Sure it’s relevant, because the claim that they are debating in bad faith is nothing but hot air without evidence to back it up. You cannot accuse someone of “not budging an inch, no matter how knowledgeable or persuasive their opponents are,” if their opponents are neither knowledgeable nor persuasive.
Declaring that the “vast, vast, VAST” majority of people have an “enormous” preoccupation with the afterlife (but refusing to back this claim with a credible cite or concede that she is among those who badly need to believe in this stuff) will do for starters. Add in virtually the entire wooist playbook of fallacious thinking, including appeals to inane “authorities” and declaring that “the fact that Assertion A is met with Refutation B, in a thousand different instances, just reinforces the obvious fact that the search for answers continues”, presented for emphasis in different-colored fonts and ALL CAPS.
It’s to be expected that woo-promoting ninnies will show up here now and again and even that there will be a few House Woos to witness for their favorite obsessions. As I said in the other thread, it’s depressing that a board veteran like Stoid in all her time here has not gained a basic grasp of critical thinking.
And if she wants credibility as a political sage, this is not the way to go about it.
Oh yeah, I forgot about that. “You are an asshole and a bigot against fat people because I’ve been trying to lose weight my whole life and it isn’t possible! Also, sometimes I go downstairs late at night and eat a whole pie.”
I like her fine in non-contentious threads, though.
True.
But at least in the “Arrogant Attorney Asshats” thread series, Stoid’s opponents were both knowledgeable and persuasive, and virtually uniform in their critique of her position. She refused to concede that any of her interlocutors had valid points.
Her opponents’ stance was borne out when the appeals court ultimately addressed her arguments. And although the thread was quickly closed following that event, I am willing to bet that to this day, she believes her argument and method were correct, the law and logic were on her side, and the judges who heard her appeal and were not swayed are simply added to the number of idiots who refuse to listen to her.
Win.
Carry on - I’ve nothing new to add. 
She wants to hear that there is an afterlife.
Really I don’t care if Stoid believes in an afterlife or not. And I’m aware that some of her interlocutors are just as annoying as she is. But if you’re going to debate something, you should debate it, not insult people, post giant walls of random quotes, and adopt a disingenuous “I’m just asking questions” pose.
Again, though, it’s not that particular thread that prompted my comment. Most debates on this matter are little more than verbal masturbation anyway. I was more moved to post by earlier threads, where Stoid has responded to serious life-changing advice with the same refusal to listen and dismissal of people who put a lot of time and thought into helpful posts.
Does anyone care what they do? Bueller?
Sorry, but no. If you want to claim that someone is debating in bad faith, any evidence to support that would be evidence of bad faith, not evidence of their position itself being correct or incorrect.
if you can’t suspend an absolute conviction and debate as if your opponent might be right, you don’t belong in here. I don’t care what the subject matter is.
You don’t have to bother suspending anything if your opponent is factually wrong. You don’t have to concede that your opponent might be right that the sun revolves around the earth. A person who does not concede geocentrism is not debating in bad faith, they are just insisting that actual facts be stipulated as facts.
There are plenty of times in plenty of threads that Stoid has posted in, most notably the threads about her appeal, where the people who were earnestly trying to help her understand where she might be going hopelessly wrong were both knowledgeable and persuasive. Stoid didn’t/couldn’t see that perhaps 20 lawyers all telling her that she was wrong about, say, the term of art “legal advice”, may have been correct. Instead she put her fingers in her ears and went LALALALALA I CAN’T HEAR YOU like a little child.
There was one link someone posted to a journal article written by a law professor that contradicted what Stoid wanted to hear (iirc something about legal advice on the internet causing an attorney/client relationship) and Stoid felt she understood more than this law professor about the subject, disregarded the entirety of the article, went to the cited cases, and then disregarded 99% of the cited cases that contradicted what she wanted to hear, and then said the cases supported her position! What the hell can you tell someone when they do that? How can you debate such a person? How can you get through to such a person?
I remember writing up a huge post where I patiently went through all the cited cases and said basically, Stoid, you’re not quoting the relevant parts. But I gave it up as a bad job because it wouldn’t have made a lick of difference in the end.
She can’t carry on an honest debate where there is a possibility she might be wrong. Even the most intelligent person in the world is wrong sometimes.
After all those legal threads I really can’t see how anyone could find her style of “debate” at all worthwhile.
Oh…and also her habit of insulting people who try to help her, really uncalled for.
People can disagree with me, but I’m pretty sure they’re not Hitler (or whatever insult she uses).
One is entitled to decline to debate and say “This is silly” or “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve heard in a long time”. I’ve done it myself recently.
But that’s not debating.
If you’re going to debate, you are obliged to suspend any “absolute certainty” of your own rightness and concede the theoretical possibility (however farfetched) that the other person’s perspective may have merits. That’s not to say you aren’t allowed to continue to act, think, and otherwise proceed on the assumption that your own are better ones; it is not to say you aren’t allowed to request some corroborating evidence where relevant, or state your own perspective and outline your disagreement with the other person.
If you believe your opponent to be factually wrong, you can say so (declining to debate) or you can participate in ongoing discussion (joining the debate) but to participate in an ongoing fashion in what purports to be a debate by reiterating over and over “But your argument is ridiculous because you are factually wrong” is not good faith participation. That’s not debating, that’s just shouting someone down.
Fag.
People with a history of mental illness are possessed by the devil and should be exterminated.
Discuss. 
Hey, even in the Pit you can’t call for the remorseless execution of Stoid, Kozmik and Ahunter.
I’ve debated premises not far from that, many times!
Frankly the absence or presence of remorse isn’t really the dealbreaker here.
OK seriously, it’s a good example, precisely because as tempting as it might be for me to wade into various “mental patients should be locked up if they don’t take their meds” and similar threads with a “No they shouldn’t, it is policitally unacceptable to advocate that, we’ve already established that much, end of story, now apologize” type of reply, I nearly always do engage with them. I debate with them. Why?
a) because saying “you’re wrong, the wrongness of what you’re saying has already been established” would not convince anyone who did not already agree with me on that; and
b) even though it is tiring to revisit the same arguments so often, it’s a good cognitive and philosophical practice for me to accept that hypothetically they might be right, and give what they are saying my consideration. Doing so puts me in touch with where they are coming from, which also helps me argue where I see their perspective as having flaws and weaknesses, to be sure, but it also puts me in touch with what I actually feel about the subject matter. Instead of issuing canned responses I try to reply with my current thoughts. If they resemble what I thought last year, hooray for consistency, but it’s a healthier way of being in the world than acting as if you only need to think about any given subject ONCE, decide what the right answer is, and from then on just answer without thinking about it in any new or fresh way.
Thought the midnight pie-scarfer was someone else. Anyway, wasn’t that on doctor’s orders or something?
“Damn it, Stoid! Your Pie-Deficiency-Syndrome isn’t a joke. You need to eat a pie every night at 3 A.M. This is your life we’re talking about!”
There are no-doubt several, but in this thread last year, Stoid went out of her way to convince everyone that she’s obese, even though she adhere’s to a healthy diet, then told all these crazy stories about the fucked up shit she eats. It was hilarious. This Dripping person makes excellent use of emoticons.
So is Stoid tired of showing up to her own Pit threads? I kind of feel like an ass for joining the pile on, and I still hold she is at times unfairly targeted, but she’s crazy enough enough of the time that I’ll give myself a pass.
I am laughing my ass off.