I suppose what caught my attention was the discovery that some people might be getting hurt over there. I haven't really participated much in the bashing, and I almost never look at the Freedomain Radio site itself. But I have found it worthwhile to try to help people think through the difficult issues that they're working through as they search for a better path through life. If I didn't think I could help anymore, I'd probably get lost, but as it stands I feel like I might be making a difference to a few people. And in a sense, that's more important to me than a lot of other stuff I could be doing with my time.

P.S. I should add that I am particularly motivated to help because I see a lot of a younger version of myself in some of those who are involved in this, and I think that if I had done what I see some of them doing, I would be living a much less fulfilling life today. If I can help to stop that from happening in a way that's respectful of their desire to figure things out for themselves, then that's something I definitely would want to do.

Danny, I am curious in what way you see yourself helping now? "The Molyneux Project" was of course an impressive effort. To some degree I think we are all helping by providing an engaging alternative for people who want to leave FDR. LiMi for me has basically been all the good stuff I saw in FDR before I caught on to all the quackiness.

I mostly agree with Vichy. FDR for me is analogous to sports in a city I didn't grow up in. I don't have any particular interest in who wins or who loses, I don't follow too closely, but if my friends are watching the game I will hang out occassionally. Within a month or two of joining this site I just completely lost interest in anything Stef had to say and have only been to the site since when there has been some discussion here.

Well my participation here has been rather sporadic, and not all of it has involved discussing Stefan. But I think that the most significant involvement I've had recently came in response to learning about Stefan's views on forgiveness, which I disputed in a number of places. Though I wasn't the only one involved in that discussion, I'd like to think that I was able to add something to the rejection of his position on that matter. And I think that given the potential implications of the flaws in his position, that was an important point to make.

I've also tried to offer some perspective to some of the parents of Freedomain Radio participants who have come to this site seeking to learn more about their children's decision to break off contact. While I'm certainly not the only one who can do that, and perhaps I don't have any unique insights to add based on personal experience, I'd like to think that my contributions have helped some of the parents to make peace with the circumstances they face.

On a less serious level, I've glanced at a few of the threads concerning Freedomain Radio and thrown in some peanut gallery comments. But that just comes from me leading a boring life.

Fair enough. Certainly providing Google-able responses to some of Stef's most ridiculous claims is a postive contribution. I just don't see this as a situation where we can actively help people. The best you can do is make counter arguments available and hope that people find them. Those people that end up here will probably be helped to the degree that they seek it out. Those that never leave the FDR board are the ones who would never rationally consider counter-arguments anyway.

An alternative way of considering this is that I think the Nathan's and Greg G's of the world would just be dogmatically following some other douchebag if they weren't dogmatically following Stef.

If its not clear, none of the above was meant to diminish your or anyone elses contributions to this forum, your blog, etc.

I think I kind of argued against a point you didn't make, but whatever.

Thanks, Static; no offense taken whatsoever. I don't see myself as being responsible for actively seeking out and reeducating any of Stefan's customers. I only hope to be able to contribute what I can so that people in search of a different way of looking at things will be able to find that alternative and consider for themselves what they believe. Since I'd really prefer to limit the use of my blog for my more rigorous philosophical thinking, this outlet is definitely preferable for that function (not in the Molyneux sense), and I suppose I'll continue to use it that way.

[deleted content]

Shouldn't that have been a PM?

not sure, Lord has talked about his situation at several points on LM, so it's not so much a matter of privacy. And posting it on the forum itself might prompt useful comments by others.

Lemme remove it for now though and PM him instead.