Good advice by the Pastor.
However . . . Dear Heart . . .
some of my fiercest writing is when I’m exceedingly calm—no raised heart beat or increased breathing rate etc.
Most of my writing—95%?—is when I’m quite calm.
I love playing with words. I love saying things in emphatic, startling, memorable ways.
Maybe I sat through too many boring lectures and read too many boring text books on the way to the PhD.
Maybe I got what few rewards I got growing up by writing vivid, even startling things in English and Social Studies classes.
Besides all that, the instense exchanges are much more alive, authentic, real, to me. I hate shallow discourse more than I hate a LOT of other things. Actually, I don’t hate many things, at all—that is, I hate very few things, total. Hate is just not a familiar feeling to me.
And, I have been the brunt of a lot of ridicule my whole life.
And, I have seen how effective the disinformation psy-ops folks have been using ridicule against UFO disclosures.
I suspect all of that has had some part to play in my ‘style.’
It’s rarely personal—except to highlight some folks pontifications who seem to delight in making abjectly foolish, outrageous assertions. I enjoy the fray—rather collegially, actually.
I mean . . . if folks are going to BEG for such a response, who am I to refuse to be generous!
Of course, there are a few who seem to ENJOY being just personally harsh, mean and personally assaultive as though they were Saul putting to death Prottys—or wishing they could. Those can be particularly fun highlighting their absurdities, double standards and hypocrisies.
Of course, I realize that I can be absurd as well. I sure earnestly endeavor to be well beyond double standards and hypocrisies. By God’s Grace, He helps me usually succeed on those scores.
If one is going to be silly, brash, fiesty, startling in communications, one has to be a pretty good capacity to see their own clay feet.
Yes, I've noticed that, and I think your posts are entertaining even when I don't agree with you.
Thinking of the Litany of Humility that we have on the other thread, I believe that becoming emotionally distressed indicates that my intentions in speaking (writing, typing) are self-serving. Probably I'm upset because my pride is hurt, or because I think the other person will be lost unless I get through to them, or because I'm afraid of being wrong.
In that situation, I'm not going to do much good for the Lord, or for conservatism ... or for my diet!
Ooh, Winston Churchill's war journalism *and* "Greatest Shakespeare Soliloquies" are in this catalog I just picked up to swat a fly. Off to fill out an order form, I go. Anoreth loves Churchill, and Tom and I will torture her by reading soliloquies ;-).
I gather that you prefer fire to ice in religious debate and therefore mix things up to that end.
If that is so, you might consider posting the warning that our dear brother in Christ, hosepipe, used to use as a tagline (paraphrased): "WARNING: this post may be laced with hyperbole."
My style of posting on the Religion Forum is to use the least number of words I can interspersed between excerpts from Scripture.
The reason is simple. God's words are enlivening and powerful, spirit and life. The words of men are neither spirit nor life.
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: - John 10:27
But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. – Matt 4:4
Give us this day our daily bread. – Matt 6:11
I am that bread of life. – John 6:48
It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, [they] are spirit, and [they] are life. – John 6:63