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CommentsDisplaying Perkins's 10 most recent comments.

• This Is How Americans With No Religion Feel About Abortion (Plus: Are Most Women Really Pro-Choice?)

  May 17, 2013 at 5:38pm

  In reply to charper1013.

  @ Locked

  So I am curious, if you go out target shooting, and take all reasonable precautions against hitting bystanders with stray bullets, yet for whatever reason you pull the trigger and a bystander is hit with the stray bullet, do you have an obligation to help that person who was wounded?

  Does that obligation increase the more reckless you are with your precautions?

  Is this not the same situation between having sex and shooting guns, that no matter the precautions there is always the risk of creating a life/taking a life?

• Are Stories of Historical Christian Martyrdom ‘Exaggerated, Invented and Forged’? Professor Outlines Myth Theory

  May 13, 2013 at 4:56pm

  In reply to poetopoet.

  @ Locked

  “I meant in regards to how you misunderstood my views and used that to tell me my own position. I disagree with your incorrect view of MY views :-)”

  I do apologize for the commentary on your views, I was hoping to get you to take aim at me so we could have a conversation :) As for me misunderstanding your views, I try not to, though sometimes your line of reasoning is hard to follow. I usually figure it out once you respond to those who attack you, which is why I wanted to encourage you to be more clear from the start and save me all the reading (in which it is easy to miss important details). Generally, I find your points of view interesting, once they are clear enough to understand, hence my hoping you could be clearer from the start =D (yes, the world revolves around me)

  As for exchanging insults, I have no more wish to insult you, (ok, maybe one more =P) and your barbs at me aren’t insulting enough to deal with.

• Are Stories of Historical Christian Martyrdom ‘Exaggerated, Invented and Forged’? Professor Outlines Myth Theory

  May 13, 2013 at 4:43pm

  In reply to poetopoet.

  @ Locked,

  “But for anyone who read the article, they realize that the situation refers to the second, not the first.”

  I would submit, in this case it is not really clear that the situation “refers to the second.” The article calls out a “grey area” between prosecute and persecute in making the claim that Christians were not persecuted because they were being prosecuted for being subversive. However, their religious beliefs were what was making them subversive, so clearly they were being prosecuted, but were they being persecuted:

  1. In a general sense, to pursue in a manner to injure, vex or afflict; to harass with unjust punishment or penalties for supposed offenses; to inflict pain from hatred or malignity.

  There is no grey area, persecution is unjust harassment, so was the Roman punishment for not participating in the Imperial Cult unjust? Depending on your answer determines whether “this was obvious enough for most people to pick up on.” Remarkably similar to my claim that you had skipped a premise in your analogy to the court martial. Hence

  “I’m sorry that it wasn’t clearer and that some folks missed it.”

  This was my point, you seem to take “logical leaps” which people do not pick upon, then they assume needed premises to make sense of your arguments, then they proceed to tell you what you believe, which obviously upsets you as it does the rest of us.

• Are Stories of Historical Christian Martyrdom ‘Exaggerated, Invented and Forged’? Professor Outlines Myth Theory

  May 13, 2013 at 1:29pm

  In reply to poetopoet.

  @ Locked
  At first I was confused when you said

  “Despite my disagreement with your views”

  as I have not shared my views with you other than to say I doubt the veracity of this woman “just wanting to set the record straight.” How do you know you disagree with my views?

  Then I was reviewing my comments, which are not numerous on this website, and found your reply to me on this story

  http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/04/26/obamas-5-most-controversial-statements-about-abortion-and-womens-rights-during-his-planned-parenthood-speech/

  apologies for not finding you had posted two days after me, life gets in the way. I think I understand now, you have read my attacking your logic as an attack on your conclusions. They are not, in fact, almost all of my posts relate to logic, not beliefs. I have simply noticed you spend a great deal of time “talking past” the others on this board. What you say and what they hear are two different things (because of logic shortcuts). Since I find it unlikely they will adapt to what you mean, the purpose of my comments is to encourage you to learn how to speak effectively to them (e.g. Sleazy appears to react to the same equivocation, hence his comment about Jesus).

  Once you are more adept at communication so I know you will understand what I say without wasting needless time, perhaps I will share my views so that you may disagree =D

• Are Stories of Historical Christian Martyrdom ‘Exaggerated, Invented and Forged’? Professor Outlines Myth Theory

  May 13, 2013 at 12:33pm

  In reply to poetopoet.

  @ Locked,

  Having reread my original comment in light of our further discussion, I wish to say I am sorry for casting you in such a negative light. That was over the line of me, and I hope you will forgive me.

• Are Stories of Historical Christian Martyrdom ‘Exaggerated, Invented and Forged’? Professor Outlines Myth Theory

  May 13, 2013 at 12:23pm

  In reply to poetopoet.

  @ Locked cont.

  Again, my intention is not to offend, I was hoping you would respond this time since you have missed my previous comments on other times when you’ve done the same thing. I assumed you were ignoring those comments, but you must have just missed them in the flyover comments, my apologies for thinking badly of you on that count.

• Are Stories of Historical Christian Martyrdom ‘Exaggerated, Invented and Forged’? Professor Outlines Myth Theory

  May 13, 2013 at 12:20pm

  In reply to poetopoet.

  @ Locked,

  “Nope; point out anywhere you think this has happened and I’d be happy to point out where you’re wrong. I imagine you’re reading what you want to read as opposed to reading what I write.”

  I did, and apparently you don’t understand what I was saying. Taking the example again.
  “Right… because it’s not. Remember the article a few days back about Christian COs facing a court martial for preaching to their troops? Is that persecution? No – it’s a result of breaking the law”

  In order for that statement to have been valid, instead of including “it’s a result of breaking the law” it should have been it’s a result of “hold(ing) a captive audience and force(ing) them to listen to their CO preach” because holding captive audiences is morally wrong, therefore the law is just and thus not persecution. That constitutes evidence, which you clearly understand, but took a short cut in your initial comment, a short cut which you use often and which conflates law with morality. The result is, people who are used to arguing with trolls will not understand the conclusion, hence much of your argumentation, and people who are on your side mistake you for an enemy.

• Are Stories of Historical Christian Martyrdom ‘Exaggerated, Invented and Forged’? Professor Outlines Myth Theory

  May 13, 2013 at 12:01pm

  In reply to poetopoet.

  @ Locked continued

  Fox is also inaccurate when it comes to the anti Papacy propaganda of the later martyrs, and obviously leaves out all Catholics martyred by the Protestants. However, the one section chronicling the general persecutions, not necessarily each individual person, is accurate and well written. My apologies for not being clear about what I found good in Fox’s account. Which brings me to my last point…

  My comment about Fox was not intended to direct you specifically to Fox, but everyone, as my previous comment was likewise directed. You seem to have difficulty on occasion being understood by those who assume everyone thinks the same way as themselves, I was pointing out a consistency in your thought processes that makes things clearer. Since you now claim the consistency is false, I would suggest it yet remains a major part of the miscommunication. None of this is intended as being insulting, it is simply a pattern I have noticed in your communication.

• Are Stories of Historical Christian Martyrdom ‘Exaggerated, Invented and Forged’? Professor Outlines Myth Theory

  May 13, 2013 at 11:55am

  In reply to poetopoet.

  @ Locked, nice of you to reply.

  Unfortunately, I didn’t start with a lie, you do conflate the two on a regular basis.

  Take, for example

  “Right… because it’s not. Remember the article a few days back about Christian COs facing a court martial for preaching to their troops? Is that persecution? No – it’s a result of breaking the law”

  If you hold that law does not equate to morality, then your statement is worthless because “a result of breaking the law” can be persecution and is therefore not evidence that “facing a court martial” is not persecution. Do you see how that logic works? The only way for the “result of breaking the law” to be evidence for your argument is for law to equal morality.

  I am not saying you consciously conflate the two, but having read many of your posts, you equivocate the terms quite often, thus you are implicitly believing these two.

  As for Fox, I did miss where you talked about him, and I also noticed the inaccuracies among Fox’s account of the apostles, however, I was referring to Fox’s account of the historical Roman persecutions.

• Are Stories of Historical Christian Martyrdom ‘Exaggerated, Invented and Forged’? Professor Outlines Myth Theory

  May 13, 2013 at 11:29am

  In reply to poetopoet.

  PS. If you want a fair discussion of the early martyrs, I would recommend Fox’s Book of Martyrs. This 16th century account of the history of the early martyrs explains when there were persecutions and when there weren’t with an eye to accuracy, which appears to far exceed this… “scholar” “Dr.” Candida Moss’s