--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" <jst...@...> wrote: > > > wrote: > > > > <snip> > > > > > Remember what this is about: your interest in > > > > > portraying me as just as extreme in my positive view > > > > > of MMY as you are in your negative view. And you're > > > > > having to do some very elaborate stretches in the > > > > > attempt. > > > > > > > > We will have to agree to disagree here. If you see > > > > Maharishi's role as an instrument of nature reviving > > > > the knowledge like Jesus or Buddha then you are at > > > > least as positive about him as I am "negative" > > > > > > You come to this conclusion, IMHO, via a big bag of > > > debating tricks designed to distort and distract > > > attention from a very straightforward comparison. > > > Anyone can see the comparison is valid simply by > > > reading what you and I say we think of Maharishi. > > > > > > I played along with your tactics for probably longer > > > than I should have, but at this point I'll just trust > > > the good sense of anybody who happens to be reading > > > the exchange to see through the obfuscation. (Or not, > > > as the case may be.) > > > > Well then well have to also agree to disagree with your > > excessively negative assessment of this discussion. But > > after getting you to clarify what you were actually saying > > about your beliefs I feel more confident that people have > > more information to judge our differing points if they > > chose to follow them. > > > > Asking a person to clarify what they mean is not a > > debating trick, it is a means to come to a better > > understanding, which it accomplished for me. > > You asked me to "clarify" a very straightforward comparison > based on our views of MMY as expressed in our posts because > you figured you could then play around with the clarification > to make the comparison much more complicated than it really > was, since you couldn't rebut the simple, straightforward > case.
And you are mindreading again. And to no one's surprise you are reading evil in my intentions. I did rebut it and as I found out your case was neither simple nor straightforward including concepts with a high probability of being true that are in a sub-belief category. I have never heard such a convoluted method for distancing yourself from ideas that you hold to be probable. I think it allows you to play both sides retreating to your internal classifications when any idea is challenged. Oh I don't really believe believe that...and so on. > > You then manipulated the complications to arrive at a > conclusion favorable to yourself that was patently absurd > in light of the on-the-record evidence of our respective > posts expressing our opinions of MMY. You are making an artificial distinction between his personal life and his cosmic role. Since I do not believe or even hold as a probably metaphysical concept that he has such a role I see them as one and the same, your view of the man Maharishi. It is a contrived distinction and an imaginary one which allows you to hold the contradictory views of him. I get how you use it personally but it doesn't translate for me. It also served as a tool for you to claim that your view of him was not as positive as mine was negative until my questions clarified that this is not the case. And that point didn't really matter I just used it to figure out how you were insulating certain beliefs from critical thinking. It turns out you are making the same move many Christian moderates make which is actually more interesting to me. I understand Sam Harris's concerns much better concerning people who take make a show of being rational while holding a class of beliefs safe from scrutiny. Especially when it is this sub-class of beliefs that is actually driving much of a person's behavior as they do in your case. > > That was the overall debating trick, which comprised a > bunch of sub-tricks with regard to individual issues > arising from the complications. Oh poor Judy foiled by tricks! If only this was a level playing field with both of us having an equal opportunity to make our case...oh wait... that's what we DO have. > > This has been your SOP when you're challenged, Curtis, ever > since I first encountered you. You've just gotten much more > sophisticated in your manipulations since alt.m.t. The > terminology of epistemology and philosophy has significantly > expanded your obfuscation toolbox. > The terminology of epistemology and philosophy were actually much fresher in my mind on AMT because I had studied it in college and then again when I left the movement. Our discussion didn't really even scratch the surface of the field. Although I can never get you off the nefarious agenda you see behind all my posts I was actually trying to understand how you put your beliefs together. I accomplished that to my own satisfaction. Since understanding my point is not your agenda you failed again to understand what my point was or why I was making it. I have accepted the limits of communicating with you and no longer have you understanding me as one of my goals. You would have to want to or assume I had something valuable to say. Instead you cling to a comfortable caricature of me as a villain with a nefarious agenda. To each his or her own.
