This is all very good, I think. I, too, have a hard time staying on topic. (See, I'm doing it again...) This was true even when I was in school. I have far too many interests. Perhaps this is my problem. TOL is a good place to help a person refine and harness in their arguments. There are great tools to use and lessons to be learned here to enable a someone to become a better writer and argumentarian. Some (myself included) don't often use the tools that are to be found, but they are there, nevertheless.
One thing (and there are many!) that TOL has taught me is that people do not always take your meaning from your words as you intended it to be taken. You can try your mightiest to say your piece clearly, only to encounter a lot of "blank stares." And some things that you are sure will convey your idea with power and convention are barely glossed over.
TOL has taught me about humility. Obviously I have a great deal more learning ahead of me. :chuckle:
Cowboy, right. Words have a life of their own. If I say tiger. You might start thinking about dolphins. Just kidding. I'm exaggerating, to an extent, to make a point. But for me, I get off topic because I have this ability to relate, to connect everything with everything, to see the similarities, the bonds, the connections, between each topic, between everything and everything. For example, I should just start a thread to show people how crazy I am, because I ask people, in real life, to give me two random things, and I'll connect them together with my crazy logic and my ability to connect things, together.
Both Town Heretic and Knight have mentioned that they are both less into getting their last words in, or less into getting too consumed or too involved. I'm learning those things, too.
I think I'm becoming a little less combative...okay, so it's a recent shift...okay, so a really, really recent shift. :mmph: You want to make something out of it?
Well, the last time I engaged ASCon I found I wasn't half as interested in beating him with the clever stick as I was in simply answering. Maybe there's some progress there.
And being here concentrated my religious studies while actually widening my reading net, which is a very good thing. I've learned quite a bit speaking with some of you, sharpened my own positions, altered a few misunderstandings, and confirmed my decision to remain rooted in the salvific and less actively involved in the side bar debates that split and weaken the Body, to my mind.
Rabbit trails are okay sometimes. I occasionally take them myself. In fact... sometimes the rabbit trail is the most interesting part of the thread. Yet some folks hijack every thread they participate in and that can be frustrating (you are not one of those folks).
In the past 14 years I have changed dramatically. I have become far less concerned about winning every argument and more concerned about just stating my beliefs on any given topic. There was a time not so long ago that I felt I needed to have the last word in every TOL debate, but now I really don't care if I have the last word. I prefer to state my case based on the facts as I see them and then... let the chips fall where they may.
TOL has also encouraged me to quote scripture references, like John 3:16. I mean, any verse, for that matter, because you just have to hover over the verse and the verse pops up in a small yellow box. Do you guys have that, too. Or you just click on the Bible verse and it takes you to it. Then you can read it, for those who don't want to read a real one, people like me. But that's cool. And if you want to edit the verses, go to advance, in order to keep the verses a hyperlink, so that people like me can just click on them or hover over them, and if there's more than one verse, then just use commas, like this: Romans 7:1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17. Instead of just Romans 7:1-17. So, I've learned these things, too, on TOL.
