Lynda,

The reason for my response was not that he advocates a materialistic view; there are many people doing that. As long as it is done in a respectful manner without offending those who are not materialists, I tolerate it. But when he struts about on his ridiculing, patronizing, and insulting spree with impunity then a counter action in kind is needed.

The first few sentences of my post that are inflammatory against Nemesis is a reflection of a mirror that I held up to reflect back the same offenses that he directed against a group of people. If such offenses are not allowed here then somebody should have censored the post of Nemesis first, so that it should not contain such insults. Then I would not have to mirror back any nasty images and words.

It is unfair on your part (or RMN’s part) to allow some of the agents to attack and insult individuals or groups of people, but censor and forbid any protests against this from those groups of people who have been insulted! You don’t seem to respect your readers enough to allow them equal treatment.

Let’s make it squeaky-clear what it is that I am objecting against:

Nemesis: “Belief systems, by their very nature, should be an affront to every intelligence in the universe.”

It is obvious that he is attacking religious/spiritual belief systems (basically anything that is not a materialist worldview) not only from the text, but he also emphasized this with the image containing the symbols of 4 major religions. It came up in the wakes of the dispute that was initiated by the post of Gaian about alchemy which is here http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?read=1891 .

Nemesis says that a belief system is an affront=insult to every intelligence… It is like saying “the usage of every spoken language is an insult to every intelligence”, because we supposed to communicate via telepathy (that is only befitting an intelligent being), and all kinds of talk is so low and primitive that it is despicable. Consequently those are also despicable who use such languages.

Are we all who use spiritual belief systems despicable and primitive (an insult to intelligence) because any belief system is an insult to intelligence (according to him)? Now tell me in what way is this not inflammatory and insulting? The fact that he is not insulting one specific person but a huge group of people is not an excuse, but an aggravating factor. A semi hidden or masked attack is still an attack, and here I don’t see much of a masking effort either. It is very direct. Then as if this would not have been enough, he continues to spit upon everybody else except the materialists:

Nemesis: “The very idea that a system of beliefs can dominate an intelligence’s life should ring like a warning that human thinking is infantile and in need of maturing.“

Translation: according to this sentence, we all who dare to use a belief system are infantile, and need maturing, and only he and the materialists are the “grown ups” who reserve the right to belittle us and tell us what is right and what is wrong! In what way is this not an offense and not a patronizing of groups of people? In what way is it a less mean thing to insult a whole group of people instead of one specific individual? Because an individual would fight back but a group can not do that? Something is very much wrong around the politics handling this issue!

“But isn't telling nem that he is false, trying to force your beliefs upon him...??”

My counter arguments are just that, arguments opposing his materialistic arguments nothing more. By posting my arguments I am not forcing him to accept them. The uttering of conditional insults like he did in his above quotes is a type of bullying people not to dare to entertain belief systems if they don’t what to be labeled and insulted. That is a masked “forcing” or bullying people to accept some concepts. If I have insulted his pride in similar way, then that was done only because I wanted to reflect the same insults he spewed out in his original post, so he could realize what he is doing. His arguments and my counter arguments have nothing to do with this dispute. If those two initial inflaming sentences of his were censored out by the moderator, then my reply would not contain any insulting things either and it could have been posted in the reading room without stifling.

I respect that RMN is Raye’s living room, what I don’t respect is unjust and unequal treatment, by allowing some nasty agents to insult readers, but preventing readers from opposing this in kind. If the RMN policy’s priority is to prevent quarrels and flame wars by all cots, I am fine with that. You may censor the reader’s posts, but then a moderator should also censor the posts of the agents. If on the other hand no such censoring of agents is done, then we would rightly expect that we should be treated the same way, and transfer our posts uncensored to the reading room where the agent’s post appeared. The restricting and separating the responses of readers from the agent’s posts (to the CGI forum that is read by very few people) is not a just policy.

I am very well aware that most of the official religions have been distorted and manipulated by the kings and rulers during the history. I have myself mentioned this as a reason for me not following any of these religions in their entirety. But this is no reason to ridicule and insult all kinds of belief systems as he did in his post. I am all for respectfully disagreeing. But if the moderators don’t recognize that his post was not a respectful arguing but an uncleverly masked insult, then things are very wrong here.

Morfeus