This is not specific to this thread, BTW and if it makes you feel any better. I never read any of the crap you post on religion. Which means I very rarely read anything you post.
Hello Kalhoun,
If you get the chance, would you mind asking Jodi the same questions (differently worded of course) I did? Thanks in advance.
It’s ok, I avoid things that make me feel stupid too.
Your barbs might have more sting if they weren’t so dang obvious. A little subtlety, a little finesse . . . slip the blade between the ribs, y’know? I feel like you’re trying to bonk me with a plastic Flintstones club.
I’m keeping your beliefs in mind and dumbing it down for you.
I treat everybody the same in religious debates. I may not be equally kind to every argument but I don’t let personalities enter into it. I don’t take it easy on more liberal Christians or go out of my way to insult even the most hardcore fundies.
Ever since you’ve joined this board you’ve made statements implying that I pull punches for Christians who (in your mind) I like (i.e “liberal” ones) while taking a nail gun to the fundies. That’s really not the case with me. I address the argument, not the poster (I’m just talking about religious debates here, not necessarily every other subject). If it seems I’m being more aggressive with some posters than others, that’s a function of the argument I’m addressing rather than the poster. Really dumb arguments or assertions will get eviscerated and it’sjust the nature of the game that the dumbest assertions will come from the most hardcore fundies.
If you really read my posts you’ll see that I’m capable of being quite aggressive in challenging the most basic tenets of even the most liberal Christians, I just don’t feel the need to use ad hominems while I’m doing it. I think it’s ineffective and obscures the real substance of my arguments. This makes not only my opponent less likely to listen but also any observers who might be following along.
As an example, I think the Problem of Evil is an insurmountable one and that the Free Will defense fails as a solution because Free Will itself is a logical impossibility. I feel that I can make my case for both those points just on logic alone and that if I treat my opponents like peers who are capable of following my argument then they are much more likely to actually listen to it (or maybe a lurker will) than if I also keep telling them how stupid they are. As soon as I call them “morons,” though, I immediately lose all my momentum and it completely drowns out my argument. It’s like trying to convince somebody of something while intermittently blowing an air horn. All they’re going to hear is the damn horn and it isn’t going to matter if I’m right or wrong.
The irony of me telling you this is that any number of people here will tell that I myself am the king of that kind of thing – the KING of it – when it comes to practically any other topic but religion (especially politics). I don’t know how many times people have told me both on and off the board that “I agree most of what you say but a lot of times I cringe at how you say it.” I’m a fellow sinner in this regard. For reasons I don’t even really understand myself I just don’t tend to get so angry or emotional about religious topics. Anyway, I am intimately familiar with the impulse to to tell everybody what idiots they are but I’ve never once found it effective to do so. You get more flies with honey and all that. I think you might also find that the more civil and detached you are, the less excuse an opponent is going to have for evading tough questions. “What about the problem of evil?” works better than “What about the problem of evil, you dumbass?”
You’ve made it clear that you don’t care what people think of you personally but I get the sense that you do care about trying to persuade them that you’re right. The more restrained you are in judgements about character and intelligence, the better your chances will be of succeeding.
Incidentally, you don’t always have to boil the frog all at once. No one is instantly going to deconvert because of one post or one logical problem. Try working a little more slowly and methodically.
And that, ladies & gents, is why Diogenes the Cynic is one of the atheists I like. That plus the fact that he knows how to spell.
You’re wrong about free will, though. Utterly, sadly, majestically wrong. But that’s all right. We luvs ya anywhistle.
Emphasis mine.
Badchad, I began to respond with vitriol, but I don’t have very much of that (not because i’m a Christian, just because it’s been too pleasant a day to supply me with bile). Instead, I shall point out that your selective quoting is precisely why other persons find debating with you so unpleasant as to be unworthy of the time required to do so. You see, I made a light-hearted jab at Diogenes’, prefacing it with praise I sincerely feel he merits. Note that I included “majestically” in my lists of the ways DtC is wrong, by which I mean I find his arguments on free will elegant and well-reasoned, though unconvincing. You, contrariwise, seem to care more about earning points (in your own estimation) than you do about treating your opponents courteously, or about convincing them of the wrongness of their arguments, or even about persuading persons in your audience that your position is the correct one. When you do such things, you succeed only in inspiring distaste and disapprobation that, in fact, makes it harder for you to persuade anyone of the validity of your position. It’s a shame, really.
Of course, all the above would probably be more persuasive if I hadn’t begun the thread by comparing badchad to a defecating pachyderm, but it’s too late to do anything about that now.
Oh, yes. As long as you’re only a shithead about real world topics, and not my precious religion, you are A-O-Fucking-K in my books. Call me shithead for being pro-life? Well hey, I’ll respect you if you off-lay on the religion-ay.
We’re all allowed our opinions, for the most part. Sometimes douchebags come along and give douchebags a bad name with their douchebaggedness, as you do from time to time.
Checks forum
Yup, I can state as an expert of identifying douchebags, you give them a bad name. I hereby revoke your status as a douchebag. You’re 6 levels of civility from acheiving that honored status.
Dio is one of the few people that get me riled up, but not in a frothing-at-the-mouth way. He’s wrong 99% of the time ( 
), but he’s still a guy that will occasionaly show signs of humanity. Trust me, we’ve gone round and round, him probably winning the majority though he was wrong, but we’ve (I trust it’s mutual) move on.
He is an atheist and is in no way shy of it. He’ll hammer people on Scripture if he smells a rat, but he does it in a “debating” style. I can’t think of a post where it was ever a personal attack on a person’s intelligence, though I could be wrong. As a non-beleiver, he’s well versed. And it keeps many of us on our toes.
I’ll say he is almost universally wrong in almost everything he posts, but this is a friggin message board so it’s not often taken personally.
You could learn a lot from him. But I doubt you will.
Stay angry, my friend, stay angry.
And dammit Dio, still waiting for that drink you owe me after the pack smoked your Vikes. 
I just have to say this sums up the 1% exception I mentioned. Of course, it’s a really, really big 1%, but as those that make up stats will do, I’ll adjust math to give more weight to that percentage.
After all, us Dopers are smartest people, so we can give arbitrary weight to what we post. Right?
I’m fairly pro-choice myself (I’m one of those “cringe when I see Dio on my side people”). I just find it kind of ridiculous that because this argument happens to be about religion, Dio is tossed around as an example of cool debating style and that all the theists respect him. How many respect Dio when they are in a debate about ways their religion actually dictates you to act? Is that not more or at least AS important? Sheesh.
I hope my reply to duffer clears your confusion, Skald.
Can we please all just stipulate that I’m an asshole so that the thread can move ahead without debating that point? Thanks.
Gotcha; I thought you were talking about me, and since I’m 84.45% certain I’ve never posted in an abortion thread hereabouts–'cept maybe to make a smart-ass remark, asshole that I am – I was confused. I avoid such threads and have not read DtC’s musings on the subject, and thus have no opinion about them.
Bullshit. Tell me in this thread…
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=226859&page=1&pp=40
…that you weren’t bending over backwards to defend Polycarp the whole way through in spite of the fact that you yourself were pretty darn sure that Poly hadn’t really discovered the 2nd coming of Christ. If you ask me you give that guy and others like him a complete pass when it comes to their nonsense and you have done so for years. I don’t have a problem with arguing with what you wish but at least admit that you argue inconsistently.
I seem to recall asking you about it, and I seem to recall you admitting as much. Given time I might even be able to quote you saying so.
Do you never notice liberal Christians making really dumb or even somewhat dumb arguments, because, I really can’t recall you eviscerating any of their assertions. I recall an occasional detached post here or there but never a consistent “your wrong and this is why” post as you would in a creationism thread. I really do think you’re a smart guy, and as such, I have my doubts that you are missing all the contradictions that I regularly catch.
Perhaps I have missed this. Could you link some examples?
But notice here you are taking this example to me, the person who agrees with you. You are not directing it to Jodi, who is trying to use free will to support her liberal Christianity. You could ask her the same questions I did, and do so without calling her a moron, and as you would if you were addressing a fundamentalist Christian, but if history is any guide I don’t think you will.
I don’t know that this is true. Some people respond better to Russell type atheism while others prefer Mencken. Which brings more converts is a good question and something I have given a lot of thought to. For example I really think I had to goad Polycarp into making the admissions that he did and his theology suffered for it. If I had been kinder I might have been more effective but I doubt it as there are sometimes no kind ways of pointing out that given experiences etc. don’t point to god. It would be interesting to see if you could make more headway against liberal Christianity for a compare and contrast but we will never know because you won’t even try. For example tell me you don’t think you could eat Tomndebb’s lunch in a debate about his religious beliefs. Then tell me how you would go about doing so in a way that he doesn’t end up thinking you’re being rude.
Hey, I like some assholes. Otherwise I’d be more full of shit than I am.
No need to get scared Skald. While you did call Diogenes out with as small a font as possible, chances are he won’t argue with you. Now if you said Michelle Wie shouldn’t play men’s golf, well then you’d get your argument. Of course if you think you can do your side justice, you could respond to my criticisms of the same topic (which are pretty much identical to DtC’s) but we know that’s not happening now, don’t we?