Oh, for sure, Martin...the debaters accomplish very little...but it's just something to DO, that's all. And it enhances the speaker's sense of personal identity. Some people like watching football. Some like playing video games. Some enjoy archery. Others enjoy debating.

As the archer enjoys trying to hit the target, or the golfer enjoys trying to sink a putt, so the debater enjoys the mental challenges of the debate.

People have restless minds. They search around for something to engage those restless minds.

That's really all there is to it. A truly enlightened person would not spend hours a day debating with people on an Internet forum, that's for sure, because he'd have WAY better things to do, and be quite happy to leave other people to their own devices while he did those better things. :-)

Which makes me question: "Why am I on this forum so much?"

Because I've still got a restless mind, that's why. And it's become a habit. And it's fun, of course. The unenlightened mind is constantly seeking fun and variety, just like a restless monkey...and is FULL of opinions and the desire to defeat opposing opinions.

Meantime, Life itself moves magestically on and God is God and no one can do a darned thing about it. :-)

Man, I WISH I could conquer my restless mind...and I could, if I wasn't so inclined to be lazy and just let it keep running the show for me.