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Three thousand years of Western philosophy and theoretical science would tend to speak against this point.

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I admit it was like that in the past. That does't mean there is no other ways to communicate ideas between humans. Debates which are just used to communicate ideas between a group of person which share a common interest are usually not constructive because their are no goals to achieve and no finality. Most of the time, this is only to evaluate your amount of knowledges on a subject with other individuals. You might feel intelligent, but you've done nothing concrete and the things you learn in a debate might probably be learnt faster alone if you put the effort. The second form of debate is when there is something at stake. Work debates, political debates, couple debate, there is something to be decided which involves many persons. Work debate sometimes involve a moderator. This is the form I was thinking about when I wrote this post. A polemic is more an open mental fight. A debate is usually more diplomatic. An intelligent discussion is more effective. Which is really diffucult to acheive when you are intelligent, I conceit. One problem is the way with communicate ideas, which is essentially by oral. The mouth is much slower than the brain. I've heard something like 500 words/minute for the brain compared with 100 words/minute for the mouth. And most people cannot talk at this speed.

You usually impress me with your keen memory

There is something I feel must be said.

Satanism has a set dogma. And what good is dogma if it changed or debtated to death on a whim? You can "debate" Satanism all fucking day and just talk yourself in circles for hours and hours and hours, and get absolutely nowhere. (Well perhaps the Temple of Set.) Because that is what debate is, debate is having an argument for argument's sake. Discussion begins with a line of dialogue and ends definatively with answers and edification. Debates are inherantly hostile, and aimed at tearing down or re-forming your opinion of something to match someone elses opinion. Reading some on Dawkins' meme-theory has alot to do with this.

For those that feel the incessant compulsion to constanty poke and find fault with what was laid out by the CoS and in the TSB are shit disturbing masochists. They will never be content with what they find, because they are not Satanists to begin with. They have such an open mind that it is counter-productive. Ideas go in but fall out just as quick because their cranium is devoid of anything for those ideas to stick to.

The Satanist will look at TSB and CoS policy and say "This works for me" and that is final, no more questioning is needed because they know they got the "real deal". Anton Lavey worked very hard to put everything a Satanist needs into the books he wrote. Debate on Satanic policy and dogma often leads to sour grapes attacks, and antics akin to monkeys throwing poo. These sour grapes attacks are obvious for what they are. Moderators delete them.

Creationists and Evolutionists debate. Protestants and Catholics debate. Republicans and Democrats debate. The United Nations debates. See how far they get accomplishing their goals? Debate is all based upon opinion and consensus. And opinions are never wrong, especially if they are your own. An opinion may be formulated upon facts or fallacies or any number of combinations of the two. But it is a fruitless waste of energy to debate non-issues, which is usualy what these "debates on Satanism" boil down to.

From my observations "consensus" from the body of followers is not how Church of Satan policy and dogma is decided upon and laid out. CoS is not the Unitarian Church.

It is my observation that the people that ask the most questions often lack the effort and curiosity to answer those questions for themselves.

Very charitable of you to explain this.

To further demonstrate what it means to "make the effort", I had to look up "at loggerheads" in the dictionary.

That's a great little expression. And kind of sexy, too.

...Or maybe I've just been researching Tom of Finland all week and I have visions of lumberjacks dancing in my head .

Words can be so much fun. The English language is rich with layers of meaning.

True. Hell, that's what makes it entertaining sometimes!