The mental illness of an individual should NOT be used as a battering ram

[Peacetrain]

against a person or group you have a philsophical disagreement with. End of mini rant

[Feral Child]

1. OK

End of laconic response.

[MineralMan]

2. Just a note about the avatar you have selected.

It interferes with the seriousness with which I take your posts. It's often incompatible with what you are posting, making it appear that you are mocking the person to whose post your reply is made. Perhaps that appearance is accurate and, if so, please proceed. However, if a reply you make is meant to be taken seriously, the graphic makes a mockery of that.

Sometimes, it appears to be downright offensive, at least to me. That might be worth some consideration. Or not.

[Feral Child]

5. Thanks for your comments.

It's an interim until I find something more suitable.


Your post was very polite, others have been less so.

[MineralMan]

3. Of course it should not.

Can you provide an example of such a thing? I don't believe I've seen that done here. If I did, I'd alert on it.

[Feral Child]

6. I could be misreading the OP.

It's certainly sparse enough to be open to many interpretations, but I believe it refers to Ops that cite an example of extreme religious incidents. Several I've noted recently in the Religion Forum have noted child-killings as a result of fears of demonic possession.

The most common riposte is that the perpetrator was otherwise insane and that the crime was insanity-driven rather than religiously-driven.

I don't think I can fully agree with the OP if my understanding is correct. I'm not sure at what point we can determine that a religious person is acting insanely. To a non-believer, belief in supernatural beings and events are not actually sane.



I've come to view the religious-wars to be as toxic as the gender-wars and I now try to avoid them. The nature of the subject matter defies resolution, and I haven't come here to pick fights.

[MineralMan]

7. Well, since the poster didn't answer, I have no way

to figure out what prompted the post. Lacking that, I can't form any opinion.

[Feral Child]

8. Yep.

Think I'll mosey on to another thread.

[Iggo]

4. I think they should tax people who stand in water.

End of rant.