Point by point. So everyone can identify it properly, this is not going to be a flame, even though I disagree with most of what you said for reasons of approach, which I will elaborate.

It certainly was not written with intent to create more grief or aggravate.

I know that now. Intent is not everything. Emotional denseness is not to be confused with innocence.

It's amazing to me how much my beliefs (be they either classified as scientific, pseudo-scientific or religious) always tend to infuriate some folks here.

Your beliefs, as religious beliefs, would not infuriate anyone. Religion is religion. I think that everyone here understands that religion is impervious to certain things because it's so personal.

Your beliefs, when presented as science, infuriate most people here (and embarrass the rest) because the one thing that most of us have in common is an understanding and a reverence for the scientific method. We know that it has limits and rules, and that your beliefs are not pertinent to any of them. It's especially galling for me to see you apply scientific accessories to your beliefs in the area of social relationships to allow you to make moral judgments with legal applications based on "scientific" evidence, because so much evil has been done in precisely that way to so many people for centuries. I have given up expecting you to recognize this either: emotional denseness, however, is not to be confused with innocence.

Your beliefs have been redefined by you as religious in this very thread, and yet you backpedal -- "be they either classified as scientific, pseudo-scientific or religious" -- to give yourself a route back to the scientific definition. Please make up your mind. You know they can't be both. Do you really want them to be "pseudoscience", there in never-never-land with Arthur Conan Doyle's fairies and the TV psychics, with all the logic of religion and all the spiritual validity of science? No? I didn't think so.

I guess that's just feedback to be expected since many of the views displayed here, political or otherwise, nonplus me.

Many very intelligent people lack true empathy, so you're in good company.

I hesitate to make any remark that will offend, but I will make a comment anyway as it goes against my nature to suppress thought.

Oh, go ahead. Suppress one. It's called "tact" in some circles. (OK, so that was a little flame. But, oh boy, the disclaimer just kills me: "I don't want to do this, but someone is twisting my inner arm, so I will anyway." Sheesh.)

Doesn't it worry you a little bit that folks like RL, whose primary form of communication is the flame, fear you and your wrath?

No. For the record, I don't mind if my wrath is feared. What is the point of having wrath at all if it's a cute wrath? And I am in no way convinced that RL, or folks like him -- speak up, whoever you are! -- are afraid of me, per se. Toddlers, teens and grandparents love me. I'm not that fearsome.

Or Tom?

Tom??? Afraid of me??? Oh, pull the other one, please: it hath bells on! Tom has never shrunk from anything I have ever said to him, that I know of. I take his remark to be a sign of respect.

Or half the board?

Was there a poll I missed? If I see something stupid, I will address it. The solution to this is plain: less stupidity.

The danger that comes with a climbing to a certain height is the risk of falling.

OK.

On the whole, I tend to think of myself as average. I travel with some very bright and creative people, so I'm in maybe the middle third of my peer group. I'm sure not going to stay downstairs because I'm afraid I'll fall. The idea is to hang on to the railing.

Greater development comes with greater reponsibilities to control emotional responses because of the danger to oneself and others if one lets loose.

Emotional wounds deserve emotional responses. Like creates like. The greater danger is to overcontrol emotional responses and let them cause the kind of stress that destroys one's health, or not to voice the outrage that one feels upon seeing obvious bigotry or indifference to human suffering because it wouldn't be "nice".

I know you haven't had an easy go of things, but these things just test our humanity. Namecalling is reserved for folks at a certain level and though it may be tempting at times to fire a salvo which could lay waste to another poster or even a portion of the entire board, it really doesn't help oneself grow or change the views of these others.

First: Do not pat me on the head. This is a warning.

Second: There have been times when I have sunk to that level, and I usually retreat from the boards at that point, because I understand that there is no future in it. On the other hand, if I can "lay waste" to something so dumb that it deserves to be illuminated by a solar flare at close range, I will do so. This is the power of the word. It can change the world, even if some minds are so closed that they will never be changed. How does swallowing one's real feelings and beliefs and saying nothing, the embodiment of carpethood, help one to grow?

My own respect for another poster goes up when they can resist the urge to sink to the level of their attacker.

It depends on the nature of the attack. It's all very fine to be high-minded and shake one's finger at someone who's just put a fishhook in one's eye, but hardly effective.

Also, attack and disagreement are two different things. It makes perfect sense to ignore something one disagrees with if there is nothing but ego at stake. If there is a dearly held principle involved, or if the other person has made a scurrilous remark or unsubstantiated slur, not to come out with at least some show of force is not courtesy but cowardice.

Some folks here live for the attack. They pan posts and wait for spots to place in their two-cent attack. Taggers do the same thing on walls and dogs do the same things on hydrants too in an attempt to mark their territory. They have little to contribute and so this elevates their sense of self worth.

OK, I'll take your word for it. But one good generalization deserves another, and here's an old one: A man looks behind the bedroom door because he has stood there himself. Think about it.

Having a recollection of all this interaction allows one to real quickly identify those who are not really here for constructive debate and those who are.

One really doesn't have to have a photographic memory to extract that kind of information.

A highly moderated board would extract all these 'tagger' posts and leave the substance.

A highly moderated board would maintain CONTROL of the messy emotions of the people who post, and only allow the neat, tidy, and intellectually syooperior persons' posts to remain.

Let me tell you something, sir: I have weeds in my yard. I would go so far as to say I cultivate weeds. When the lawn people come around and tell me how much more neat, tidy and superior my yard would look if only I would let them get rid of all those unsightly weeds, I laugh at them. And why? Because the birds love my yard, and in a drought my yard was the only one that had a scintilla of green in it. Because when the weeds are cut, the aromatics among the weeds make it delightful to be around. Because some of my weeds actually improve the air quality by fixing nitrogen from the air instead of requiring it to be applied out of the bottle.

So we have weeds in our yard here. Sometimes they're unsightly, and I don't like stepping on thistles any more than anyone else. But we have diversity here. If we start to eliminate the weeds and their unpleasant effects, we will lose the birds, and the aromatics, and the rest of their benefits. We will create a neat and tidy monoculture that will dry up and blow away the minute that the rain patterns are disturbed.

Thank you, but I like most of the weeds, here as well as in the yard, and those I don't like, I can at least avoid. Lawns are for the tennis and croquet courts.

When I drive by a wall which has been tagged by local gangs or of the corner hydrant smells of dog urine, I don't get all bent out of shape about it. In the same sense one shouldn't let some folks here, either their words or their behavior, rile one up.

Just a bit of unasked for advice.

SDAI-Tech1

Thank you. See, I didn't let you rile me up much at all.

However, I did notice that you managed to characterize people you associate with here as vandals and people who pee on things. Nice.