Dont you hate it when you post a great question, yet hardly anyone responds??

I think the reason you find annoyance in less responses is because we feel we are attempting to spread knowledge with our questions. For them not be taken seriously, blown off, or ignored completely feels like just one more attempt at reinforcing their blinders and refusal to accept reality.

I do hate what you're describing.

To answer your original question, here is why people employ rational explanations for some things, and emotional explanations for others.

People REASON RATIONALLY, but they DECIDE EMOTIONALLY.

Compare it to buying a new car. For most (not all) people, buying a new car is a major life event. It's a big expenditure, a status symbol, and a purchase with ramifications that last for years. Before you make the purchase, you do the research. You learn all about the car. You go to different dealerships and try and get the best deal. You shop for the best loan rate, etc. These are all logical, rational parts of the purchase process.

But when the time comes to sit down and start signing papers, when you're actually committing to purchasing the car from the salesman, you have butterflies in your stomach, you're nervous, you're thinking about your envious neighbors and friends. You're imagining what will happen if you don't make the payments. And, as all these good and bad feelings are swirling about, you start signing.

The actual decision to buy the car is an emotional one, even though everything you did right up to it was logical.

Think about what happens when you confront the small child who took the cookies. They might say, "I don't know", or "it wasn't me", or "my sister did it", but as soon as their reasoning capacity (ability to deny or make up excuses on the spot) is exhausted, they can only resort to what they know, which is that they took the cookies because they wanted a treat (which of course they know is wrong) so they start to cry (emotions.)

When you ask people about religion, you are asking about beliefs. Feelings. Faith. Personal opinion. Levels of conviction. Perhaps even doubt. All of this is based on things they've been told are true, but they don't actually KNOW are true.

When you bring into question what a religious person believes, they have to draw on (sometimes irrational) knowledge and present it as a factual, cohesive argument. Unless they are VERY GOOD at creative thinking and debate, as the litany of knowledge runs out, the less they can rely on RATIONAL REASONING, and the more they must resort to EMOTIONAL DECISION making. Their arguments become more and more dogmatic. Once you press a religious person past a certain point, they can only respond with pat answers that they've been taught or told. There's no factual evidence to "dip into." The "jig is up" and they are literally standing there with their hands in the cookie jar.

This is partly why atheists can discuss religion without giving emotional explanations. Their convictions are generally based on evidence (or a lack thereof) and drilling them harder will only result in a more succinct, rational argument, or they'll simply say, "I don't know", because they really don't know.

But rarely will they get wildly emotional.

Some questions are MISS posted in the wrong category, or as in my case, no one disagreed with me. Or for that matter voiced an opinion.

In a few cases some post questions no one dares to associate with. Government stuff and the like.

Remember what you write or say can be sent off to official offices where others can examine your intent.

Good idea , and bad too.

Yes, it annoys me when I post a good question and it gets knocked off the front page right real quick.

nope.

i always post great q's, and always get at least a half dozen intelligent people to answer -- sometimes, that's all the intelligent people who are logged on here! we're usually too busy doing other things to spend too much time here!

Nope

As long as one person answers my question

I'm happy.

yes it does and the 2nd guy who answered the question displayed that