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GeneralNew Users and our Welcoming Attitude

21st Sep 2017 10:06 UTCDawn Markus

I am new. I want to thank those of you who can have discussions with courtesy and valid information. Thank you.

21st Sep 2017 14:26 UTCReiner Mielke Expert

I am glad we could be of help.

21st Sep 2017 16:15 UTCDonald B Peck Expert

Dawn,

Welcome. I am glad we were helpful and courteous. (We make an effort to keep the discourse civil.)

21st Sep 2017 16:28 UTCJolyon Ralph Founder

Let this be a great reminder to every last one of us that this should be a friendly place welcoming to all. We are all capable of saying things that, in hindsight, we shouldn't. Let's try to keep the number of threads that get out of control to the absolute minimum.

Jolyon

22nd Sep 2017 02:00 UTCPaul Brandes 🌟 Manager

I agree. Too many times, we have seen great threads get shutdown because some doofus decided to hijack it with unnecessary and unscientific dribble.

Glad you found us, Dawn!

22nd Sep 2017 09:16 UTCPaul De Bondt Manager

Welcome to Mindat Dawn.

22nd Sep 2017 11:02 UTCDon Swenson

Jolyon wrote "We are all capable of saying things that, in hindsight, we shouldn't."

I would ask that if you discover that you have done this, that you apologize ASAP. This would help isolate the few people who intentionally write the negative messages that are the scourge of MANY comment sections on numerous websites. So far MINDAT has had very few of these; let's keep it that way.

22nd Sep 2017 12:45 UTCOwen Lewis

The Catholic Church latched on to the value of confession a couple of millennia ago. It eases the psyche of the person confessing and gives priests great power in the community. Whether this is altogether a good thing has been the subject two millennia of debate :-)

'Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa..'..

Alternatively, there is the definition of a gentleman that has him as 'a person who is only ever rude intentionally' LOL.

There are too many things that I have done in my life that I have since come to regret heartily and which I can never put right, for me to find room to regret the odd feather ruffling here and there. Many rufflings of feathers are either deserved or result from the perception in willfully narrow minds. None of us is made of fine porcelain, to chip at the least disturbance and in debate, one takes the rough with the smooth.

That said, I do find the arrogance of some (yes, here) who worship at the feet of the great god, Science, amusing and sometimes just a little irritating. As many of us find, the older we get and the more we know, the less we understand and the clearer becomes understanding that our knowledge is but a small fraction of all there is to comprehend. What is a memory and how is it stored and recalled? Yet without memory, what humans call knowledge simply would not exist. We have not yet seriously scratched the surface of understanding what we are, what drives us and the place, in the great scheme of things (chaos??) of 'science', almost all of which has been developed in the last 300 years though the human races have existed for much longer than that.

Should Atlas shrug and humanity vanish in the blink of an eye, this world would continue to exist and, arguably, as a better place for having been disinfested. Science is one form of human knowledge . Without such 'knowledge' all else would continue as happily (or unhappily) as though humans and their knowledge systems had never existed.

Thus endeth the first lesson. ;-)

And, as Jolyon reminds us, a little open mindedness and kindness to newcomers is something we should all try for.

22nd Sep 2017 14:38 UTCDon Swenson

Owen,

I suggested that people apologize NOT that they "confess their sins" . I do not regard apologizing for unintentionally misusing language as anything close to anything you stated in your message.

22nd Sep 2017 18:47 UTCDaniel Bennett

Paul Brandes Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> I agree. Too many times, we have seen great

> threads get shutdown because some doofus decided

> to hijack it with unnecessary and unscientific

> dribble.

>

> Glad you found us, Dawn!

kind of like hijacking a thread aimed at courtesy and friendliness and insulting someone.

22nd Sep 2017 19:27 UTCGregg Little 🌟

For Dawn and the others;

To quote .... "discussions with courtesy and valid information" and "an effort to keep the discourse civil" and "a friendly place welcoming to all" and "try to keep the number of threads that get out of control to the absolute minimum", and "a little open mindedness and kindness to newcomers" .... these should be the main objectives for our visitors to these discussions/threads.

When the non-scientific and the lay persons enter our small realm of the larger world of the earth sciences, relatively few people have the ability or training or knowledge to understand the immense space-time concepts required. We are talking about geological processes in settings that cover decades to millions of years, that can span ocean basins and mountain ranges and that occur at surface to great depths. Using a couple of anecdotes, (pseudo-science loves this line of thinking) I'll try underscore this point.

1) A Texas building contractor was showing a house to a prospective client and, to add a little pizzazz to his projects, he would tastefully landscape the yard with a piece of local fossil material, in this case a piece of fossil dinosaur track. After pointing out the yard's accent piece the client, with a worried look on his face replied, "I didn't know they got so close to the house!".

2) When discussing how oil is found in the ground many of the uninitiated believe it occurs as subterranean lakes (sometimes with animals swimming in them!?!). I have to gently sway them from that to an oil-soaked sponge or oil-saturated cloth analogy.

Even with the constant approaches by the crystal-healing crowd, we still have to be mindful of the lack of exposure they have had compared to our level of training and experience. Those that wish to accept the science-based aspect of the hobby will "convert". Those that don't, for whatever reasons of blind faith or financial gain or whatever floats their boat, will not.

My comeback to a persistent "new-age" thinker on the healing powers of crystals is simply the beach. Nearly every one of the billions upon trillions of sand grains on our beaches is a quartz crystal, all be it a fragment of one. The travel industry has long ago tapped into this "crystal healing" by enticing us to open our wallets and spend time on some far away resort for a little R&R, .. and healing, on a patch of sun drenched quartz crystals.

As Owen points out, the rocks are forever but we are not. Truth and knowledge should be nurtured and passed on as it is our only enduring human legacy.

22nd Sep 2017 21:32 UTCRoger Curry

Nice Owen

22nd Sep 2017 22:20 UTCScott Rider

I do want to apologize as my attitude on a certain topic, I was very unprofessional. Taking out my frustrations on a forum should be left for trolls, and I don't want to come out like that. I did not like the comments being said but I could have made my point in a less than insulting manner.

I really do normally respect other peoples beliefs, but when people give bad advice like homeopathic methods vs. going to a doctor I tend to lose it... I have friends from both realms, friends whom worked their butts off and were financially in tatters for a while due to going through medical school, and to short-change what these people do and learned through very hard work just pisses me off.. But then I have friends that believe in the mystical stuff, and they did not spend or sacrifice anything NEAR what my doctor friends have, not even close...

But..... This site should be for discussions regarding minerals, rocks, geology, science, and similar topics, and politics, astrology, homeopathic stuff should be left for other places... I love this website and the forum, and my behavior was out of line and, again, I apologize for that.

22nd Sep 2017 22:28 UTCOwen Lewis

Don Swenson Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Owen,

>

> I suggested that people apologize NOT that they

> "confess their sins" . I do not regard apologizing

> for unintentionally misusing language as anything

> close to anything you stated in your message.

Don,

I think you take life a little too seriously. Since your appeal for 'mea culpas' this thread has scarcely been swamped with them, has it? In fact, not one so far. Perhaps you would like to break the ice with one or more of your own? After all, you would not wish to be damned for your silence, now would you? Do please make your confession and contrition heart-felt A general and unspecified apology will not suffice. Oh no; we need full details of the offending act(s) to be set out. Without such prior confession your apology would be a meaningless.gesture, wouldn't it? ;-)

Yes, dear Don, I am (gently) teasing you and shall not apologise for doing so ;-) Buy you a beer should we ever meet though....

23rd Sep 2017 01:32 UTCPaul Brandes 🌟 Manager

Daniel Bennett Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> kind of like hijacking a thread aimed at courtesy

> and friendliness and insulting someone.

My point exactly! ;-)

23rd Sep 2017 20:08 UTCDon Swenson

This site should be for discussions regarding minerals, rocks, geology, science, and similar topics, and politics, astrology, homeopathic stuff should be left for other places... I love this website and the forum, and my behavior was out of line and, again, I apologize for that.

Scott, thank you for taking my statement at face value.

24th Sep 2017 17:10 UTCDonald B Peck Expert

Donna,

Your nice message about the friendly welcome and help has sort of been hijacked. Thank you for your thoughts and don't be a stranger.

Don

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