Where'd everybody go?

[Henry_iain]

1 hour ago, WilliamL said:

Ah, but persuading someone you are debating with is only a small part of the reason for debating. You may not realize it, but there are far more people who are not even members of the site that are reading it than members at any one time. The main point of open debate is to teach, and there are many who follow the discussion and learn from it who never make a single post on the topic. So debating provides useful information to these "lurkers" (as one such called himself); whereas fluffy discussions do not.

...avoid profane and idle babblings... 1 Tim. 6:20

If by "fluffy" discussions you mean the threads I referred to as the "nonsense threads" like I said, a lot more goes on in there than  meets the eye. I have close relationships with all the people who regularly post in these threads. These have already taught me more than any debate thread ever has in all the time I've been online. It is definitely not profane and idle babblings. Not by a long shot. 

I stand by everything I said in my previous post. 

 

[WilliamL]

13 minutes ago, Henry_iain said:

If by "fluffy" discussions you mean the threads I referred to as the "nonsense threads" like I said, a lot more goes on in there than  meets the eye. I have close relationships with all the people who regularly post in these threads. These have already taught me more than any debate thread ever has in all the time I've been online. It is definitely not profane and idle babblings. Not by a long shot. 

I stand by everything I said in my previous post.

Point taken...to a point. If it bears fruit, then it's worthy. Nonsense, however, is nonsense, and idleness is idleness, and neither of these are fruitful. I've seen both here.