What arguments do you avoid using?

[Jin-Roh]

Going along with the the "weakest/strongest" argument questions. I thought I'd pose this one?

Which arguments do you avoid using when in dailouge with someone with a differing worldview and why?

[Heathen Dawn]

I avoid arguing that anyone else having religious experiences is deluded, having a hallucination, deceived, being courted by demons and such like. Obviously such an argument would be like shooting myself in the foot, since then I couldn’t know my own experiences were free of the same charges.

[NeilUnreal]

I avoid arguments along the lines of "all views are equally valid." This may or or may not be true, but once you accept it, there's nothing left to argue about.

-Neil

[Jin-Roh]

I avoid using my "personal testimony" since everyone has had some kind of relgious experience of some sort. I don't see how mine could convince anyone to change since I don't change becuase of theirs. I also get perturbed when other Christians appeal to their tesitmony to form doctrine.

I also avoid using Pascal's Wager. The purpose was to show people that their objections to believing in God aren't from their heads, but are actually from their hearts. Although this may be true in many cases, I think that there is probably a better way to show it.

[shunyadragon]

I avoid using my "personal testimony" since everyone has had some kind of relgious experience of some sort. I don't see how mine could convince anyone to change since I don't change becuase of theirs. I also get perturbed when other Christians appeal to their tesitmony to form doctrine.

I also avoid using Pascal's Wager. The purpose was to show people that their objections to believing in God aren't from their heads, but are actually from their hearts. Although this may be true in many cases, I think that there is probably a better way to show it.

Pascal's Wager is more motivating people to fear the unknown. From the heart is okay, but does not stand alone. The terrible consequences of it might be true are . . .

I avoide arguing from the subjective point of view, where simply my belief is the standard. I need my chair to have more than one leg before I try and stand on it.

[Xmansmommy]

I personally avoid using the "It's the Spirit within me that has brought me to this conclusion and therefore it must be right" argument for the simple fact that it very well may be the Spirit that has taught me this particular truth yet that same Spirit hasn't taught them. Believing as I do that the Spirit leads and guides us into all truth, and that being a process, line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little, I'm not oblivious to the fact that we aren't all at the same place spiritually. And I'm not immue to believing some false doctrines. So I don't appeal to the "I'm right and you're wrong because the Spirit said so" method because growing and learning in the grace and knowledge of God is an intimate and personal experience for each individual.

btw, I appreciate all the answers given thus far in this thread.

[Andrew]

I always find it hard to make out the first premiss in the kalam cosmological argument, viz. all things that begin to exist have a cause. It seems like commonsense but it's impossible to make out (for me, anyway).

[Jin-Roh]

Pascal's Wager is more motivating people to fear the unknown. From the heart is okay, but does not stand alone. The terrible consequences of it might be true are . . .

I don't see what makes Pascal's Wager a fear appeal.

[Heathen Dawn]

I don't see what makes Pascal's Wager a fear appeal.

It appeals to one’s fear of eternal suffering in hell.

[Truthdigger]

Going along with the the "weakest/strongest" argument questions. I thought I'd pose this one?

Which arguments do you avoid using when in dailouge with someone with a differing worldview and why?

To tell you the truth, I avoid presuppositionalism, or the transcendence argument. It used to be quite powerful, but in my own opinion, Michael Martin has taken the bite out of it. I have to stick with the contingency argument myself.

[Jin-Roh]

It appeals to one’s fear of eternal suffering in hell.

But the point of the wager isn't to "scare the hell out of someone" and get them to convert. The point of the wager is to try to show the other party that the heart is the issue not reason.

And you also ignored the other side of the wage, i.e. eternal benefits. I could see how someone could say the Wager is an appeal to self interest, but I don't see how it could be said that its an appeal to fear.

To tell you the truth, I avoid presuppositionalism, or the transcendence argument. It used to be quite powerful, but in my own opinion, Michael Martin has taken the bite out of it. I have to stick with the contingency argument myself.

I'm only barely getting into presuppositionalsim. Care to elaborate?

[Heathen Dawn]

But the point of the wager isn't to "scare the hell out of someone" and get them to convert.

You think it isn’t? You’d be surprised.

The point of the wager is to try to show the other party that the heart is the issue not reason.

The wager is a business proposal, a calling of the confronted party to make an astute manoeuvre. I regard Pascal’s Wager as blasphemous.

And you also ignored the other side of the wage, i.e. eternal benefits.

I didn’t ignore it, it just hadn’t popped up in the discussion yet. The eternal benefits are the complement, the other side of the coin. The carrot as well as the stick is beneficial for getting the donkey to walk.

I could see how someone could say the Wager is an appeal to self interest, but I don't see how it could be said that its an appeal to fear.

It is an appeal to both self-interest (the eternal reward part) and to fear (the eternal punishment part). It cheapens religion, turning it from a spiritual thing to a business thing, reducing it to whoredom, making its takers prostitutes. That’s why I regard PW as blasphemy.

[wrh987]

Pascal's Wager should not be used very often to convert nonbelievers, because many people are offended at the idea of being threatened to comepl belief. Pascal's Wager can be helpful because it can be used to argue that one should look into Christianity seriously, because it wouldn't be sensible to ignore Christianity despite the possibility that it is true.

Avoid using an argument ad populum. One should never believe something merely because everyone else does, and should reject a popular belief if it is believed for the wrong reasons.

Among other fallacies are ad hominem attacks, arguing from authority, begging the question, etc… A good page on logical fallacies is <a href=http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/</a>.

You shouldn't argue that a worldview is valid because it was believed by a certain famous or intelligent person. For example, it doesn't matter if some particular person believes Christianity is true, but what does matter is whether or not Christianity is supported by the evidence. Thankfully, it is, which is why useless arguments such as the ones I described are unnecessary.

[shunyadragon]

I avoid arguments along the lines of "all views are equally valid." This may or or may not be true, but once you accept it, there's nothing left to argue about.

-Neil

Who would argue this? It sounds like a super contradiction. It could not include all the different exclusive views as valid, because none of them agree. May be some marshmellow New Age belief may qualify.

[TrinityKicker]

I don't avoid any arguments that do not contradict themselves. However, I never use my personal testimony by itself and I am honest with people about how much my arguments prove.

For instance, the transformed lives of the disciples prove only that the believed. The transformations do not prove that what the disciples believed is true.

However, I run in educated circles so I can usually talk about fairly abstract topics with the confidence that people will understand it with little explanation.

I once taught childrens church at my church (some of them were not christians) and discovered that many of them didn't know the difference between cause and effect. With those classes I had to explain one concept a week until they understood what chain reactions, impersonal causes, personal causes and the need for a first cause in a universe with a begining were.

It would be a lot easier if people would just agree to armwrestle to settle arguments.