You can be a bit condensending sometimes. Perhaps you should try to be so a bit more often. 
That’s alright, we can… Make it into a series, or something. Now, do you mind terribly if we use your head in another thread?
Ummmm…I’m the one who wrote the OP that mentioned Asian kids in sweatshops & your prompt response that day sent a chill up my spine and made me pause. Made me wonder about verbage that I might toss about casually without really considering its meaning. Then when you responded positively to something I’d written in a subsequent thread on another topic, it was a double smiley moment. So, no, I really can’t rip on you. Shit, if I’d known you were prone to feuding w/DCU my opinion of you would have gone higher sooner.
I think youre really smart, but sometimes your comments come across as quite ethereal, it would be helpful if you explained certain views more to the layman, if you know what I mean.
Other than that, your perfect!
My basic opinion agrees with the majority of the posters here, but since you are asking for criticism, here goes.
I get the impression lately that your recent posts, especially in GD, are more snarky than they used to be. You have developed a style of replying to certain posters that at times gets close to taunting just for the sake of it: making a cryptic comment that suggests criticism, then refusing to elaborate.
Just re-checking on a couple of recent posts by you, I also noticed that you do not debate so much anymore, but seem to stick with ‘drive-by’s’, quick comments that are not critical in itself, but that you do not follow up on when asked for it.
The current animosity between you and TVAA is unfortunate, in particular since I like reading posts by both of you, even if I don’t always agree with either of you. I sincerely hope the two of you will eventually manage to work things out. Taking potshots at each other, no matter who is to blame, always looks bad.
I’ve refrained from providing links for documenting the above impressions; these things are subjective anyhow and someone else may differ, of course. A search for your name in GD will bring up the relevant threads.
These impressions boil down to the fact that as of late your contributions to GD seem to have less added value than they used to; you engage less in actual debate and seem to be content with posting brief remarks. I can understand if you find you have neither the time nor the interest in diving fully into each debate, but you might consider in that case concentrating your efforts.
In the end, though, I still have a positive opinion of you as a poster. I hope these critical remarks are of any use. Don’t beat yourself over the head with them. 
You are clearly a good man, and someone I think of fondly. I admire your passion and your striving. You do get pretty worked up here sometimes - but I suppose that is just you. I dunno how you deal with it real life, but a bloke of your age and intelligence should be able to keep important themes you wish to emphasise from becoming obsessions you can’t leave alone until you reach the point where you have to take a break from here.
My main criticism of you is that you want Truth so fiercely that you risk passing wisdom by. You’ve said in the past that before you became a libertarian objectivist Christian, you were some totally different but (no doubt) equally dogmatic and unusual variety of (IIRC) Maoist. IMHO you hold positions with undue certainty. Whilst you are aware of arguments that oppose your position, you seem to consider them only to dismiss them. I can’t recall you saying too often that there are serious arguments in opposition to your own view, but that on balance you don’t find them persuasive.
I guess what that means is that I think you don’t make a sufficient attempt to savour the arguments of your opponents - you’re admirably willing to accept that there might be a refutation of your position, and you’re capable of disposing of objections to your position. But you are reluctant to let an issue lie on the table. Part of that is your ideology of course, but the irony of your response to “materialists” is that whilst you criticise them for irrationally shutting out mystery you admit yourself little room for mystery.
I’m grateful for everyone’s input. Many of you did tread lightly out of respect for me, and I appreciate that you framed your criticisms in the context of being helpful friends. I’ve reviewed everything and mulled it over the last couple of days. For those interested, these are my findings.
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I should take the time to respond to follow-up inquiries and comments about my posts. Some of you were left wondering what I meant by this or that in a given thread, and one of you phrased it paricularly well: “You can sometimes be a little too enigmatic”. To remedy this fault, I can start using the subsciption feature in threads where I post.
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At least one person suggested that I might consider not engaging in this sort of self-examination because of how it might appear to others. Unfortunately, my temperament is such that I am incapable of resisting the compulsion to identify my faults and address them. Therefore, this is a fault that I will continue to have.
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It has been suggested that I am hyper-sensitive. This fault in particular, I’ve been working on for a long time. Believe it or not, I’ve made great progess. As I examine myself, I discover that perhaps in dealing with this, I’ve gone too far toward the other extreme in many ways without leaving this extreme completely behind. I need to be mindful of the fact that having my head in an oven and my feet in a freezer does not, on average, make me comfortable.
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Related to number 3, it is suggested that I am rather insensitive lately, and prone to bash people rather than debate — especially The Vorlon Ambassador’s Aide. Granted. Neither I nor the debate achieve anything of significance when I take the attitude that I am Neo swatting at Agents with one hand behind my back. To remedy the contradictory faults of both 3 and 4, I can try to find a middle-ground, where I do not take offense so easily and where I do not offer it so readily.
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It has been suggested that I am unwilling to debate libertarianism. (This is in a particular sense, or so that’s how I read it. The next fault addresses a very similar suggestion that seems a bit different to me.) In all honesty, it is a matter of time. More has been written about libertarianism (and its cousins, anarcho-capitalism, etc.) than any other political philosophy. While the base principle is incredibly simple, most discussion about it with authoritarians centers on hypothetical case studies that I find particularly annoying for two reasons — (1) it takes so much time to address the minutiae of these scenarios since each response is rebutted by more questions and more hypothetical twists and turns; and (2) the sheer volume is always on the order of ten to one, that is, I find myself opposed by numerous people, each enthusiastic about his own questions and comments, and each demanding personal responses whether or not their topic is covered elsewhere. So, yes, in that sense, I can tire easily of the debate. I am like a person named Connie Lingus who has spent her whole life hearing every possible joke and take on her name. There is no scenario I have not heard with respect to libertarianism, and having to return to the basic premise again and again and re-develop the philosophy in order to explain how it might address particulars in a situation with limited time and resources tends to be frustrating. The only possible remedy for this fault, as I see it, is to cease discussing it unless people are willing to assign their proxy in the dicsussion to someone else so that I have a more resonable one-to-one ratio of questioners.
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It is suggested that I have no patience with Dewey and others with whom I have discussed my worldview, and this is closely related to number 5, but with a difference: it isn’t a matter of being swamped by sheer numbers of hypotheticals, but rather, of my perceiving the questions themselves as motivated by a profound disrespect. I am an extremely passionate man (another fault), and I react too strongly to my perceptions rather than to the written word itself. This will be a very difficult fault to remedy, since it will require not only a change in temperament but in personality as well. Suppose, for example (and this is from an actual case on another board), that someone argues against my philosophy by a rhetorical device, like this: “…and all will be well in my libertarian paradise as I sail away in my air-car, thanks to the fact that it has been free from government interference in market-driven technological advances.” If I tend to interpret such a comment as sarcastic or condescending, my natural reaction is contempt. The words I type then flow through the emotions on my sleeve, and the result is to overwhelm the sarcasm or condescension with outright invective and superciliousness. What I ought to do is learn to discipline myself first to make certain that my own interpretation is the one intended, and second to make certain that, even if hurting my feelings was intentional, not to respond in kind. I need to be mindful of the fact that my feelings are entirely subjective and that although people can be sympathetic, no one is ever completely empathetic. I need to engineer my response to overcome not the insinuation but the implication.
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It has asked whether I am enrolled in the Cherokee Nation, and the answer is that I am not. My racial sensitivity is deeply rooted in my childhood when my father, whose features readily betrayed his Indian heritage (I more resemble my mother), was routinely disrespected within an institutionalized environment of racism. We were quite poor, so much so that our home was built by my father with his own labor. I have childhood memories of outhouses and lots of bread and potatoes meals. Don’t misunderstand. There was nothing about our poverty per se that made me disadvantaged — in fact, my parents were so loving and my neighbors so friendly that my childhood was quite happy. I didn’t even know that I was poor until I entered middle school. But the constant comments from people about my father being untrustworthy (there was never a more trustworthy man), or unable to hold his liquor (he didn’t even drink), or taking back gifts and pledges (he never did any such thing) just because he had dark eyes and high cheek bones have never left me. I suppose the only remedy to this is some sort of treatment or counseling, neither of which I have the time for. I used to identity especially with the so-called “light skinned blacks” who were rejected by both societies. But fortunately, I find sufficient happiness within myself that I have no need for society’s approval. I will, however, refrain from raising the topic of my race until such time as I believe that it is necessary for the discussion.
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Finally, there is the suggestion of a sort of double-standard which can manifest as seeming to taunt others without taking seriously their arguments in opposition to my own. I am too dismissive of, for example, the arguments of materialists and others who hold views that I find to be logically contradictory or inadequate. It is suggested that I savor their arguments rather than go at them like a heat-seeking missile with the relentless design of destroying them. That is an excellent suggestion, and one that is new to me. I need to learn that life on earth as we know it will not end if I do not have the last word.
Thanks again, everyone.
It is also one of your greatest strengths when you focus it.
Hold on. I hope you aren’t done with this thread yet Lib, 'cause I have a question that I’ve wanted to ask you. I’ll try to ask it in a respectful manner. (I say “try” not because I don’t respect you, but because I have a tendancy to put my foot in my mouth).
This is not really a criticism, just a question. I could, I suppose, turned this into a debate, but I’m really just interested in a quick answer. As such I’m putting it here. With those caveats out of the way, on to the question.
From what I’ve seen, you are a very spiritual person with a great love and respect for Jesus and his teachings. You also, from what I can tell, are very much against paying taxes - even saying at one time (IIRC) that you were offended by the idea.
Yet Jesus taught about “Giving unto Caesar”.
This seems to me a conflict of philosophies. Your view would be appreciated.
I’m annoyed by your asking to be criticized, which makes you look good by:
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Receiving weak criticism from your admirers. (The opposite of “damned by faint praise”.)
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Appear modest by asking for your faults.
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Receiving praise from your admirers because you’ve asked for your faults.
If you wanted to know what your faults are, all you had to do was make another GD post about the Ontological Proof of God’s Existence!!!. We would have told you in detail.
Here’s the passage you’re referencing (I’m using Mark, though it is also in Matthew and Luke):
Then they looked for a way to arrest him because they knew he had spoken the parable [about the workers who murdered the heir] against them. But they were afraid of the crowd; so they left him and went away.
Later they sent some of the Pharisees and Herodians to Jesus to catch him in his words. They came to him and said, “Teacher, we know you are a man of integrity. You aren’t swayed by men, because you pay no attention to who they are; but you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not? Should we pay or shouldn’t we?”
But Jesus knew their hypocrisy. “Why are you trying to trap me?” he asked. “Bring me a denarius and let me look at it.” They brought the coin, and he asked them, “Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?”
“Caesar’s,” they replied.
Then Jesus said to them, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.” And they were amazed at him.
Jesus didn’t tell them either to pay taxes or not to pay taxes — “pay your taxes” and “don’t pay your taxes” were precisely the two responses that He could NOT afford to give, and the Pharisees knew this. That’s why they designed the question the way they did.
Their reasoning was that if He told them they should pay taxes, then the people would turn on Him since paying taxes to Rome was not only culturally anathema but also a tacit acknowledgment that God was in favor of the oppression that they suffered at the hands of a pagan dictator. Tax collectors at that time and in that place were on the level of social acceptance that child molestors are today.
But He also could not answer the opposite, i.e., that they shouldn’t pay taxes. If He did, they could use His statement as evidence against Him before the Roman authorities. The charge of insurrection was extremely serious and carried the penalty of death.
Jesus instantly recognized this attempt at trickery and took their question into a place that they had not expected. From Leviticus (19:4):
Do not turn to idols or make gods of cast metal for yourselves. I am the LORD your God.
By demanding to see the coin, and then asking whose picture it bore, Jesus forced the Pharisees to admit in front of everyone that they carried around with them gods of cast metal, graven images of the semi-divine Tiberius Caeser.
Although the Pharisees were talking about taxes, Jesus was not. He did not suffer from the myopia that afflicted them. What Jesus was talking about — and what He talked about constantly throughout His ministry — was the dichotomy between the material and the spiritual worlds. “God is spirit,” Jesus taught, and we are to worship Him “in spirit and in truth”.
Therefore, in the famous passage, Jesus said nothing at all about taxes. To have responded to their question either way they wanted it would have been to have fallen for their trap. But as you see, He knew their hypocrisy, and the first thing He asked them was why they were trying to trap Him.
The formal term in logic is petitio principii in an interrogative form. It is also called a complex question or presupposition fallacy (i.e., presupposing a conclusion). It’s something along the lines of “have you stopped beating your wife, yes or no?”
Jesus refused to answer either yes or no — that is, He refused to tell them whether or not they should pay their taxes. And that wasn’t really what they were asking anyway. After all, they didn’t care about His opinions on economics; they merely wanted to destroy Him.
Hello, friend.
You are occasionally prone to “generalising the opposition” in a manner which you yourself find intolerable. Were I to lump you with the bible-thumping exclusivist Christian mullahs under the word “theist” I would rightly expect indignant objection and obvious disappointment from you.
Yet sometimes in our honest and earnest dialectics you launch attacks on materialism which plainly misrepresent the views of thinking materialists, of which I hope you would think me one (“materialist” itself being a rather old-fashioned desciption of one who requires no God in one’s explanation of the universe).
However, it is absurd for me to point out the mote in your eye whilst ignoring the beam in mine own. I have said before that I believe you and I have had similar experiences, yet Occam’s Razor cleaves us far apart. The respect with which you approach even threads you have covered countless times past ensures that such faults are minor shadows where, without you, there might be no light at all.
How so? And while we’re on a “criticize me” tip, i’ve noticed that you often have an, ummmm, interesting take on logic for a person who constantly uses logic in his arguments.
Incidentally Lib, I was wondering whether you might be interested in a shy at modern cosmology?
Ahem, make that a shy at modern cosmology.
My only criticism would be that (IMHO) you have a tendency to “over-logicate”, if I might coin a phrase. By which I mean to put an emphasis on rules of logic when the issue really revolves around common sense and reasonable probability.
Two examples of this:
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Your frequent refrain that that the fact that from a logical standpoint no one can prove to you that they exist makes all demands to prove the existence of anything pointless.
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Your argument (expressed several times, that I remember) that since the statement “you can’t prove a negative” is itself a negative, it itself can’t be proved and is therefore self-contradictory (or at least pointless).
Having said that, I think you are an A-1 poster, and add a lot to these boards. Everyone has faults, and the list for most posters would be a lot longer, and more significant. I only bring these up because you asked.
[Lisa]:
“Grade me… look at me… evaluate and rank me!
Oh, I’m good, good, good, and oh so smart!
Grade me!”
[Marge scribbles an “A” on a piece of paper and hands it to Lisa.]
[Lisa sighs deeply and walks off, muttering crazily.]
OK, in my own defence, I have to say that you didn’t need to go into quite that much detail. I’m familiar with the passages in question and all that.
Nevertheless, I do see where your view differs from that which I was familiar with. Thanks.
You’re right, and I admit it. I have no excuse for such behavior, but I think the reason I behave the way I do in that regard is that I often feel the need, as a theist, to raise defensive shields as quickly and proactively as possible.
It might be nothing more than my own perception, but materialists in general — with certain notable exceptions — seem to assume an air of intellectual superiority. It is as though they have deemed their own beliefs reasonable and mine fantastic. They approach the term “faith” as though it had cooties, and as though, were it assigned to them, Nogod forbid, in the same sense that it is assigned to me, their corpuscles would explode. They are awfully quick to offer (and then laboriously defend) the notion that my faith in God is somehow different from their faith in gravity.
This defensive shield robs me of much interaction with the materialists who indeed are thoughtful, and are put off by my bull-in-the-china-shop debating style. Good advice, thanks.
None of what follows is displayed in all your posts at all times. That is to say I have noticed these issues at different times to varying degrees. Take it for whatever you feel it is worth. I offer none of this out of aggression, animosity, or anger. Rather I post this in hopes that your efforts to be a better person (by looking at yourself through the eyes of others) are successful.
In general:
Insults
I have often seen you belittle or insult people. That in and of itself isn’t all that bad (Cecil belittles people all the time and oh how I love it). But coming from someone who is a self described Christian it seems a bit hypocritical. It seems to me that the one thing about Christianity that stands out as admirable (even to an agnostic) is the desire to respond to aggression with kindness. Turn the other cheek and all that. I could understand if someone thinks that “turn the other cheek” is foolish advice, and would rather swing back. But based on my reading of the Bible, that aint the stance that Christians are supposed to take. Francis Bacon said “In taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior.” A lesson you (hell, alot of us) would do well to keep in mind IMO. I suggest you not insult people even if they insult you first, you disagree with them, or dislike them. It would probably make your arguments more likely to be considered by others, and would be alot more Christian-like.
Brevity & Clarity
Often times your posts are excessively long and verbose. As the old saying goes: “Good things, when short, are twice as good.” On the opposite end you have alot of drive-by posts that are highly cryptic. It’s a style choice, and probably not that big of a deal, but I know some people will skip over huge posts and/or are annoyed by a lack of clarity in posts. Mark Twain said it best:
I think that short, sweet, and clear posts are better than long, confusing, and/or vague posts in most cases. It almost seems like sometimes you don’t want people to understand you, and there also at times seems to be an implied condescension directed at whoever doesn’t get what you are trying to say, and a disdain expressed when they ask for clarification.
Intellectual/Philosophical Arrogance
I often feel as though you think you have found the capital-T-truth. This results in you starting from a set of convictions and trying to justify them no matter what evidence/argument is presented to the contrary. I think you call this a bias. Consider the quote from the sins list over at www.churchofvirus.com:
I see no reason to believe that you are privy to any kind of special viewpoint which is superior to that of the rest of us humans. I wish that you would be a little more flexible in rethinking your positions and accepting (and admitting to) the limits of your own knowledge, and considering the possibility that some of your most cherished beliefs could well be wrong.
Martyr/Persecution Complex
On more than one occasion I’ve noticed you can be quick to paint yourself as a victim when there is no just cause. Someone disagreeing with you does not mean that they hate you. You have often taken things personally and as a result acted as if you are persecuted. This rubs me the wrong way for some reason. Even if you feel persecuted, maybe you should take a moment and think before you post a “woe-is-me” response. It clouds the issue at hand (whatever it may be) when you act as though everybody is out to get you. It is true that “just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you”, but I think that there have been plenty of times where you imagine enemies conspiring against you when there really are none.
Now, more specifically:
That post is yours and the bolding is mine. I know some people will hate to see the logical proof of god subject come up again, but this one has always bugged me. With the above post you dismissed (prematurely, IMO) any who would take issue with the definition of God in your modal proof as “armchair materialists”. Then, as far as I can tell, ignored any debate that had anything to do with the definition. This makes the bolded statement seem like a case of a pot meeting a kettle and making a comment about color.
Now, it seems to me that all the proof does is prove “Necessary Existence”, i.e. whatever is necessary for existence exists. What the proof DOES NOT do is attribute any other qualities to “Necessary Existence”. Qualities like sentience, free will, intelligence, creativity, goodness, evilness, or any other descriptor of any kind. To call something that may well be a mindless process “God” seems intellectually dishonest. According to you God=Supreme Being, Supreme=Necessary, and Being=Existence. When you paint it like this the word “God” is just a variable and as such should carry none of the other definitions associated with the word “God” traditionally. It seems a bait and switch, and I’ve never seen you address this other than to insult or dismiss any who would even take issue with the definition. I think this is a pretty valid point in that particular debate.
All of that said, your posts have led me to many places where I have learned many interesting things. In a recent pit thread of mine, your post about empirical knowledge and the accompanying link to the science/pseudo-science page has resulted in me rethinking the whole way I assign value to different types of knowledge. I am really struggling with how to treat non-falsifiable claims/observations. I cannot dismiss them whole cloth as easily as I once did, for better or for worse. Thread pending.
Despite whatever flaws I have perceived in your presentation, it is undeniable that I have learned a tremendous amount as a result of your being on this board. Since learning is the reason I hang out around here, I will say thank you very much for taking the effort. It has had results. I wish you the best in the future. I have tried to keep as polite a tone as possible here, tried to avoid personal insults/attacks, and I really hope that this comes across as constructive (as it is intended) rather than as an attack. I would have kept all of this to myself if you had not asked. Good Luck.
DaLovin’ Dj