@TheMiddleWay Close to what I was thinking, the problem is that on top of just coming to agree upon the definitions to work off of, it'd also be pretty tedious getting everyone to follow links for the sake of typing out a comment... Just from reading replies and comments in the group, I can see that the description is regularly ignored and it's literally the first thing you see upon joining... but message me and maybe we could work something out! I think we have a similar plan in mind.

@TheMiddleWay Did you not try a number of times in the past to do Just That, but most would not acknowledge nor adhere to the process? I thought you were, at one time, making mention of trying to solidify an agreed upon definition for some commonly used terms here at the site. I never recall how your attempts ended. I felt it was a decent enough idea, but even as you were trying to formulate basic definitions, others were debating those definitions as you were birthing them down to the second. I think... that was when i sort of began to taper off and vanish.

It just became soo overwhelming back then and I couldnt really see a solution in sight. However, if you are intending to utilize this theory in a specific group (we didn't have groups yet, back then) I think with a lower population of people and a common group ideology, it should be Far Easier to impliment and execute.

@TheMiddleWay Actually, it was during that two day fiasco when agnostics and atheists were having out the battle royale and i lost my shit. You weren't taking upon yourself as huge an endevour as mentioned above, but you were trying to find a commonground amoung the group JUST so we could get beyond the issue with semantics. That was a mess from hell, thats for sure.

Spot On sir!

@TheMiddleWay
The way I generally regard the debate of agnostic vs. atheist essentially comes down to this: Until we have absolute, total, complete and 100% accurate knowledge of all things everywhere through all of existence (not necessarily limited only to our own observable universe), then it is impossible to prove that there definitively does not exist any god of any kind anywhere. That being the case, then logically the possibility that at least one god might exist somewhere, regardless of their nature or even whether or not they interact in any way with our experiences of reality cannot be discounted, regardless of how minimal we might regard the probability.

Or, to put it another way, lack of evidence of the existence of something may be sufficient reason to choose not to believe in it, but it is not sufficient to prove its non-existence. And this doesn't only apply to gods, but also a number of other things people like to argue about, such as extraterrestrial intelligent beings (and their space/time ships), ghosts, big foot, etc.

In the end, I think that logical and rational consistency is all that we can possibly rely on (short of acquiring new information) to help us assess the likely probability of existence of anything not yet proven nor disproven. I get frustrated with the rational inconsistency of people dismissing out of hand even the slim possibility of the existence of something not yet disproven, especially when they use it as a basis for intellectual elitism.

@TheMiddleWay You know, I had never fully become aware of this fact despite all the years i have utilized language! haha! It wasnt until you and i were in here debating and I "ASSumed" Everyone agreed with semantics, you and i specifically, were using, only to find... a few of those times we were the odd ones out and misunderstood.

It was during those experiences here at this site that it became so utterly clear to me that... Many People have completely different ideas about the meanings of words. The connotation of the words became so vastly opposed, when in reality, we learned in the end, a number of us were all sort of saying the Same Thing, once again. So much drama over so little issue.

It was ultimately eye opening for me, but I sure could have done without the drama. I never told anyone this, but i Almost stopped coming back to a.com a few times over Just This matter in particular. I got sooo sick and tired of Everything becoming a battle over basic word useage. I was like, "what in theee fuck...??" It was frustrating. I am Not a Fan of drama to that magnitude and even I Got drug into it and got pissed one night and disappointed myself when I got a bit too feisty. I am sure you recall. It was what prompted my "apology" message. lol! Niiiice. Memoooories...!! haha

@TheMiddleWay Absolutely. I could not understand why we spent 75% of the time debating semantics and 25% debating actual topics at hand. It got soo uber laaame-o!

I thought OUR arguments were pretty fucking strong. Yours were pretty damn solid. But then attention was often diverted away from your points and was instead refocused on wording. It was soo aggravating. That was when i lost my head and flipped the fuck out and went on that verbal rampage. Geez!

I was disappointed in myself that I lost my shit over chat. I knew I was soo much better than that. Normally I keep a tight grip on my personal self control so to lose that control was a sad turn of events on my end.

I cannot believe it!! I can say, though, I have known you since 2017!! Hahaha! You know, you were the First person I befriended here and it was within hours of joining. The other few people I also befriended early on are mostly faded into the background. You are the only one Ive consistently kept in touch with and have a friendship outside of a.com with. We HAVE emotionally invested quite a bit, to be honest. I really only placed my Personal emotions into you and two others here at the site. Then the emotions i put into the site On a Fucking WHOLE!! Geez... no shit: Damn you site! I love yo site! Get away from me site! Come back to me site! I FEEL IT ALL! hahaha I can echo you with Utter conviction!

hahaha

I must say, though, overall, this site has brought some of the Most interesting people into my life and I have met astonishing individuals here that I can honestly say I care for outside of the site and would someday wish to meet and continue a friendship with. In that, I am so pleased to have joined and I shall NEVER regret this choice.

Of all the sites I belong to and social media i frequent, this is the main one that feels like "home" to me. I tolerate bullshit from time to time because it is worth it, overall. I am Thankful to have found reasons to Be emotionally invested. I am equally thankful to have come across you, as well.

@TheMiddleWay
"It's endemic to social media, combining all the classic: dunning-kruger, the lack of respect for expertise, poor research skills, etc."

It isn't endemic to social media alone, it's endemic to society. It just becomes so much more obvious on social media because of the frequency of interactions with large numbers of people, and the perceived-anonymity (illusory though it is) making people respond in ways more consistent with how they really want to.

But yeah, it really irritates me the extent to which people lack basic research skills, or even the desire to bother doing research on even a basic level, not to mention that most people aren't even aware of cognitive biases so make zero effort to combat them in themselves. It also doesn't help that a lot of people simply have no training in critical thinking, critical analysis, and even informal logic (let alone formal logic).

I see it as a failure on the part of our societies, because it is the responsibility of a society to teach its members to be the best they can be, and many societies simply fail to do that in this specific respect because of how much it causes head-butting with theists (who, after all, make up an incredibly large percentage of the population). I've also sometimes (IRL and online) come across another side of it that frustrates me personally even more than theists' intransigence, and that's atheists who are so deeply elitist that they aren't even willing to explain their position, let alone support and defend it in a debate.

Without the free exchange of ideas, people can't learn new things from outside their sub-culture. And when you get sub-cultures that deliberately insulate themselves from those who would disagree with them, you get polarization, and as the echo chambers intensify, that polarization increases. This is why fundamentalist, white, evangelical Christian communities have become so extremist, because they deliberately insulate themselves from anyone who believes anything even a little differently than them. And the same goes for politics in the US, where most of the political polarization that has become so obvious these past 20 years or so is predominantly due to the fact that conservatives refuse to engage in civil discourse with liberals, and liberals refuse to engage in civil discourse with conservatives, and without such discourse there is no exchange of ideas, there is only the echo chamber.

“He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion... Nor is it enough that he should hear the opinions of adversaries from his own teachers, presented as they state them, and accompanied by what they offer as refutations. He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them...he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.”
~~ John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (1859) [emphasis added by me]

Mill presents a principal that is necessary, that I personally try to take to heart, and that entirely too few people have ever even heard.

But, of course, none of that matters so much when people insist on arguing over semantics with even greater intransigence than they argue over the original arguments. And in that regard, while I do think it is important to argue in favor of the semantics that are the most logically consistent, I think that a general deference in favor of the semantics used by the person who made the first point is in order. After all, if they are the ones who started the discussion by making a point about something, then their point was based and intentioned on those specific semantics, and surly any arguments against that point should have to use those same semantics.

I also think people should learn a little more about the basics of linguistics. At least to the point of understanding the fluidity and variability of language.

Sorry for the long post. I'm not trying to hijack your discussion, I just tend to write a lot. (For that other discussion we were having in that other thread with bobhoff, I spent quite a few more hours than I should have or realized this past day writing up a response, and it's about 15 pages long -- I'll post it in some manner eventually, but it needs polishing... Anyway, I can write at length with ease is all I'm saying).

@TheMiddleWay Aww... yes I feel likewise. I am soo appreciative to have found a person i have so many things in common with. You are one of my Favorite ways to pass the time and have been for the last many months.

Bwaahahahaa! YES! I looove the ones who try to make their points via by borrowing the "points" others have made before them! Or, of course, the coveted Meme to convey said feelings and expressions! I swear, I just want to make a bunch of cat memes to respond with: I haz no gud argumentz. I haz Sam Harris instructional!

I need that fucking button too! We should invent the software R. haha! We can create a program that shuts your shit down after at certain times or after an allowed amount of time on each site per day. We can program it to only allow us to go to A.com for 2 hrs a day! HAHA! yeaaah riiiight! I couldnt do Shit in 2 hrs here! I need AT LEAST 4! bwahaha! Just to keep my email from going into the hundreds every 24 hr period, I MUST spend at least 1.5 hrs going through this shit. Last week when I wasn't on as much, i got over 650 alerts and that was WITH ME having already tweeked settings to get the Minimum amount of notifications and i was still getting on about an hr or two a day and i didnt even respond to anyone via conversation here nor comments on passages and i Still could Not stay up! For example, even today, I just checked this shit about an hour ago and im Already UP to 29 alerts and 9 emails. Ridiculous. Im going to shut the messenger down again with this shit if im not careful! LMAOOO but then again... i do nothing to warrant that sort of influx of attention. I just... chat for fuck sakes! ... Mostly with you, too. If i go back and look through my profile, its you whom I respond to. I feel like a shit half the time because I am often tagged in things, but i check my TMW posts First and Foremost! hah I suppose im a dick. heh

Yes. You and i did go through some crazy life events in order to develop our personal opinions and we have Both spent a majority of our lives completing extensive research and studies on theology. I recall the first time we spoke about how personal beliefs on god and religion, i was taken aback by your tales because they Truly mirrored My Experiences and all my life, I'd never met a person who was That Fucking closely aligned to my own. I didn't think anyone else existed that felt even mildly similar to myself and i KNOW how much Work, dedication, devotion and Time it took for me to grow and evolve into my agnosticism. I also flip-flopped back and forth between athiest/agnostic for the first years... and eventually stopped at agnostic for, pretty much, the EXACT SAME reasons as you did. I stick here now because I feel i havent the arrogance to speak in such finite terms or opinions on Anything, to be honest. I prefer to keep it open ended. Like you, I can never know what the future will hold and i have a deep and profound understanding of change, flexibiity and evolution. What i believe today could easily be uprooted and flipped around tomorrow. Nothing is fixed nor set. At least in my mind, it is as such. Same for you.

People turn to a quick understanding of topics as well and do not bother, often, to take the weeks, months or years to FULLY develop a strong, working opinon on a subject. Instead they run to google search, type a bit of shit in and then build an ENTIRE Argument off of that. I always tell people google can fucking aid you in proving and disproving Anything ina shabby, weak, foundationless way. You could fucking find enough research to prove Jesus prefers Coke over Pepsi or Vice Versa if you searched the internet long enough! Everything can be proven or disproven with some help from an internet search engine. haha!! Who NEEDS facts when they've got GOOGLE!!! Yes! Because we ALL know if its on Google, it MUST be True!!!

Memes are like the New Picture Books for adults. If you've got something to say, say it with a fucking CAT holding a cheeseburger with the face of Jesus burned into the bun or a Unicorn with Steve Pinker riding its back! That ought to out-debate me Any Time! I mean, who can outargue a fucking Cat who HAZ a Cheezeburger nor a Unicorn in general?!

@Sadoi

Hi, Sadoi, nice to meet you

@TheMiddleWay
"I'm quite immune to 'long posts'."
Should I take that to mean that you're straight? I kind of assumed that you were honest about that in your profile, but sometimes you just can't trust people

@TheMiddleWay And what, pray-tell, is the joke you are burned on in two days? Not the Jumbo Shrimp, eh? Am i just confuzzled... lol cat haz cheezeburger...? hahah elaborate!

@EntropicLynx oh see... TheMiddleWay AND mysef are renouned for writing fucking novella's. Your posts do nooothing to intimidate either he nor I! hah!

Feel free to write to your hearts content so long as you write with substance and not merely in circles in order to defend a deflated argument or standpoint. If its fresh and lively, all the better.

You see... SIZE DOESNT MATTER to us. hee hee no pun intended...

@TheMiddleWay I exercise the same technique, as you know. It is how i came to agnosticism myself. I must Always test my Own belief systems, mores, laws, morals, etc in order to Know for certain whether what I am willing to invest my mind and body into are Genuine and Real and not just a mirage or an illusion I have fallen prey to in that particular moment or phase in life.

How else can i Honestly test "Truth?" That is nearly as elusive as catching being a cat attempting to catch a laser pointer light. Since it is intengible and only exists inside my own head, i need to Test that shit so i don't fool myself.

It isn't always easy to seperate your Own Self from your Own Beliefs and to examine them under a microscope like a scientist.

Most people come into a belief and just... stick with it void of putting it to the test and making certain it can stand up to genuine scrutiny. Truth starts within each individual and in order for me to be confident enough in my Own Truths, I will Always flip the swithch on myself over and over and over again until I am left with the Purest Form of what I believe.

... but even from there, i still leave open the Option to Continue to EVOLVE and to grow and change into something else, down the line, and that includes growing into someone who will someday chuck the Truths/Beliefs of Today into the trash and to start anew.

I evolve. I am constantly in flux. I will never force myself to hold to One Belief and to hold to it for the duration of my life time because I Will Change and... I will be a totally different person in another decade. The Truths that DO stand the test of time with me, those eventually become my cornerstones, but the rest...? The rest is always up in the air and I reserve the Right to change a Any Time! haha

@TheMiddleWay oh hahaha! Now I get the joke! There goes My naive brain again and it didn't even catch the "long post" joke. I couldn't figure out what he meant by 'are you straight.' Lol I read it over and over again and thought, "what does writing a lot have to do with being gay?" LMAOOO!

Seriously though, as much as I try to fight it, deep down inside I'm just a giggling little Asian anime looking creature who cannot catch most sex jokes! LOL

I am such a dumbass! hahaha! I am shy and naive when i comes to sex jokes and the such. I RARELY get it. I require notes, a map, a compass and I will more likely than not Still manage to get lost!
lol

@TheMiddleWay @EntropicLynx I can take a hit on both for the team since I Am Team Taco AND Team Hot Diggity Dog!

@Sadoi
Little Asian Anime creature, huh? What genre? (Just curious).

@Sadoi, @TheMiddleWay
Also, am I the only one that finds it hilarious that this started as a semi-rant about arguments of semantics and has shifted to be using double entendre semantics deliberately to make jokes? That's just funny to me.

As for the tacos, I've never been a fan of crunchy shells... has to be soft for me.

@EntropicLynx @TheMiddleWay now how in thee fuck did i miss the end of this convo??

Entropic- well since i Loathe anime, I couldnt tell you a genra. I grew up with it in my Japanese household with mostly Japanese satellite channels. If i were to Choose an anime character to encapsulate my person, I would go for Ling-Ling from drawn together. I am often referred to as various creatures from the Pokemon world. Thank god no one ever told me I looked the the introduction to a Sailor Moon episode or anything absurd like that. And i've never been refered to as a... sexual anime character either.

I hope this works. My anime alter ego:

Seman antics?! Well, considering im the ONLY girl in this current thread... I am more akin to the bolonga in this TMD/ELynx verbal sandwich. waving flag Heeelp!!

Entropic- yea Im not into crunchy either. If its going "crunch" down below the hull... I suggest you find a quick way OUT of the taco shack! (shudder to think)