doctor(logic), I don’t think you’re going to find this easy to believe, but I am very grieved for you. You have a self-image as a rational/logical person, but your performance contradicts that at almost every turn. You are deceiving yourself. It is to your own harm that you do so.
I wrote to you,
I have a longer response to your last comment in process (lots of meetings this morning to slow that down) but I want to respond further to what Holopupenko lifted from your comments:
you might understand why your Q is so repulsive to so many of us
First, I do understand why it’s repulsive. I have a good feel for it, mostly by way of conversations with homosexual friends of mine. I have listened, I have heard, and I have been affirmed by them for my listening and hearing. If you think otherwise, you are drawing conclusions apart from evidence. That would be both prejudicial and sterotyping.
Which is odd, considering that you claim the position of “doctor(logic).” There is more. When you offer your reasons for your position, you answer with words like “repulsive.” When you want to say what’s wrong with our position you use words like “primitive, backwater, outrageous, perverse, bigoted, disgust, the creeps.” These words are freighted with emotion, not evidence or reason. Have you noticed?
For evidential reasoning to support your position, you offer “most people think…” in comment #4; but when you go on throughout the thread to talk about “most people,” what you have to say is what they feel, not what they think (in your opinion, of course). You offer a failed analogy to inter-racial marriage (you have been suspiciously silent concerning the failure there as I have identified it). You say that homosexuality is a matter of biology, which is as weak an argument as I have ever heard: alcoholism is a matter of biology, after all.
You say “people see gay relationships as emotionally comparable to straight ones.” More language of emotion, not logic.
Most telling of all, you say,
Your argument is impotent in comparison with the moral outrage you perpetrate.
You blatantly, openly, and with apparent intentionality tell me that my argument is overcome by outrage. Would you explain for me how that fits in the thought processes of a doctor of logic?
I will answer further when and if you explain to me how that works logically and rationally.
And you answered,
It’s clear from your response that you don’t actually know what rationality is.
Rationality does not mean acting like an emotionless robot. Rationality consists primarily in deductive and inductive logic. Finding “is” facts. Rationality serves an agent’s values and cares, whatever they may be. If rationality did not serve, then we would be unable to make any rational decisions at all. (Indeed, this is what happens to patients that lose their emotion centers. They can think rationally, and identify consistency, but can’t decide on anything.) We need emotional value in order to take one course of action over another.
This is just another window on why your worldview is so messed up. The thing you desperately want is for morality (your own morality, of course) to be the only rational course. You think that moral persuasion is a matter of pure, abstract, emotionless reason. To do this, you have to construct a system in which good and evil are arrived at via some form of deductive process. You don’t see any flaws in the system because the deductive process matches your emotional cares.
But, as I’ve been trying to explain for a long, long time, human minds don’t reason to moral conclusions by pure logic. In order to prefer a course of action, it has to better appeal to my subjective values. If you try to isolate good and evil from my subjective values, then I will value neither good nor evil, and any argument for good action would be rendered pointless and ineffective. An argument for such a good would be like an algebra problem – consistent, but pointless. Who wants to be good independent of what good entails?
You’ve done your utmost to avoid this issue for years, and I don’t know why I continue to try to get you to understand it.
One more vector. To deny gay marriage offends my conscience. I’m not supporting gay marriage to be rebellious. I support gay marriage because it serves justice as I see it. You want me to kill my conscience in favor of a particular Q. But, should I decide to do that, whatever motivation I had to kill my conscience must be stronger than my conscience. What is that motivation?
You say that homosexuality is a matter of biology, which is as weak an argument as I have ever heard: alcoholism is a matter of biology, after all.
It’s a weak argument that homosexuality should be valued. I don’t think it’s a weak argument that homosexuality is not contagious.
Do you see what you have done here? I asked you how it is that your ethical decision making could be considered logical and rational, when the only terms that enter into it are emotional, and when you tell me that my arguments will fall before “moral outrage.” You didn’t answer that question. Instead you told me that (a) any moral system that excludes the emotional component is seriously lacking, and (b) I am guilty of concocting such an emotionless moral system.
Surely if you were as rational as you conceive yourself to be, you would recognize that (a) is no answer to the question I asked. I didn’t ask, why do you include emotions in your moral reasoning? I asked, why do you think that the answer to an argument could be “moral outrage”? And why is it that all of your moral reasoning in this comment thread was purely emotional in nature?
Surely also if you were as rational as you conceive yourself to be, you would know that your tu quoque is no answer to the question I asked.
Please consider the following:
- I have never represented logical reasoning as being emotionless. You set up an evidence-free false dichotomy here, and on this false dichotomy you based most of this reply. A false dichotomy is of course a logical fallacy, so most of your reply is fallacious on that ground. (Some of it is fallacious on other grounds; see below.) How do fallacies fit into the thought processes of a doctor of logic? How does an evidence-free accusation fit?
- As I have said, you offer nothing but emotional “reasoning” for your ethical viewpoint. How does an evidence- and logic-free decision process fit into the thought processes of a doctor of logic?
- You parry my arguments by noting that (as you see it) I “desperately” want my position to be true. This is the genetic fallacy. Again, how do fallacies fit into the thought processes of a doctor of logic?
Some peripheral considerations:
- Your “one more vector” takes off from Q (other readers note: this was a term used in the discussion thread from which this came), and answers a question (or attempts to, at least) that I have repeatedly said I was not raising with Q. Thus you were misrepresenting my use of Q. I suppose I could have chased that red herring, but that was never what the thread was about, and besides, a red herring is an informal fallacy. How does that fit your self-image as a logical person?
- Same with “not contagious.” I have no idea why you entered that term “contagious” into the discussion again. It was previously identified as a red herring. After I identified it as a red herring, you took that as evidence that I believed that homosexuality is contagious. I responded that this was a non sequitur. How does a fallacy like that enter into the self-image of a person who thinks he is a doctor(logic)? Then you ignore the fact that it has been identified as a red herring, and that you have been shown to have used that red herring in service of a non sequitur. Yet you bring it up again here for some reason, not bothering to suggest any reason why it ought to be considered relevant.
I’m having trouble seeing how this fits into the identity of someone who calls himself “doctor(logic).”
doctor(“logic”), your self-image as a rational and logical person is desperately and pathologically false. Please, for your own sake, examine yourself!
To others reading here: I have presented doctor(logic) here as perhaps an easy target. Please feel free to comment, but if you flame him with a compassionless tone, I will delete your comment immediately and without explanation. The time for that is over.
Tom:
No need for further comment. You said it very well: “your self-image as a rational and logical person is desperately and pathologically false”. My only qualification is that it applies, without much deviation about the mean, to pretty much all atheists.
Tom:
I’m guessing that around 2006 I entered your blog nipping at DI’s heels. Since that time, no matter how wide-ranging his ignorance or how massively blatant his fallacies, not once has he admitted to them. In fact, he’s either amplified upon them or continued to use them… over and over and over again. (At a certain level, he’s gotten progressively worse.)
Not once. I believe that alone reveals much about DI.
There is no way one can observe such behavior and not conclude DI is a deeply troubled individual. My bedside manner notwithstanding, I truly grieve for the dehumanizing harm he inflicts upon himself.
Of course, nothing is impossible for the gift of salvation accepted… but, man oh man, like with no one else I’ve encountered, I am truly worried. I did NOT employ terms like “sociopathy” or “possession” lightly–they were NOT intended as ad hominem. An intensely promoted “desperately and pathologically false” image of oneself is a bad omen.
Once you’re into atheism, metaphorically and perhaps even literally (in terms of the damage to one’s mind) it’s pretty much like crystal meth: all downhill from there… and very few in history have emerged from its grip.
Tom,
I don’t mind at all that you highlighted my comment as a full blog post. Nor do I mind the taunts and insults. If I thought you were an authority on reason, they might sting a little, but I’m afraid I don’t see you that way.
You asked about my use of emotional language and suggested that it wasn’t reasonable. I responded clearly and succinctly. I defined rational thinking and the place of value and emotion in rational thinking when it comes to ought questions.
Now, I really don’t know what I’m supposed to take away from your response. At once you say that reason isn’t purely emotionless, and yet you accuse me of using emotion in my argument.
I liked the old Tom Gilson a lot more. The old Tom Gilson would say what he thought rationality was about, and try to stake out a particular position. The new Tom Gilson seems to spend the majority of his time making disclaimers about what he isn’t saying, and when we try to infer what new Tom Gilson actually argues for, new Tom Gilson shoots down our inferences about what he thinks instead of just telling us what he thinks.
Of course, emotion doesn’t have a place in in arguments that are purely about consistency (e.g., in mathematics) or purely about inductive inference (e.g., in testing physical theories). But in this case, we’re talking about value. And our sole window onto value is our personal emotions. In other words, we’re reasoning about emotions. You may believe that you are reasoning from these emotions to the existence of some objective value. I would disagree, but it’s hard to deny that emotion and value aren’t evidence in such an analysis.
So, make me say it all one more time, why don’t you?
“The good” is an abstraction from specific, individual, subjective emotional values. I value friendship with my high school buds, walks in the sunshine, freedom from sickness, opportunity to better myself in art class, and success of my peers, etc. When you ask “What is goodness?”, I’ll intuitively answer that goodness is some optimal combination of all the specific things I value. And that is why I would want to align with goodness.
But if you tell me that “the good” consists of things that run directly counter to my subjective values, then “the good” no longer means some optimal blend of things I subjectively value. It means something different. It means what I subjectively call evil.
Now, if you want to supply us with an alternate definition of “the good”, by all means, proceed. But don’t forget to explain why I ought to value alignment with this alternately-defined “good”. Again, if we’re talking about value, we’re talking about emotion.
Also, please recall, you alone ruled the topic of contagion a red herring. I didn’t, and I certainly don’t accept that it’s a red herring. I’ve noticed you like to do that. Issue a one-sided denial or objection, and then refer back to it as if your response was the final ruling on the issue.
doctor(logic),
I continue to grieve for your lack of self-awareness. You are still committing fallacy upon fallacy; you are still decidedly not demonstrating rational thinking processes. I hope you will come to see that your self-image as a doctor of logic is based in a fiction.
If my being an authority on reason is what matters to you, then let me remind you that an appeal to authority is fallacious. I didn’t do that. Implicit in your saying that is this: “Tom is not an authority on reason, so I can reject his opinions.” That too is a reverse appeal to authority, in that it has nothing to do with the arguments. This too is fallacious.
You misrepresented my argument again:
What I accused you of was basing your argument solely upon feelings. I told you previously that you had made just one evidential argument for your position, but that upon closer inspection that too turned out to be based only upon feelings. So you have misread my position. Again.
Now you state once again that you are comfortable with having a purely feelings-based moral position: “‘The good’ is an abstraction from specific, individual, subjective emotional values.” Still you had also said, “Your argument is impotent in comparison with the moral outrage you perpetrate.”
And still you have misread my position; and still you have committed multiple fallacies, not only the ones that I am pointing out here, but all the dozens I have shown you since here and of course earlier, too. So with respect to your self-identity as a rational thinker, you still have precious little to stand upon.
You say, “You alone ruled the topic of contagion a red herring.” I remind you that you alone have ruled it relevant. Does this mean we are at an impasse? No, for that’s not how argument works, especially in the case of red herrings. When Sam issues a R identified by Tony, what Tony will often want to do is to quickly move past R. That’s because for Tony to spend time on R would be to fall for the fallacy. So it’s very, very typical for Tony to say, “That’s nothing but a red herring,” and nothing further about it. Now if Sam thinks R is relevant, it’s not very fruitful for Sam simply to repeat R. Sam knows that Tony thinks R is irrelevant and a distraction, so Sam, if he is rational, will explain to Tony why R matters.
Maybe that seems like it’s giving Tony some unfair advantage, but that’s how it typically works. Common sense tells us it’s not very sensible at all for Sam just to repeat R.
Since you have pressed the question, though, the reason I called contagion a red herring is because of the way you originally employed the issue. After your fallacious analogy with mixed-race marriage (you never did respond to the article I suggested you read on that), you wrote,
The article was not about opposing gay “marriage.” It was about the potential/predicted effects of homosexual activism. I might add too that if I had chased that diversion, I would have had at the same time to clear away the genetic fallacy contained in it. That is, I’m sure there are people who are terrified by the thought that homosexuality is contagious, but that’s no answer to any actual argument against gay marriage. Which actual argument is that, you ask? Why, I see now that I don’t have one in here! But that’s why this is a red herring! It was changing the subject. Maybe you noticed what I wrote to brgulker about why I thought it important not to go off topic. I still think that, for reasons I have explained.
You say it’s common for me to issue a one-sided denial or objection and treat it as the final ruling. I challenge you to find any such thing on this blog and point it out to me. Now in order to parallel the current case, it seems to me it would need to be issued without supporting argument, and there ought to be some sign that I brush off all further objections, acting as if my first statement was the deciding authority. I’d be interested to know how you quantify “common.” When I say you commonly commit fallacies, I mean an average of more than one per comment posted here. I demonstrated that in the previous thread (here, and prior and following; also here). Demonstrations of charges like this are certainly to be preferred over vague accusations. (Was that last sentence a one-sided objection that I treat as the final ruling?)
As for the old and new “Tom Gilsons,”
You say I should define what rationality is about. That is a very, very, large topic. My challenges toward you have not been concerning rationality writ large. They have been concerned with your self-presented identity as a “doctor(logic).” To challenge that identity it is sufficient to show that your logic is riddled through and through with fallacies.
Now, in my “Against Smug Atheism article I did address further the question of rationality vs. irrationality, viz., the ability of one’s overall approach to recognize error in that approach. Earlier I had also addressed you and others with,
It hardly seems necessary to advance a theoretical justification for “The persistent and continual use of plainly identifiable fallacies, appeals to emotion, mischaracterizations, and so on is evidence that one is not a doctor of logic.” Did you think I needed to explain that thesis in greater depth?
You wrote,
Maybe my article was unclear. Maybe my real intent was fuzzy or even opaque. Still there was nothing in it that said or assumed homosexual practice was immoral. If you couldn’t get what I was trying to say, maybe that was my fault. If you had asked for clarification I would have given it, as I did when I started using the Q symbology. But you did not treat it that way: you treated it as though I was saying clearly and definitely that homosexual practice is immoral. And that wasn’t in there. You kept on treating it that way, time after time (see my comments 20, 30, 36, 38, and 45!).
Was I not supposed to tell you that you had misread me all those times? For each one of them was a response to yet another time you had misread me! And each one of your “trying to infer” as you have put it here was a repetition of basically the same inference I had told you was not in the original post.
I have had to make that disclaimer so often because you spent the majority of your comments objecting to things I hadn’t said. (See here again for why I didn’t want to get taken off topic.)
I didn’t just shoot down your inferences, by the way: I called them prejudiced and stereotyped. That’s because your inferences came from something other than the article you claimed to be answering. You didn’t engage with the Tom Gilson that was in front of you; you engaged with the Tom Gilson that you had concocted in your mind. So when I wrote an article that did not assume, nor did it conclude, that homosexual practice was immoral, you couldn’t see it past your prejudices.
Granted, I did not go back and re-state the argument the first several times you misread it. I had already stated it once. It was clear from your prejudicial statements that you weren’t really reading it. I didn’t think it made sense to re-write it when it would be so much simpler for you to read what I had written.
There is a difference, at any rate, in the way I used to treat you on this blog and the way I am treating you now. If this feels like an old Tom Gilson transitioned to a new Tom Gilson, so be it. For the past several years I have taken on your objections, arguments, etc. one by one and tried to present what I thought was a more logically supportable position. Obviously now I am doing much more than that. I’m not just saying your position has the logical flaws in it that I am trying to identify. I am trying to help you see that your ability to reason without fallacy is persistently and chronically flawed. I am trying to show you that your self-identity is in error.
I am sure my own self-identity is also in error in many ways. I have friends whom I have asked to keep me aware of blind spots, because otherwise I would be (obviously) blind to them. It is important to my integrity that I do that. I don’t mind if you do it. I know you haven’t asked me to do it for you, but I’m doing it anyway. After years of your fallacious reasoning on this blog, I am convinced it’s time to roll up the whole trend into a summary statement: you who think you are a doctor(logic) are demonstrably wrong in thinking that.
This is an evidence- and logic-based charge I am making toward you, and if you value evidence and logic, you will pay it careful heed.
Maybe there is no “self” anymore…
That’s a pretty involved psychological/philosophical issue, to sort out what that might mean. (I’m not even sure what a “self” is, on naturalism, and how it continues and retains its identity from moment to moment and decade to decade; but I sure don’t want to go there in this thread!) So I’m content to stick with his self-identity being badly in error.
Tom:
Your point is very well taken, but that’s not the direction I was going.
I am no psychological expert, I am no exorcist, more than likely it’s none of my business, I’m not accusing/concluding… but I am genuinely worried. I do consider myself to be fairly well read up on the subject: loss of self is one of the characteristic signs of something potentially well beyond “self-identity being badly in error.” Again, I’m in no position to make that assessment, but, given the track record, it’s a legitimate concern.
When rationality itself is compromised–the very thing that separates us from the brutes, when the person openly decries free will as traditionally understood, then it seems we’ve gone beyond mere arguments between people of faith and atheists.
I’ll be frank with you: at a certain level I’m terrified. Depending upon what the source is of “your self-image as a rational and logical person is desperately and pathologically false”, we could be well out of bounds and full of hubris even to try. That’s NOT a conclusion or accusation, but an important consideration.
doctor(logic), #46 of prior thread: “Tom, Do you believe that homosexuality is contagious?”
Tom Gilson: “doctor(“logic”), your self-image as a rational and logical person is desperately and pathologically false.”
Both statements above reflect a psychological analysis of the other person.
This is a natural progression in the ongoing dialogue between doctor(logic) and Tom Gilson.
Q: Is it always a bad thing to pyscho-analyze the other person to try and understand where they’re coming from?
A: Not necessarily. Although it is fraught with danger oftentimes, and needs to be judicious and open to new information.
Eg., Doctor of Logic suspects that Tom thinks homosexuality is contagious and that this fear of Tom’s motivates his opposition to homosexuality.
Conversely, Tom wonders about DL’s mental and psychological state.
Truth Unites…
Whoa! Let me take some heat off Tom: in my estimation he was very cautious in the text of the post. It was I who pushed the “psychological” envelope, but based upon legitimate concerns. My ultimate “push,” which I qualified several times, I’m suggesting should be considered as a possibility… but I am no expert or authority or good enough person to undertake that.
Thanks, Holopupenko.
TUAD,
The reason I questioned doctor(“logic”)’s use of that question is not because it’s a globally irrelevant or illegitimate question, but because it was irrelevant in that particular context. That’s what made it a red herring.
Whether DL’s question was irrelevant or not, there’s still pyscho-analysis going on.
So?
It shows that it’s not just a conversation about logic and evidence, but there’s a component of psycho-analysis going on as well.
Much like the discussion about Christian Exclusivism. It’s not merely a question of logic, but it also involves a question of morality as well.
Doctor Logic is psycho-analyzing Tom Gilson.
And Tom Gilson is psycho-analyzing Doctor Logic.
Just an observation.
An irrelevant observation. I don’t mind that I’m “psycho-analyzing” him, or that he does that to me. My complaint was that his contagion question was off topic.
So as far is it concerns me, you might as well have pointed out we’re both writing in English. I don’t really care.
(It’s not psycho-analyzing, by the way, but I’ll grant that it’s something along the lines of which many people might be prone to misidentify that way.)
Or in other words,
So?
“I don’t mind that I’m “psycho-analyzing” him, or that he does that to me.”
That’s cool.
Tom,
To paraphrase the original post, it goes something like this:
My original criticism of it the post is that it is feeble, and that its feebleness makes it look like a rationalization for bigotry. To quote you directly:
(equivocation on the term “no good”) and
It’s feeble on multiple levels. First, most people who support gay rights (which happens to be most people) are not (knowing) subscribers to P. Second, you give no argument here that Q is correct, better than Q’, better than other Christian Q’s, etc. Third, it wrongly assumes that there’s something called “the ethics of power” that’s different from the way things work in ALL cases. Fourth, it assumes the ethics of power is bad in some consistent way. Fifth, if you weren’t yourself engaged in a particular power play, you could have written this very same article in favor of Sharia law instead of in favor of blacking civil rights for gays (e.g., in favor of some other Q’), and it would look just as feeble.
You don’t feel guilty marketing Christian morality, do you? Don’t you vote for politicians who support your morality? And look at what you’re doing promoting the Turek case, trying to manipulate the reader by calling him “fired”. Using the term “no good” in two different ways in the same paragraph? Well, wake up call: if you prevail in your endeavors, it will be because you are the most effective wielder of power.
These power plays are common on both sides. It has always been that way, no matter what a person’s metaethics. So, what is this ethics of power to which you refer? It’s not that the players are maneuvering solely to gain maximum material advantage because some people who practice the ethics of power as you use the term have principled reasons for their actions. They believe they are doing what is right, at least subjectively. Since, by your account, the subjectivists are engaged in the ethics of power, but the realists aren’t, you must think that power plays fall under the banner of the ethics of power only when they’re not associated with moral realist metaethics.
Nonsense. You are a power player, and you’ve demonstrated it by having this blog and by writing magazine articles. The nation is always governed by power. Do you cringe when pro-Christian fundamentalist politicians are elected? No. You just don’t like it when power goes against your own preferences. Newsflash: nobody does.
Like I’ve said repeatedly: DI is primarily about power, not truth. Ultimately, that’s the only possible outcome of any a relativist worldview – epistemic or moral.
Tom,
At the root of this debate are epistemological questions about moral realism. You say there’s a moral realism that’s disconnected from subjective moral feeling. You’re saying that the moral disgust and outrage felt by gay rights activists is simply an aberration. They are defective people whose emotions are out of order. The gay rights activists are factually incorrect. The transcendent good is not in alignment with their feelings. Yet, for some reason I cannot quite fathom, you think that the question of why they ought to value goodness in a vacuum is irrelevant, or an argument from pure emotion.
So, let’s get to this question about emotion. You think that my responses have been pure emotion. Is that really true? Have I been saying that I don’t feel groovy about the conclusion of your argument, therefore, the argument is incorrect? Of course, I have not.
My arguments get to the heart of value, motivation and the definition of the good. Consider my recent comment in which I said that, intuitively, goodness was an abstraction and idealization of things I value at an emotional level. And that is why I value goodness. But if you disconnect goodness from what I value at the subjective level, why would I value it? This is a rational ARGUMENT. The evidence for this argument is necessarily emotional and value-laden.
I think you inferred from my lack of pursuit of the topic of interracial marriage that you won the point. I suppose you could be said to have won the point by default if I don’t come back to it, but I certainly don’t concede the point. There’s a Q’ in which interracial marriage is truly wrong. For a long time, many Christians advocated for such a Q’. Their arguments were as feeble as yours. For example, opponents of interracial marriage claimed that the law did not discriminate because it applied equally to blacks and whites. Whether you are black or white, if you marry someone of a different race, you will be equally penalized. Now, I wonder, how feeble is that argument? And do we, today, think that they had no emotional commitment to their racism, but instead reached their anti-miscegenation views by way of cool, rational considerations?
The Beckwith article you linked to is equally feeble. He argues from something called “common law”. To claim there’s a precedent for interracial marriage in England in the 17th century and earlier is rather a stretch. There was no law against it because no one was doing it. But even if there was precedent for interracial marriage before 1662, that’s not a good argument that interracial marriage and gay marriage lack the relevant similarities. People on both sides of the interracial marriage debate supplied religious arguments to support their own side. The anti-miscegenation side was clearly motivated by racism, or by guilt they would suffer if blacks were abused and weren’t truly inferior. The interracial marriage question is very clearly relevant in the sense that feeble arguments are being advanced by gay marriage opponents to cover for their homophobia. Now that society is comfortable with interracial marriage, we all look back at its opponents and shake our heads.
“You are a power player, and you’ve demonstrated it by having this blog and by writing magazine articles.”
I observe that you think (or psycho-analyze) that Tom Gilson is a “power player.”
But I remain unclear about the evidence undergirding your argument.
Why or how does having a blog and/or writing magazine articles make a person a “power player”?
Is it part of your definition that anyone who has a blog and/or writes magazine articles is a “power player”?
To me, just because someone has a blog and writes magazine articles does *NOT* by definition make him or her a “power player.”
doctor(“logic”),
I search in vain for where you made the original criticism in those terms, or anything that could be interpreted that way. I sure don’t see it in your first paragraphs there:
If you had actually identified what my argument was in your first posts, then you might be able to convince me that your original response to my argument was that it was feeble. In fact you never responded to that argument through many comments, whether to call it feeble or otherwise.
I did not equivocate on the term “no good.” I used it twice, and those two uses did not mean the same thing. But that is not sufficient for a term to be used equivocally. It has to be used twice with different senses as premises in an argument for it to be equivocal. These were two related conclusions. I am entirely comfortable with melding those conclusions to say, “either way, their activism can lead to no good.”
If you find me committing a fallacy I will accept that immediately. This time you fallaciously found me committing a fallacy; it bounces back upon you, I’m sad to say.
And now you begin the argument that you said you started with on June 14, more than least 18 comments ago: “It’s feeble on multiple levels.” Now, I have to grant that you did say things in the other thread like “your argument is weak on multiple levels.” But that was one of the times you mis-identified completely what it was that I was arguing, so it hardly counts. What was weak was an argument I hadn’t made. (No wonder it didn’t seem very strong!)
So now you give me something to engage with in that “it’s feeble on multiple levels” paragraph. It took you quite some time, you know.
Right! But I think you missed something again. I discussed in my prior post the conditions under which power could be used ethically. As I did in the other post, I will let you re-read that rather than rehearsing it here once again. Your paragraph, “These power plays are common on both sides…” is about 50% right, about 25% wrong, and about 25% a matter of interpretation. But it’s all based on your not having read or understood about what can make the use of power ethical. So I’m not going to respond unless you want to re-read what I wrote about that and give it another go.
You sound exactly like Jacob Stump. Remember him? This is classic post-structural analysis in action.
Please, doctor(“logic”). I’m not trying to set myself up as a great logician or communicator. I very well might have written that article in a terrible fashion. But your analysis, I’m afraid, has been consistently along the lines that you understand exactly what I’m saying; yet you have consistently missed it by a country mile. I didn’t write it that poorly. I didn’t totally forget to include something about the ethical use of power; yet you have ignored it all!
The point of this post has been that you are not displaying competence in rational thinking. This last comment of yours has not improved your position any. One mis-identified fallacy, one outright falsehood about how you began your criticism on the previous post. Oh, and now that I re-read it, one misplaced reference to Sharia–I had dealt with that one in our previous conversation, too. And a criticism of my discussion of the ethics of power that completely overlooks a core point in that discussion. Perhaps you disagree with that core point; but it would have helped your argument had you indicated that you had at least seen it there.
You keep wanting to discuss the ethics of homosexuality. We’ve had that conversation before; I do not duck it, and I am quite open to notice and to respond to arguments against my position when they are not distractions from the discussion at hand, as they have been this week. I don’t hide from it, as you know from past experience. I have avoided going there this time for specific reasons that I explained a couple days ago. I’m sure that at some time in the future I’ll have that conversation again, though.
Meanwhile, you are 100% and completely ducking the point of the current topic. I have brought forth an evidence- and logic-based set of observations and conclusions, and you haven’t even disagreed! Well, you tried in your first comment, but when you did, you employed a series of fallacious statement that I demonstrated to you in my answer to that comment. Now you’re fully ignoring the point; you aren’t even disagreeing. Can you?
d”l”, quoting from your most recent:
That’s all well and good for you to say those things, but what on earth do they have to do with the analysis I gave here or in the previous post?
Not in those words. These words instead:
Then you say,
Oh, heavens, no. I inferred that you dropped the point. When you brought it back up again to my surprise, with not even the slightest response to the way I had countered it, I inferred that you were arguing either incompetently or in bad faith. Maybe I had countered it effectively, maybe ineffectively; but to just ignore that I had answered it, and to bring it up as if your position were well-agreed and established as a premise from which we could proceed forward together, is not how one proceeds competently in debate.
This post is about your competence, my friend. How obvious did I have to be with that? I am urging you to take a breath, stop thinking about whether homosexuality is good or bad and our disagreements on that point, and think about what it means to call oneself doctor(logic) while committing such a constant stream of blatant errors in rational thinking.
The other thread is still open.
“The point of this post has been that you are not displaying competence in rational thinking.”
Doctor(Logic), do you agree with this point?
Suppose 100 random people read this post, and all 100 random people agreed with this point. Would you then agree that you are not displaying competence in rational thinking?