Quote:
Originally Posted by Sea Dangles
Because, as is the case in most instances,a simple search will provide evidence of more than one opinion. It doesn't necessarily demonstrate a need to agree with a differing opinion,and certainly two people can read the same story and come to different interpretations. Kind of like the bible. An open mind is necessary to digest any such text.
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The substance of what you say ("It doesn't necessarily demonstrate a need to agree with a differing opinion,") is what provokes my question. Even if the search provides differing opinions, it doesn't mean that someone who has made the search must remain in a quandary. Nor that one, after making the search, cannot have strong opinions. Some of the most biased people have studied a vast array of opinions. What's the point of making the search if not to form an opinion? That Jim is so assertive and explicit in his opinion does not mean he has not considered other opinions.
Nor does it mean that those who constantly qualify their opinions with vague, noncommittal, contingencies such as "perhaps, possibly, seems" or other hedging ambiguities have made "the search."
I don't think many of us, if any, have made an exhaustive, even a large, "search." And when Spence said "Because the questions he asks have been answered sufficiently multiple times in this forum yet he just keeps asking and asking" it doesn't mean that Spence has "used the search."
There may be a lot of searching that Spence hasn't done. He doesn't cite a lot of the sources which disagree with him. And Jim may be using sources that Spence has not "searched." It is obvious that Jim has searched sources that belie Spence's assertion that his questions have been answered "sufficiently". Or, as you say, he only hears voices in his head. And, it may be, that both Jim and Spence suffer the same malady of insufficient "search_--as you say, two peas in a pod. Though, I don't think
Spence would want to be in that pod. And, I think, Jim would be willing to survive in it. I think ScottW had a good retort.