Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon May 23, 2022 11:02 pmSo why are you constantly going back to questions of who I am, not what I propose to you?
Your question is improperly binary.
There are entire posts, filled with discursive ideas, that you will not deal with and respond to. You seem to have found in them what you refer, I believe erroneously, as ad hominem. You use this as an excuse to avoid the thrust of the ideas expressed.
I do not care about who you are, in the sense of your personality per se, but I am concerned about you as a man who thinks and has concretized certain ideas, views, perspectives, orientations. And your context, within a specific church, in a specific time in history, with specific beliefs and practices, and which also has an effect on the culture and society, is completely relevant. My view is that the total man, the total person, when it pertains to what is said to be the most important topics that can be considered and thought about, is highly relevant.
You cannot 'propose' anything to me that is not a reflection, or an expression, of your context. All that I have done is made an effort (as I say I do for all of us) to locate you. And I clearly and coherently explain what this means and why it is important.
AJ: There has been no underhanded, nor even diversionary, use of ad hominem.
IC: Then don't use it at all. It's irrelevant in all cases.
You do not define the terms or the parameters of this (or any) conversation. I will determine what my terms are. I am employing the term you improperly use -- ad hominem -- but I reject what you mean by it.
AJ: Your lecturing of me ("Slow down and think. You'll realize that's right"), and of everyone who complains about your methods of conversation, is simply a front...
IC: There you go. You don't know whether it's a "front" or not, or why I say whatever I say. That's all things you're making up...you really don't know me, and don't know my motives. You know only what I write. And what I propose is that your definition is bad because your definition is wrong.
Yes, I do know it is a front, and I also know that it is a 'sham' -- exactly as I described. I have come to this conclusion after months of dealing with you. Yes, I do not know you in daily life, but I certainly know you from what you write. And I am not making anything up but have worked hard, and carefully, not to jump to conclusions. Now, my conclusions are settled. And receently I have revealed what my conclusions are: fairly and carefully explained.
Or to say this another way, it doesn't matter that I'm a Christian. It doesn't matter what kind I am. My hat size doesn't matter either. It doesn't matter whether or not your interpret my words as a "front." That's irrelevant. The only question is the proposition in any case: and one I've made, and about which you know I'm correct, is ad hominems are illegitimate.
It definitely matters what denomination of Christian you are. That determines general beliefs. It also locates you historically since Non-denominationalism is a specific branch of Protestantism that originated in America. It arose in a specific social context. To understand that context (causation) is completely relevant.
If you compare your
context . . . to your
hat-size . . . you reveal your core error. And what is amazing to me is that you cannot discern it.
Stick to the proposition, and things will go well. Get off topic, and we'll end up in the ditch. But you'll have put us there...
I do not have now and I did not have at any time any problem at all with what I have written. You have the problem. So I suggest that you get over the problem. Your problem is not my problem to solve.
Here is the post which you recently balked at. That is what I'd like to see you do.
Prior to that one is
this one, which you also roundly avoided (all below the black line). You began your childish melt-down through some sort of offense that I wrote about you and referred to you in the third person.