Doing Something Else Well

Over the last three years or so I have occasionally found myself caught up in what I believe are sometimes referred to as 'flame wars'; I'm referring to vociferous disagreements manifesting themselves on-line in the comments pages of various blogs and such like. I've never become actively involved in such situations myself - I pride myself on being too sensible to waste my time in such a manner - but I must admit I've sometimes found it difficult to tear myself away from the sheer human nastiness of it all. I suppose I convinced myself there was something to learn from all this, but the only thing I really found out was something I've known all along: people are incredibly stupid and don't mind demonstrating that fact. The fact that the majority of the nastiness I've observed happens to have come from folks with an academic background (quite a number earning their living in departments of philosophy) simply confirms that folly flourishes everywhere and extravagantly well amongst those gifted with real brain power.

But over the last two or three weeks I've been enjoying an on-line debate conducted with both huge amounts of brain power and a sense of courteous civility that suggests there's real hope even for the cleverest amongst us. And even more positively the debate grew out of what were initially some distinctly acrimonious exchanges. The disputants are Prof Ed Feser, representing the theists amongst us, and Prof Keith Parsons, on the side of the robust secularists. If you fancy something that goes beyond the gratuitous inanities of the new atheists go to this page at The Secular Outpost that provides the links to the on-going discussion. What a relief to read something that manages to shed more light than heat. There might well be hope for us after all.