Peter: >>You are making my point again. I think I would feel quite rejected if you >>compared me to fusion jazz or a gem. I find it a lot more painful if >>somebody is bored with me than if they blow up in my face. The latter I can >>respond to - the former is like being invisible, insignificant, ignored. Kirt: >Hmmm...you are making mine, methinks. This wasn't about _you_ but about the >evo-creation debate. Naturally, I was just using myself as an example to generalize over a broader point. >Being bored with an idea is a far cry from comparing a person to a boring >issue, or being bored with a person, I disagree, especially considering how many hopes and feelings most of us invest into our opinions and beliefs. I think that creationists are very passionate in their beliefs about God or some higher power having created life on this planet, and I can only imagine how hurtful it would be for this passion to be met with the ultimate insult & expression of disrespect which expressed boredom IMO constitutes. Again, I have no problem with you or anybody else being bored - but why the need to express it? It only contributes to a marginalization of the issues and virtually halting any further dialogue. Though not a good example - I am sure you can think of a better one - it reminds me a bit of how virtuous Christians watch porno movies in order to fuel their righteous outrage over what they perceive as the rising promiscuity in society. In both cases there is a hidden, alternate agenda - in this case lust - which by how it is expressed (denial & condemnation) only causes further conflict and separation. > but if this thread keeps up much longer....;) Seriously though, if you do get the impulse to express your boredom with this thread and feel unable/unwilling to modulate your expression with an emoticon or some softening comment, please just ignore it. Why? - because, believe it or not, I feel very passionately about the subject of boredom and would feel dis-respected and somewhat ridiculed if you did. I will of cause respond back but will be in the catch of then risking further and stronger comments about causing boredom - a bit like being in the catch when somebody insists that I am angry but I am not (but, of cause, will end up becoming as the assertion is continuously being made). It is, naturally, the last thing on your mind to make me feel this way but is nevertheless and IMO often the inevitable consequence of expressing sentiments of boredom - especially in a one dimensional forum such as this. Best, Peter [log in to unmask]