The more I think about this, the more I think you are actually hijacking this from lekatt’s unnerving and annoying assert and evade pattern in the thread cited above. I’m open to a review of how I’ve handled this situation. I can say that if I feel you cross the line of reasonableness I will ask that the hijack desist and find it’s own thread.
What lekatt did and does is… it’s just not adult conversation. I’m not saying I was the gold standard at a certain point. I’ve flagged posts. I said I’d Pit. Here I am. I poked. Derided. And pointed out the convenient hypocrisy of the arguments… not always nicely.
This last bit - is juvenile and I’ll admit I did it. When they start diagnosing my inability to see the soul in the “NDE’s” that aren’t documented and happened during an OD attempt using MEDS - as a fear on my part. When that I won’t read through a quack website means I have some innate fear of meeting my “soul”… that kinda gets under my skin - y’know?
Are you sure I’m the coward? Lekatt seems so. I’m not sold. The evidence, so far, in THAT thread, is flimsy.
Additionally, if you care to add to THAT thread, please do so there.
Then why can’t you leave it be that another man may come to the opposite conclusion for the same reason, namely that he can’t prove the soul does exist but that he sees no need for any disbelief? An absence of evidence, after all, is not an evidence of absence.
It has nothing to with falsifiability, which is a concept of the philosophy of science. (Cite will be provided on request if necessary.) Proof is a property of logic, not of empiricism.
Me neither, which is why I didn’t ask you for one. You’re really all over the place here, as though you’re reading and posting in a furious hurry.
I don’t know how right you are. I don’t even care. My only concern has been about how fair and consistent you are. You’re making demands of others that you refuse to honor yourself. That may not be wrong per se, but it’s something that might merit some attention.
Simply stop responding to his posts when he swerves from the OP to his usual subject. I’m amazed that posters cooperate and allow him to hijack the threads over and over again. We have more traditional conservative Christians who deny evidence and witness about their own particular theology when they can. We have atheists who spout off about how awful and hateful religion is without any real logic or scientific evidence and we accept their foibles as we should.
When lekatt successfully hijacks what might be an interesting thread with the same ole same ole about NDEs I’m frustrated as well. More with those that cooperated in the hijack than** lk**
Don’t respond to him and respond to those offering a conversation you’re interested in.
Ok. Nuance. I’m not currently mad. I do think you were quick to find something wrong when I’m still not sold anything was there.
It is fair to say my replies to you have been on-topic but missed a few of your points. I do think you’d rather play at technicalities in some of your post. Let’s see where this goes.
I thought I’d replied to this fully. While I was not the only one making certain points - in fact others made the points far better than I could… the case was made that fit with my thinking. Lekatt only used his site, a friend (I think, or cohort that “stumbled upon the topic”), and discussion of my “fear” to look at my immortal soul.
As a matter of style, I prefer a simpler, more parsimonious philosophy. If it’s not needed, why include it? (I ask myself.)
I come at philosophy more from an armchair scientist than as a formally trained philosopher. I don’t feign anything more. If I’ve come across as more - then I’ve slipped up somewhere. I think I tend to know my limits. I may be using the wrong terms with generally the right ideas. I think the gist of what I said still works. Otherwise we’re headed down one of those heady philosophical discussions wherein various words will just have to be thrown around and someone will get to yell, “bingo!” after three sentences. That’s not a stab at you - I just disdain the sometimes excessively ornate communication style of philosophy. It renders it… inaccessible to average people, when the ideas, often, aren’t THAT hard to reach. As you can tell, I prefer a plainspoken way of communicating ideas to the philosophical narrowing of principles to their respective branches. Proof is proof. Science does incorporate logic. I think you are offering a false choice on this one.
I was trying to figure out where the double standard is. So far it’s because Lekatt is being pitted and you think I’m as guilty as lekatt when it comes to why I believe what I believe. The point of the pitting is the STYLE of the argument and the insistence on posting to his site. Or misrepresenting what lies on the other side of a link (like the vid, or his most recent “cite”). I could be missing your point - still. I DO want to understand, and I am trusting that you are making a reasoned point… (insert segue to continuation of thought)
I think that’s what I get from the section I just quoted, at least. But my point is about the style of assert-evade, clickyclicky!, assert-evade, clickyclicky!.
I’d like to think that even now, I’ve shown more openness than lekatt did in the entire thread (at least so far). I’m being transparent, honest, and I think, non-combative. I’m trying a bit harder to make sure my non-defensive posture is coming through in what I am posting. This is the pit so it’s hard not to defend against anyone who may decide at a later date to jump one thing that I said. Defensive non-defensiveness in a text form… is an art I can’t profess to have mastered - or even close.
I at least hope that a conciliatory tone is being struck and rings true to you.
I know what you mean. There are a few posters I will respond to when they are on subject but when I see an old familiar pattern unveil I stop responding. It just doesn’t seem to further any sort of useful or enjoyable communication.
He is annoying - I can’t bear the way he will occasionally discuss the spirit realm and all that flaky jazz, until you put forward a notion he can’t dispute, at which point he just stops talking. But I think of him as an ageing, incontinent dog which you could have put down, but don’t have the heart to, even if he does make a stinking mess from time to time.
I’m just confused as to what sort of citation you expect him to come up with. He may very well be overstating the strength of his argument, but you can’t “call him out” on something that is ultimately his opinion.
He’s not contributing meaningfully to the discussion, then ignore him. It’s not easy, but it’s the only way to go. Asking for impossible cites, then pitting him for not providing them, doesn’t make sense.
It’s the ‘needs to go’ thing I find disturbing here.
I have tried to engage lekatt in dialogue several times and have consistently found his tactics frustrating, however, he’s actually pretty harmless - because it only really causes a minor flutter in a limited range of threads.
Even if he’s completely wrong, he at least provides counterpoint opinions that can be discussed - without at least something like that, there would be nothing to do here - nothing to be countered, argued, debunked.
He causes no significant harm. I find it very unsettling to see it suggested that he ought to go.
Expecting your opponents to either change their minds, or leave is contemptible.
Did the exchange between lekatt and notdeadnow in that thread seem kind of odd to anyone else? How notdeadnow just jumped in and started agreeing with him?
He was warned by tomndebb in this thread, and has responded in exactly the way he was told not to. Hoepfully tomndebb will drop the hammer.
True, although some of those threads would be pretty one-sided without him. I agree that it does sometimes lead to derailment, but that wouldn’t happen quite so often if the other members - who already know how it will end - didn’t engage with him in the vain hope that this time it will be different.
It is, and thanks for correcting me on that. I still don’t like it though.
Exactly. If it’s a debate about religion or spirituality and he stays on topic then fine. When he veers off into his NDE witnessing tell him no thank you and don’t go there. Period. He’ll either stay on topic or drop out.
I still think the ignore thing will work. There are several posters with various beliefs who like to rant on without much logic or who repeat themselves without offering any real cites to back up opinions they mistake for facts. I lose interest in talking to them pretty quickly. Somebody does usually engage them and it winds up occupying much of the thread but hey, that’s how it goes sometimes. I can still selectively respond.
I mean, if we were going to ask people to leave if they habitually violate the framework of a discussion, what about all those threads on the details of some religious doctrine where some idiot blunders in and hollers “What you have to realise is that God doesn’t actually exist!”? - pretty sure there are some repeat offenders in that category.
I second this advice. I used to try, but now I skim his posts to see if there is anything new there. Seeing nothing, I don’t respond. My blood pressure is down, I’ve lost weight, and my sex life has improved. Try it!
But the nonexistence of the soul is a very reasonable null hypothesis. Why? Because the nonexistence of the soul requires no extensions to our knowledge of the universe, while the existence of the soul would require an extensive revamping of the laws of physics. For instance, if the soul has thought, then it uses energy (from information theory) and it is far from clear how that would work for immaterial things. That doesn’t mean it can’t be true, but we’d need a significant amount of unrefuted evidence to even consider it. Far more than lekatt provides, that’s for sure.
