Evangelicals full of fear

[JonathanL]

It was and remains the context the statement was made in. If it only adresses other qualifiers, you could have made that clear. I used it as en example. Many other examples could have been made.



So, lets just apply some very simple logic here. In both statements you put in (a great deal, but certainly not all, of them). That is not in the text but it is how you interpret it and you claim to remove contradiction by doing so.

At face value, they contradict each other and your statement (a great deal, but certainly not all, of them) seems to remove this problem at first. However, one wonders, what is meant by (a great deal, but certainly not all, of them). Is it more or less than 50 %? Remember, the first statement is based on Mountain Man's experience with this area. A great deal would have to be most, if the broad brush statement is to be justified. d

It leaves a lot of questions to be answered:

1) If his statement is "certainly" not about all, why is he not using a single word to indicate that? And call me naive but he had some many chances.
2) Why is statement 2 made in such a way that it makes a broad brush statemens about something he will leave out of his description of his own experience the next day?

So, if you interpret skeptics in the exact same way in both statements, it seems something interesting arises. We are taking about one group interpreted in the same way and it goes for this group that.

1) A great deal have never believed Christians believe the Bible
2) A great deal believe Christians believe the Bible

How great are those "great deals"? 50 % at most if you are interpreting "skeptics" in the exact same way and taking into account that we are talking about a particular group, namely the skeptics Mountain Man know about.

So, at first, you avoid contradiction, however, at a closer look you will find trouble explaining the concept of "great deal" and why such broad brush statements were made when it cannot be such great deals. I would acknowledge that the lack of use of qualifiers could be justified in case where we are very close to 100 %. In situations where we are talking much less, they wont work at all. And this is the trouble in this case. If you want to remove the contradiction by claiming qualifiers are there if you read it charitable, you will have a great deal of problems reading it charitable enough to justify the lack of qualifiers as the "numbers" are so low.

So, "one better"? I am afraid I don't think so. Look: you can twist and turn all you like but there is really no way out of this mess. It is caused by the lack of use of qualifiers and, seemingly, a twist of "experience" to better fit a particular situation. It is like many of Trump's statements about what he has said and why. We have got it on record. He cannot escape it and he is just going to make even more fool statements trying to escape the fool statements he had already made.

I might return to this discussion at some point, but your insistence on forcibly twisting my words and arguments to the point where they are not recognizable any more (look, we've got some hyperbole here, some of those language conventions you have such a hard time dealing with) and trying to overanalyze everything just so you can force some sort of contradiction out of my interpretation of MM's statements is not making me terribly motivated to continue this discussion with you.

I might come back to this discussion tomorrow (my tomorrow) if I feel like further discussion is worth my time, but I highly doubt it.

[Charles]

Have not noticed anyone doing what here? Claim that MM is contradicting himself by assuming that he is talking about the same members of the skeptic community in both of his posts? Because that's exactly what Charles did in #482.

Look at the statements:

Nah, in my experience, skeptics have never believed that Christians really believe the Bible. In their minds, we all secretly agree with them that it's simply too ridiculous to take seriously, but that we consciously ignore the irrationality of it because we prefer a comforting lie to the truth.

So, we are talking about the skeptics MM has knowledge about in this statement. And here is the second:

[...]

Skeptics before President Trump: "Christians are morons for believing the Bible."

Skeptics after President Trump: "Christians are morons for believing the Bible."

What's really changed?

If these are not the same as the ones in in the first statmenent, then Mountain Man has no experience with them and obviously cannot make the statement (unless he does so knowing it is false, and I would not guess so).

If you apply "most" in the first statement, there are not many left to justify the broad brush statement in the second statement.

[Charles]

I might return to this discussion at some point, but your insistence on forcibly twisting my words and arguments to the point where they are not recognizable any more (look, we've got some hyperbole here, some of those language conventions you have such a hard time dealing with) and trying to overanalyze everything just so you can force some sort of contradiction out of my interpretation of MM's statements is not making me terribly motivated to continue this discussion with you.

The fact that your statements in this post are not really supported but just made anyway rather seems to suggest you lack good arguments to support your case and try to make it a case of me being wrong on something you (dishonestly) do not show.

I am not forcing any contradiction here. It was there already. You tried to make it go away. I showed you that your attempt was not succesful. Read my post again if you did not see it the first time. And if you still disagree, we are having a rational debate with arguments not claims or sighs or whatever.

I might come back to this discussion tomorrow (my tomorrow) if I feel like further discussion is worth my time, but I highly doubt it.

I highly doubt it too but probably for other reasons.

[JonathanL]

The fact that your statements in this post are not really supported but just made anyway rather seems to suggest you lack good arguments to support your case and try to make it a case of me being wrong on something you (dishonestly) do not show.

I am not forcing any contradiction here. It was there already. You tried to make it go away. I showed you that your attempt was not succesful. Read my post again if you did not see it the first time. And if you still disagree, we are having a rational debate with arguments not claims or sighs or whatever.



I highly doubt it too but probably for other reasons.

Yeah, no.

This post of yours pretty much confirmed that further discussion with you is a complete waste of time. If all you have are unsupported accusations of dishonesty and revisionism and demands for "rational arguments" (when that is not the sole, or even main part of understanding language, written or spoken) as if "logic" and overanalyzation trumps convention when it comes to language then there's obviously no point in continuing this farce.

[Cow Poke]

I might return to this discussion at some point, but your insistence on forcibly twisting my words and arguments to the point where they are not recognizable any more ....

It's what makes him special.

[Charles]

It's what makes him special.

The twisting is done by all of those who refuse to see the contradiction between these two statements:

Nah, in my experience, skeptics have never believed that Christians really believe the Bible. [...]

[...]

Skeptics before President Trump: "Christians are morons for believing the Bible."

Skeptics after President Trump: "Christians are morons for believing the Bible."

What's really changed?

[Charles]

Yeah, no.

This post of yours pretty much confirmed that further discussion with you is a complete waste of time. If all you have are unsupported accusations of dishonesty and revisionism and demands for "rational arguments" (when that is not the sole, or even main part of understanding language, written or spoken) as if "logic" and overanalyzation trumps convention when it comes to language then there's obviously no point in continuing this farce.

It is pretty simple. When you were asked to give en explanation of how you would understand the statements in order to avoid contradiction you ended up showing you could only do so by leaving it a complete mystery why MM said what he said. I pointed that out here: http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...124#post732124

It seems you want to insist to be right without being able to demonstrate so. And when I point out why your approach does not work it seems you try to find your way out by calling it "overanalyzation". The only "overanalyzation" I see is from those of you who are trying to avoid facing an obvious contradiction.

[MaxVel]

The twisting is done by all of those who refuse to see the contradiction between these two statements:

You're really kind of pitiable, bro. You're just looking to score debating points by any means possible. That's trivial and shallow, but hey, that appears to be what you're all about. Woo-hooh. Go you.


It's quite evident that there is no necessary contradiction between MM's two statements. A necessary contradiction would be someone saying "X is Y" and "X is not-Y" when both statements apply to exactly the same X and the same Y at the same time in the same way.

That's clearly NOT the case with MM's two statements, since one is about what skeptics say and one about what skeptics believe.

[Charles]

You're really kind of pitiable, bro. You're just looking to score debating points by any means possible. That's trivial and shallow, but hey, that appears to be what you're all about. Woo-hooh. Go you.


It's quite evident that there is no necessary contradiction between MM's two statements. A necessary contradiction would be someone saying "X is Y" and "X is not-Y" when both statements apply to exactly the same X and the same Y at the same time in the same way.

That's clearly NOT the case with MM's two statements, since one is about what skeptics say and one about what skeptics believe.

So, we solve the problem by assuming skeptics say the exact opposite of what they believe?

I think that puts the first sentences and other statements made about me into an interesting perspective.

[MaxVel]

So, we solve the problem by assuming skeptics say the exact opposite of what they believe?

I think that puts the first sentences and other statements made about me into an interesting perspective.

There's no actual 'problem' to solve, except your desire to look better than others by trying your little 'gotchas'. You win, Charles, you are the greatest poster on TWeb. Your prize is an increase in the size of your ego. Yay. Woo-hooh.

[Sparko]

There's no actual 'problem' to solve, except your desire to look better than others by trying your little 'gotchas'. You win, Charles, you are the greatest poster on TWeb. Your prize is an increase in the size of your ego. Yay. Woo-hooh.

Maybe he can trade his cred for cash so he can move out of his mom's basement.

[Charles]

There's no actual 'problem' to solve, except your desire to look better than others by trying your little 'gotchas'. You win, Charles, you are the greatest poster on TWeb. Your prize is an increase in the size of your ego. Yay. Woo-hooh.

There is an actual problem. And it seems your ad hominems are meant to dudge that part. Your line of interpretation in order to avoid contradiction is completely arbitrary and if you follow that line, you can make most statements say most anything. Both you and Chrawnus have failed to give a reasoned interpretation that avoids the rather obvious contradiction.

[MaxVel]

There is an actual problem.

Nope.

And it seems your ad hominems

You don't know what an ad hominem is.

are meant to dudge that part. Your line of interpretation in order to avoid contradiction is completely arbitrary and if you follow that line, you can make most statements say most anything. Both you and Chrawnus have failed to give a reasoned interpretation that avoids the rather obvious contradiction.

Nah.