how are you not banned form this forum. you destroy any grounds for intellectual debate.

instead of making fun of me why don't you do something productive?

1. Should I state the source of common knowledge, even if the historical evidence and records support the historical validity of this statements?

You won't risk to say yes. Prove me wrong?

2. Would a person, who respects me and has a strongly expressed "openness" as his genetic tread, dismiss my analysis on the basis of authority? Or because of my weak grammar or bad English?

If you say yes, you are running the risk of letting me look like a normal human being.
It is clear that your goal is to put me down! Prove me wrong?

3. Are you aware that most of the good historical books are not even published in English?

I am 100% right and by your reactuon with "really" you make my case for me. You are not aware how restrictive English translation. Prove me wrong?

4. Are you aware that I may not be a native speaker and I may speak other, more useful languages in my field of research and study?

Again you can't answer with Yes. Because then I can show that I speak and read more then 6 languages, which will make me more credable in your world. As you like arguments from authority. Prove me wrong?

Do it bro. Do something productive, please stop the trolling!

This question applies to you more than anyone else in this thread. It will soon be a moot point, however, because I suspect you'll be banned very soon.

You are absolutely correct. I never risked saying yes to your statement. It is a risk that I cannot afford as it is too costly to me to risk saying "yes" that copying text from an external source verbatim without citation is an important behavior to avoid, especially in the context of one claiming to be an academic. It's something I've never said, nor will I ever say. The reality is that the word "yes" was never once included in any response I had to you with regards to the question at hand.

Fixupost is the source of true statements about my past and present behavior as well as all of my mental states.

hahaha!!! unite, trolls unite!

Good jobs I really lost interest


1. You want citation where citation is not need by definition.
You fail to explain why.

2. You claim that my credability is shaken by my grammar and bad english.

3. You use the word plagiarism out of context and you fail to see it!

OWNEEEEEEDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

I bet you guys won't talk like this in person. We can make a skype call so that I destroy your kids logic with eaaaaaazzzzzzzz

You enage me in a conversation, but you refuse to address any of my points. I do asnwer and address your points.

how is that not the definition of trolling?
get a mod to be arbiter and we can even set a time when a real famouse philosopher can take a 10 min part in our convo.

Ok, you've made some excellent points, you have a logically valid argument with what appear to be true premises, it's very reasonable in fact, so reasonable that I have no counter and can't argue why my argument is more likely to be sound than yours. I could try to challenge your premises, or perhaps even examine mine more closely since both sets of premises and the conclusions drawn from them can't both be true at the same time in the same way, but what I'm actually now going to do is stop talking to you and just continue to believe what I believe even though I might reasonably feel that I'm not quite as justified in believing it as I was before our discussion. Never mind.

Makes sense to me. Peace.

Apparently you forgot that you already did this with your 'multiple posters' claim although technically I suppose that's more of an 'appeal to the majority' type of claim. Same difference.

Ok, so we have two groups of chess analysts who disagree on the solution to chess. Assume for simplicity's sake that we are only referring to the knowledgeable experts on the game which offer their opinion on this.

Based on their analyses and models these groups disagree on what the solution is. One says black will force a draw, one says white will force a win.

Are one of these groups being unreasonable? If so, which one and why.

The big difference between this analogy (it's not an example because it's not the same thing) and an argument is that in the argument we already have conclusions, and they can't both be right at the same time and in the same way, but in your analogy you're making predictions about the outcome. Ultimately, white OR black is going to win and one of those experts was wrong and made a bad argument. That's where we're starting, not earlier in the process before the results were known.

Now suppose white wins, and the person who thought the black 'argument' was 'reasonable' still clung to that conclusion despite being unable to show why the white argument was the unsound argument.... now it's the same situation, kind of, since with an argument we don't necessarily have such a conclusive ... er... conclusion, but then that's why I think it's a bad analogy.

Lagtight was explicitly referring to an ongoing debate between chess experts. It's happening now and is an actual case, not an analogy.

We're not asking about how those people would feel in the hypothetical future when the solution is known, and frankly it's just strange to claim that this matters. It's obviously not the same situation, because more information is available.

If you're going to default on some claim that we can't have a reasonable opinion before perfect information is obtained, then you just made most human endeavors of knowledge unreasonable, including science.

But the situation we're in is that Lagtight has an argument with a conclusion and other people (including you) have made counter arguments and he backed off after deciding that your arguments were 'reasonable'. We have conclusions in both cases neither of which are necessarily right but which are definitely mutually exclusive. So why compare that to something totally different.

And, you've changed my argument. I never said that we couldn't have reasonable 'opinions', I'm not even talking about opinions, and more importantly my actual point is that I don't understand how lagtight continues to hold his beliefs whilst agreeing that two contradictory arguments both have merit enough to describe both as 'reasonable' by his definition. That would put me firmly on the fence or cause me to fight even harder to prove my argument.

I'm guessing he goes "hmm, that sounds reasonable" and then ceases the debate, either to study the subject further or let it rest. Sure, that's isn't the norm on an internet forum, let alone one dedicated to religion, but it's hardly impossible to understand.

But if I remember correctly his example was offered when you inquired as to how two reasonable arguments could contradict each-other, not as a mirror reflection of his own case.

And frankly I sympathize with the sentiment. I've maintained for a long time on this forum that the practical difference between deism and atheism is dangerously close to zero, implicitly implying also that I think the debate between a deist and an atheist should ultimately reach an intellectual stalemate. Sure that doesn't apply to a professed literalist such a lagtight, but I means I understand the underlying sentiment very well.

Given that I had been speaking directly to his case, I have no idea why he would do that.

Quite. How he can say that you made excellent points and a 'reasonable' argument but firmly hold onto his beliefs is the bit I'm struggling with. He had no answer to your points, but it apparently made not even the smallest dent in his certainty.

According to your view, what is the substantive difference between an "opinion" and a "belief"? I think you're drawing yet another arbitrary line to try to preserve your argument.

It's not so difficult. Beliefs don't exist in vacuums, but are contextualized among the other beliefs people hold. So that there may be two equally compelling arguments about a particular topic, you may hold secondary beliefs that support one position over another.

Going back to the sports analogy, you're focused on the outcome of a particular game, but most people think about the course of an entire season. You think that because one game between two teams is really close that the two teams are somewhat equal in skill. Others may take a step back and look at the records over the season as a way to influence their beliefs. If one does this, it does not deny that this particular game was close.


This is also the sort of intellectual attitude that leads you to argue nonsensically about things. You feel the need to "fight even harder" when you really ought to try to learn. You don't need to be "on the fence" to learn. You can be fully convinced of the rightness of your underlying position even if some argument you've made is shown to be in error.

Historically, you've really had problems with this. It seems that your general disdain for religion leads you to think that *anything* that makes an affirmative argument for religion in any sense must have some sort of flaw in it, and that you believe this strongly enough that you'll go to any length to try to win the argument to defend that.

It could be that this whole win-lose mentality is what's underpinning your emotionally held beliefs. Rather than being able to accept arguments on their own merits, you feel as though a strong counter-argument must necessarily cause you to abandon beliefs you don't want to abandon. And because of that, you will put up the most outrageous fights to prevent yourself from having to acknowledge other positions. You're not putting up stronger fights because you're *actually* right, but because of the emotional loss that would ensue (at least in your mind) if you were to concede a point. You can't let that happen, so you'll keep on arguing and insisting on the rightness of your beliefs and ignore/negate all the information that points to the wrongness of your beliefs.

Of course you have no idea. Allowing that idea would cause you to expand your perspective, and you've shown that this isn't of interest. You want to win the argument, so you're going to limit the things he can do to make his point.

So some secondary example that demonstrates the point in a neutral topic is not going to be allowed by you. And if he tries to explain this to you on the grounds of the current topic, you're going to be absolutely befuddled, as you are now.

There's no reason to change your beliefs instantaneously if presented with a good argument. What's wrong with letting the ideas sit in your head for a while so that you can ponder and reflect? Why does one need to be instantly shook when a good counter-argument comes their way?

Wow, a lot of good stuff posted today that I would like to comment on (and most certainly will soon). I have to go to work today plus I'm a bit under the weather again , so I may not be up to responding today, but I will respond very soon.

Sorry to hear that, hope you feel better soon. I look forward to your response.

Quoting for truth. Aaron pretty much knocks it out of the park right here.

Thanks, Mightyboosh. Feeling better today. Hopefully will make my responses ITT tonite after work.

Have a blessed day!

This post of Aaron's and a couple of posts by DeuceKicker is what lead me to abandon (at least for now) my purposeful/purposeless argument.

Several observations are in order here:


1. I was utilizing this argument as a way of defending" for what might be called "generic theism." (i.e. it wasn't an argument defending any particular theological system, in that a Muslim could use the argument as well as a Christian or a Jew.)

2. My abandoning this argument didn't undercut [i[any[/i] of my theological beliefs. What it did undercut was a direction in apologetics I was headed in.

3. Sometimes "rushing in where angels fear to tread" doesn't serve me well. I hadn't studied this argument a whole lot before starting to use it, and there isn't a lot of literature on this argument anyway that I'm aware of.

4. My typical apologetic approach isn't to defend some sort of generic theism and then move on to defending a Christian version of theism. I typically try to defend a distinctly Christian worldview from the get-go.

5. I plan to study this argument further in the future, and if I like it, I might use it in theological debates.

Anyway, I hope that y'all (my folks are from the South ) understand better where I'm coming from.

Peace!

My bad for all the typos.