That’s just it…each individual post is coherent…he obviously gets his point across. The problem is that the conversation wanders all over the place, and you are never sure what you are supposed to be debating. You start debating one point, and he feints and throws another one at you.
I don’t think you need to have religion to be of this opinion.
So call him on something he wavered on. Say listen badchad, you said this and now you’re moving on to this without completely answering my/someone else on my bandwagon’s question. Can you even give him evading a question?
Who cares if he’s an asshole, thats well established. He’s just doing what you wish you could do, but since you’re unable to open up a can of debate whoop-ass you say its wrong to justify your impotency. So he’s an asshole, right, why does that even matter? Why do people have to say it 100 times in a thread? Why does that mean you can’t debate hime anyways? I mean, its not like you’re gonna have a nervous breakdown or get PTSD. If you’re all so damn confident that you could engage badchad or PRR in a straight up debate then why the hell are you avoiding it? I would think that you would want to show eveyone that the asshole everyone dispises is not only an asshole but also makes bad arguments. Can’t anyone see that maybe badchad isn’t an asshole out of necessity but that it is enjoyable to gloat? Hell, if I could lay the debate smackdown like badchad and PRR I would’ve been in here posting and gloating my ass off years ago. What if it’s not about convincing people at all, just winning? Whats wrong with that?
I have an immediate instinct to avoid debating people who like to declare themselves the winner of a debate. It’s pretty obnoxious, for one thing…who would need affirmation so badly that they need to not only “win” a debate (if a debate about belief can be won), but have to actually make the claim of it to a bunch of strangers on a message board? Plenty of people on this board have killed in debates, and not had to go around crowning themselves the winner. Besides that, it’s kind of annoying to think that you are debating an issue, but instead find yourself debating whether or not someone has won the debate…it’s sort of an unprovable premise, unless you have a panel of impartial judges, anyway.
This part I strongly agree with. Declaring yourself as winning a debate is extremely silly unless in jest.
Oh, I don’t think most debating coaches and debaters would have any trouble telling badchad what he is lacking in the way of debating skills. There is no je ne sais quoi on this end. (I keep trying to image William Buckley with a sense of himility. Nope. That’s not a requirement.)
A couple of us tried to encourage him to refine his skills, but he said something about having inherited his debating techniques. (I’m paraphrasing.) He shows no interest in moving away from the provocative personal insults. That’s why I think he’s a troll.
I dealt with his direct questions until his insults became personal and he made demands for still more answers. I am an old woman. No one makes demands of me anymore.
No, I don’t have to absent myself from a debate for any of the reasons you mentioned.
And you still don’t have to answer my question about visiting Emerson’s grave.
I’ve always known and confessed that my belief system may be flawed. St. Paul had the same problems, so I’m not to hard on myself about it. Besides, I don’t think we always pick and choose what we believe. We find it within yourselves.
But I believe what I believe. Why would I want to leave the peaceful spiritual bonds where I feel secure and free and valued? Why would I want to enter a system of non-belief especially if badchad represents the thinking of that group?
Of course, I know that he isn’t representative of atheists. There should be more people like Miller in this world, and like you, AHunter3 – unique individuals who can’t easily be given one label and set on a shelf.
You know, you and I have disagreed on quite a few occassions, but I do believe you are spot-on about our friend badchad.
You can always tell a thread the mods are reading by the trail of “Last Edited By” scattered through it. I believe there are no threads so well coded as a mod Pitting.
Are you responding to my post? If so, where did I say anything about declaring oneself to be a winner?
Just out of curiosity, what do you get if you “win” a debate? Is there a special coffee mug “I won an SDMB debate”?
She was refering to some posts BadChad made earlier. Not you. Welcome to the Board by the way.
I’ll make this simple: how about a one-on-one debate between badchad and any taker? Have the two agree upon the rules prior to – including the mod they 'd wish to steer said debate.
It could be as simple as an OP, a response, and perhaps three to five counters per side. Number of words per post – cites to be included in said count or not – amongst the things to be discussed prior to. We could also have an additional thread to comment on the on-going debate (wiith some clear rules regarding advancing argumants for either side) and lastly, a resume by the chosen mod (which could also include two additional members proposed by each side) and a vote in the other thread by the “peanut gallery.”
Any takers? Open to additional suggestions, BTW.
Proposed thread title: Religious Discrepancies: Badchad’s Last Stand.
Not a betting man, but far from finding the man “incoherent,” what I’ve read from him (yeah, yeah, rude MF and all that – clearly that’s already been established) is as clear as daylight.
Again then, any takers?
I didn’t say you said it…I was merely giving a reason that some people (such as myself) may not be interested in debating him, other than being afraid of his “smackdown,” as you call it.
If it is all the same for you, go ahead, pray away.
Meanwhile, I’ll do the thinking for you.
Guess you really have no idea how condescending that “I’ll pray for you” line is to non-believers – I mean, WTF? Cite for prayers faintly being effectual.
Geez…wonder how many people pray during natural disasters? In fact I wonder how many belivers were doing just that during the Indian Ocean’s tsunami or NO’s killer Katrina
Hell of a difference praying mustta made. No doubt all does victims are in heaven doing the dance of joy and waiting for their other relatives to get over this rather trying and scrupuless life. Meaningless, of course, without a Higher Power…who obviously doesn’t give a damn what happens to humanity as a whole while we are here.
Kind of like a perverted ant-farm.
What would be the point? What would be demonstrated by the contest that has not already been demonstrated by the numerous GD threads he’s participated in?
I didn’t say I was an atheist, mind you. (I will say that I have no expectation whatsoever of life after death. And especially no expectation of a pleasurable one.)
Simple. Whos’ right and who’s takling out their blowhole in this thread for lack of a better response.
Again, how will you competition show this in a way that has not already been shown by everyother thread badchad has posted to? It’s not as if he hasn’t been able to adequatly express himself before now. What would we see in this thread that we haven’t seen a hundred times before?
Thank you! I should have thought badchad, on his known form, was well capable of speaking for himself on whether or not my prayers for him were welcome, but it’s very good of you to protect my religious freedom, and I appreciate it.
Oh, would you really? That would be most helpful, but I can’t turn my thinking duties over to just anyone. I’ll have to establish your competence first.
At the moment I have to deal with a request to add a column to a DB2 table definition. It’s a rather large table (hundreds of millions of rows) and I’m anxious to keep system down time to a minimum. The new column needs to be added to the clustering index and the tablespace is partitioned. Could you tell me what the implications of this change are? The users need advice a.s.a.p.
When you’ve a minute spare you could tackle a spot of maths I’ve been doing for fun. How should I integrate dx/(4 cos[sup]2[/sup]x - 9 sin[sup]2[/sup]x)? Just the strategy will do, you can leave the numerical answer as an exercise for the student. No fair using the Internet!
Then you might like to have a stab at an essay question: given that enormous numbers of highly successful professional and scientifically-qualified people are believers, how is it possible to argue that they are all deluded fools?
I’m sorry you feel that way. Given that Christians have been excoriated in this thread and elsewhere for responding in an unChristian manner to the continual provocation being bandied about by their detractors, I felt it only appropriate to respond in a Christian manner. But surely the meaningless babble of a weak-minded individual who needs his thinking done for him can be of small consequence to you - especially as you need not even hear the babble itself?
I doubt I could provide a cite that you would consider acceptable. But need I prove that prayers are effectual before you will indulge my foolish impulse to pray?
I do not know how you would begin to demonstrate whether praying made a difference or not. I also don’t know what demonstration you would consider acceptable. I suspect that had the prayers of the faithful been followed by Hurricane Katrina vanishing like a soap-bubble you would still have called it an entirely explicable meteorological phenomenon.
I’m sorry you feel that way. Do you want to discuss the question, or would you rather presume it settled in your favour in order to fuel your rant?
For a walking delivery vehicle for a complex molecule, you have a rather inflated sense of your own importance. I realize that we’re all puppets of our DNA, but don’t we have at least the intellectual capacity to see the strings? It cannot possibly matter whether one kind of molecule successfully propagates itself or not, and on the quantitative scale, we’re of far less consequence to the universe than fusing hydrogen. How hubristic we are, that we cannot at least say to ourselves: Get over yourself!
I should also state that I agree with RedFury that, no matter how well meaning, I find, ‘I’ll pray for you’ to be horribly condescending and just a bit insulting.
That’s an understandable reaction. If it helps any, I was taught that praying for someone is an effective way to achieve the proper attitude of love toward an individual. By asking for blessings for someone, particularly someone about whom one might otherwise feel less than loving, the one doing the praying undergoes a change. Announcing that you’re going to pray for someone can be a very kind expression or a rhetorical weapon, depending on the context and underlying sentiment. I only tell people of my prayers for them when they are in distress.