There’s an emotional component to what I do, Lois, so if that’s the admission you want, there it is. I get very upset when I look at the endless arguments about which words we should use. They lead nowhere. They damage our movement, divide us and make us look foolish.
The difference is that I think things through and do not allow my emotions to dominate where reason should dominate. There’s nothing wrong with emotion, unless it goes unchecked and interferes with reason.
What I don’t understand is why you do not acknowledge that you just walked yourself into a very embarrassing situation. For two days we were discussing experimental treatments on humans vis-a-vis belief. You were right in the middle of those discussions, commenting on that very subject. Yet yesterday you asked “who said anything about experimenting on humans,” as though none of that had taken place. But it’s all right here, for everyone to read. My purpose isn’t to beat you up or win a “debate.” If I got caught the way you did, I’d be embarrassed, and I’d acknowledge that I had just made myself look pretty foolish. I wouldn’t need you to make an admission of your own first, because I am 100% responsible for what I post here, and so are you. And I sure as hell wouldn’t invite yet another set of comments like the one I’m writing right now.
I’ve been telling you for months, at least, that you’re reacting emotionally to certain words. Perhaps I should have been more precise: you’re reacting to such an extent that you’re not thinking. And the proof of that is what you did yesterday. I believe that you are a sincere person, and honestly did not remember that you had been discussing experimental drugs in humans. But how could you not remember something so recent and so extended? What could that mean? It means that your brain did not fully process that sequence of events. If it had, you would have remembered that you said plenty about experimenting on humans, and not just once. That is one of the reasons I say what I say about reacting and not thinking. If your brain had processed that exchange, you wouldn’t have asked that question. The moment I saw your post yesterday I was stunned, because I remembered instantly that we had been discussing that subject for days, and here you were saying that I was changing the subject suddenly. There’s no great humanist equivalent-of-sin in this but when you persist in it despite undeniable evidence that you did it . . .
Come on, Lois. You’re a humanist. I want you to represent our community well to the outside world. You cannot do that the way you’re approaching these issues.