similarity came from. And it was the following post, suddenly making irrational personal comments in the midst of a discussion. CaptainRon did the same thing both before and after yours, although now that I compare them side by side I would have to admit that his/her are a bit more irrational than yours. Although yours was every bit as unjustified for the reasons I have already explained. My point was not that you were proselytizing but that taking offense at my having my own definite ideas makes it sound like you are, for this is exactly the kind of thing I have heard from visiting missionaries. After calling CaptainRon on the first one, it turns out that his/her reason was even more irrational. He/her says "I called u frustrated because u were calling people extremists", since I was actually responding to someone else calling people extremists and refuting it, this reason is really bizzare. The second instance was even more absurd, since he/she is doing in this post what he accuses me of doing. He/she goes back to posts a month back in order to turn that discussion into a person attack derailing the current discussion and then he/she accuses me of engaging in a "thrash mash". As far as I can tell, with these outrageious personal comments, it is I who have been subjected to the closest thing to name-calling in this thread and it is he/she that insists on turning this discussion into a "thrash mash". I have sincerely been puzzled as to the reason for all this, which is why I attempted to explain this as a cultural thing in my last thread, while ignoring the continuing abuse coming from CaptainRon. Of course, it was just a shot in the dark, so any light you can shed on this (including confirmation or denial of my suggestions) would be appreciated. Well him/her pulling the race card for no reason could be considered typical of him/her. I am not ignorant of modern history, but government and the cultural attitudes of society are two different things. But since as I said, I have not been to India, my guesses are a shot in the dark. All in all, since we really do not know that much about each other personally, would you not agree that personal comments are, at least, not helpful and quite likely to be abrasive and insulting? I would suggest that if we are inclined to wonder about the personal character of another poster, we could simply send them a PM asking them. For speaking of rhetoric, as I have, making personal comments like this is worst sort of tactic of rhetoric there is.