Start neutral. They can either earn respect or disrespect. It's up to their behaviour. How can I respect somebody I don't know? I can be neutral and as I learn more about them there might be things I do respect, but also things I don't respect. Unfortunately there are many who walk in and show disrespect from post one. Whilst I am tolerant and calm mannered, it is hard to respect somebody who can't respect you, people like you or even this forum's rules.
Those that come in here with a neutral attitude and don't come in with anything disrespectful things in mind and conduct themselves within the rules of the forum you will find people will end up respecting them. Atheist or theists, doesn't matter.
Unfortunately you're an atheist who has come here and started being disrespectful from post 1, yes you apologised for it, but have continued to be disrespectful in how you've been dodging and ignoring posts, making troll-worthy remarks (which you seem to be trying to avoid since ER) and failing to back yourself up. You've made some pretty strong claims about the members, but you've yet to directly address their defences or back yourself up for that matter.
You are a rule breaker. I have directly shown you which rules, but you've not even addressed that yet. If you don't like the forum's rules then you don't have to be here, but they're there to make sure people engage fairly in discussions, it's to avoid one-sided conversations like this:
A: Cows can speak English
B: I thought they could only say 'moo', have you got any back up?
A: Scientists have discovered a cow who can speak clear English, not like a parrot can who can imitate sounds, but actually say, "I'm bored of grass, I fancy myself a nice juicy steak".
B: So you're just going to make baseless claims.
A: It's true, scientists says so.
B: Well, according to (x) scientific journal, a cow's cortex is unable to process that much language information. Something complex like the English language would require a much larger cortex. According to (y) documentation, through human evolution our cortex grew larger, which allows us to communicate language a lot more efficiently. Compared to a chimpanzee who has a smaller cortex is capable of language but it doesn't in anyway mirror our capacity for understanding language, though they do not speak it, and we're talking about a more intelligent animal than a cow. Cows say 'moo', not, "would you like fries with that?"
A: Scientists always disagree with each other, this cow speaks English, there's actual footage of it, maybe its their next stage in genetic mutations.
B: Source???
[insert several pages of dodging]
So on one hand you've got a guy JUST making claims, not preparing to directly engage with the second guy's points and not only that guy A won't provide a source or even attempt to back his claims and can continue to run people around in circles with baseless claims about a cow who speaks English. The second guy even tries to use some science to challenge person A's claims, but they're just brushed away and ignored and replaced with a repeat of the same baseless claim.
In this discussion you're person 'A'. But you're welcome to prove me wrong by offering some back up. I've already provided a little back up earlier in this thread, if you're willing to offer some back up yourself, I'd be happy to fetch some more.
