>Yes but I'm not seeing whole lot of empathy from people who are basically saying "shut up ". Maybe some people feel a little told off by this sort of religious zeal. I have no problem with it due to my early hefty catholic inoculation against all things religious. It has just left me curious about how people can believe these things. Why is it different to say believing in magic.

I always feel it shows a certain respect for someone if I actually take the time to engage with them and argue. If I think someone is a complete twit I generally just ignore them. This usually comes across, though I do find there are some who are so used to feeling intellectually intimidating (often I think because they have mostly picked very shallow pools in which to wade ) sometimes take offense that one doesn't just roll over in the face of their usual patter.

Some can dish it out but can't take it. That's happened once to me here, and that's really too bad because it involved a person I thought was one of the most interesting and intelligent people on the forum. But I offended him which was not my intent as I had never been personally offended by so many things he said I found intellectually offensive.

In the case of Rick, though, after initially engaging him specifically on the terms of his cited authorities etc I came to realize he was just shutting out input. I find some fundamentalists welcome discussion of their own citations (think Mencken and WJ Brian in the Scopes Trial) but Rick is wielding his ignorance like a righteous sword. I don't find it threatening in any way and would never want him censored or banned but I do find it boring now, and will probably ignore him in the future.


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>>I actually agree with both you and Hugo on this. (I twitted facetiously just to see how it works ) It is easy to just not click on responses you know a priori are going to be painful.
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>>But I also have the feeling you get when someone sits down next to you on the bus and begins to wet themself. It is not so much the discomfort they are causing you but you can only ignore their plight if you completely shut off all human empathy. That is a skill I don't like to find myself refining.
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>>>>>>>>I tried the twit and it does work. Not sure what did Tore mean.
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>>>>>>>I didn't find it, please direct me.
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>>>>>>
>>>>>>You need to click on the persons name that you want to twit in a message header. Once it opens their profile, you will find a twit menu option on the menu bar of the profile pane.
>>>>>
>>>>>Cool. I've been on UT since 1996 and this is the first time I've twitted anyone
>>>>
>>>>I have only twitted a handful of people, but those were certainly worth the effort.
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>>>I must be missing something here. I just don't see whats got everyone so fired up about this. Its not like he's sitting on the other end of your sofa and won't go home.