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Old 09-09-2019, 10:22 AM
CVShooter CVShooter is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by WASR10 View Post
Maybe, since you acknowledge this person’s bias and agenda, you can simply share how it fueled your own bias and agenda, allow we your audience to appreciate that you were inspired by this person, without demanding we agree with it, and be satisfied?

That sentence had a lot of commas.

I can promise you that I listened to the video with an intellectually-honest open mind (I didn’t know anything of the man when I watched it) but certainly held the content up against what I already knew. Things that are factual are factual regardless of bias. Things that are slanted or misrepresented to further an opinion can be challenged without agenda. Whether that’s what’s happening here is up for debate.

So, thanks for sharing and soliciting feedback. I am happy you did.


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I won't demand that anybody do anything. But I'll humor myself by goading people into dealing with information that they all too quickly dismiss. As I've said on this forum before, I'm not a Christian. But I'd be happy to see other folks being the best Christians they can be. If folks want to believe in sea monsters, I don't care a lick. But if they're going to cite the Bible as proof of sea monsters while saying that all unbelievers are damned to Hell or that all other evidence against sea monsters is biased or tainted somehow, then I'm going to have some fun poking holes in their arguments. If there were a Wiccan who was on this forum and thought that all Christians were idiots or somehow incapable of understanding history, I'd be just as argumentative.

My bias? I'm human, for one. I can go into some personal stories but its nothing traumatic or something that requires revenge of any kind. I have a good life and some spare time to argue on the internet. But my main bias is that I don't let my ideas or my beliefs get in the way of understanding history. And, as I read, I resolved to let the evidence speak for itself, rather than allow it to hold me captive to some sort of ideology. So I can be very wishy-washy at times and it's hard to know where I stand on matters of faith. I hardly take my own ideas and beliefs very seriously and that is partly intentional. I've been a fundamentalist in a former life and didn't like what that made me. So I keep an open mind with a keen understanding that my ignorance will always be greater than my knowledge.

But I'll say that I've been at this a long time. Personal stories are better over beers, face to face with a real person, than internet forums. So I won't get into details. Suffice it to say that while most of you were goofing off as teens and young adults without much concern with the details of religion, I was teaching classes, filling in for pastors and leading groups of anywhere from 30-300+ people in studies of the Bible. I've probably forgotten much more than a lot of folks will ever know.

Call it my own Solomonic journey, I've learned a ton over the years, earned degrees, traveled and even continued my readings informally for the last 20 years. It has all led me to a far more simple understanding of the world -- believe whatever helps get you through your day and never let your ideas take priority over relationships. Everything else is just vanity. That's my bias.
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