"But the precise argument for either position
must not only please the one making it."

True.

"I also am worried that you are a doctrinaire believer in a theological position"

Hopefully this is not true. I am open to argument; my approach is to let every voice be heard, to not deny the existence of the thoughts of any person.

The only "doctinaire" bit is the logical basis I have: all that IS is all there is; because if something wasn't, it wouldn't be! What, who exists is what, who exists.

My approach is maximum data scanning, if you like. No evasion. If I went the whole way with this policy, then of course....... I could communicate telepathically for example.

I acknowledge that a child might allegedly crowd out others and be expensive to bring up. I maintain that there are certain actions in life (like crashing jets into office buildings) that are never justified as "solutions" to the problems they purport to solve (U.S. presence in the Middle East; Palestinian liberation).

Also I maintain that certain asumptions people make about humans and their predicament are gravely mistaken.

And I am not throwing doctrinaire stones at anyone. Just scanning the data I have available to me; trying to formulate a mutually recognisable data background to the issues.

-dolphin