The Gullible Mind

[_beastie]

It's vintage beastie to so thoroughly misunderstand a point.

Which is why an attempt at serious conversation with you would be an infinite regress into mind-killing frustration, a geometrically expanding mountain of soul-numbing, life-destroying exasperation.

Let me try to help you understand my point, Dan, because I'm such a helpful person.

Of course it is possible that I have misunderstood your point. Human communication, overall, is plagued with misunderstandings, and internet communications even more so. What is far more unlikely is that I have interpreted your point in such a way that only an incredibly stupid person would do, or a deliberately malicious individual would do. I probably just misunderstood your point in an not entirely crazy way.

So the next reasonable step is to clarify what you actually meant. It's ok if you want to get a dig in while you're doing so, but go ahead and clarify. But Vintage Peterson is to, instead, declare that it isn't even worth your time to clarify what you meant, because only a hopeless person would interpret it in the erroneous way to begin with. You really have been doing this from long ago on Z, and with many people other than myself. I have no idea why you do it, if you really have no helpful clarification to begin with, or the poster wasn't really wrong but you don't like the way it sounds, or if you really do think, so to speak, that "you're so HIGH"* that clarification is beneath you.

*I heard tal's song earlier in a store today and now it keeps running through my mind

[_beastie]

There are few things more gratifying than reductionist pop-psychological explanations of the beliefs and attitudes of people whose beliefs and attitudes differ from one's own.

So, here I am going to demonstrate for you, Dan.

Now, instead of just saying "See? Dan is hopeless. There is absolutely no point in discussing this with him. I don't know why I waste my time with him.", I'll instead, you know, clarify. I may get a dig or two in, but I'll still clarify.

The clarification is that this process is not just about other people's beliefs, Dan. It is about all of our beliefs. I just applied it to religion in specific due to scottie's question.

I suggest you read the book. It's not a demanding text, and it's pretty short, and fascinating.

[_Daniel Peterson]

While the idea of shared electron pairs provides an effective qualitative picture of covalent bonding, quantum mechanics is needed to understand the nature of these bonds and predict the structures and properties of simple molecules. Walter Heitler and Fritz London are credited with the first successful quantum mechanical explanation of a chemical bond, specifically that of molecular hydrogen, in 1927. Their work was based on the valence bond model, which assumes that a chemical bond is formed when there is good overlap between the atomic orbitals of participating atoms. These atomic orbitals are known to have specific angular relationships between each other, and thus the valence bond model can successfully predict the bond angles observed in simple molecules.

[_beastie]

It's really bad form to not provide citations for copied material, Dan.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covalent_bond

If that is what constitutes "clarification", then I understand why you normally refrain. However, it sounds more like this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientolog ... e_Internet

After failing to remove the newsgroup, Scientologists adopted a strategy of newsgroup spam and intimidation.[17] Scientologists and hired third parties regularly flood the newsgroup with pro-scientology messages, vague anti-scientology messages, irrelevant comments, and accusations that other posters are secret Scientologists intent on tracking and punishing posters. This makes the newsgroup virtually unreadable via online readers such as Google Groups, although more specialized newsreading software that can filter out all messages by specific "high noise" posters make the newsgroup more usable

Certainly, not as orchestrated and organized as this, but perhaps impromptu and spontaneous.

[Alf'Omega]

While the idea of shared electron pairs provides an effective qualitative picture of covalent bonding, quantum mechanics is needed to understand the nature of these bonds and predict the structures and properties of simple molecules. Walter Heitler and Fritz London are credited with the first successful quantum mechanical explanation of a chemical bond, specifically that of molecular hydrogen, in 1927. Their work was based on the valence bond model, which assumes that a chemical bond is formed when there is good overlap between the atomic orbitals of participating atoms. These atomic orbitals are known to have specific angular relationships between each other, and thus the valence bond model can successfully predict the bond angles observed in simple molecules.

You didn't really expect him to address your specific comments, did you beastie?

He'd rather regurgitate something he just Googled.

I bet he thinks it makes him look even smarter.

[_Some Schmo]

It's really bad form to not provide citations for copied material, Dan.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covalent_bond

LOL... I saw this right after posting. How did I know?

LMAO

[_Daniel Peterson]

It's really bad form to not provide citations for copied material, Dan.

Every joke must be footnoted, right?

I'm trying to provide bumpers, as it were, of irrelevant material. Since you seem to react fairly indignantly to everything I post, it seemed to me that posting materials by others on absolutely immaterial subjects might provide a kind of cooling-off period for you.

But, if I post it, you respond with a huff of criticism even to a Wikipedia entry on the covalent chemical bond. So the attempt plainly doesn't seem to be working just yet.

[_antishock8]

I often wonder why religious beliefs are so hard to dispel?

Most kids will eventually learn for themselves that there is no Santa, Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, etc. All lies that parents tell their kids. Even without the help of classmates, an 8 year old will eventually connect the dots and figure it out.

Not so for religion.

I posit that they do. They just don't admit it. Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.

Edit:

Adults don't have a problem throwing various beliefs into the dustbin of history. Allah. Xenu. Buddha. Joseph Smith. Benny Hinn. Etc... It's not beyond our capacity to accept the reality of untruth. It's definitely within our capacity to push truths aside, which we do often.

[_beastie]

Every joke must be footnoted, right?

I'm trying to provide bumpers, as it were, of irrelevant material. Since you seem to react fairly indignantly to everything I post, it seemed to me that posting materials by others on absolutely immaterial subjects might provide a kind of cooling-off period for you.

But, if I post it, you respond with a huff of criticism even to a Wikipedia entry on the covalent chemical bond. So the attempt plainly doesn't seem to be working just yet.

or perhaps you don't recognize the joke returned

[_beastie]

by the way, it really befuddles me that you read "indignation" into my posts. Juliann was another one who constantly misread emotions in my posts... she thought I was perpetually angry. Later she admitted that she, herself, often felt anger when reading other people's posts. So clearly she'd been projecting her emotional state onto me. Perhaps you are doing the same thing.