TWIM / RvA Dialog: Introduction
Posted in Blogosphere, Responses, RVA Dialog on | 7 minutes | 7 Comments →
jim has challenged me to what he offers as a "better way to debate." He's written a rebuttal to last week's post Asteroids, Cathode Rays & Requisite Knowledge, and invited me to write a response to his rebuttal, which he's agreed to post in its original entirety on his blog.
I accepted the challenge, and my response follows.
All examples of poisoning the well. (jim)
jim's opening claim is that I'm "poisoning the well." The words of mine jim claimed poisoned the well were,
Many atheists — dare I say the majority — operate under the assumed premise that "there's no evidence for God (and/or the supernatural)." Many wave this around as some sort of trump card, but I opine that such is merely biased opinion masquerading as justification for denial. (cl)
I disagree that I've poisoned the well. One definition of "poisoning the well" can be found here:
[poisoning the well] involves trying to discredit what a person might later claim by presenting unfavorable information (be it true or false) about the person… This argument has the following form:
"Unfavorable information (be it true or false) about person A is presented.
Therefore any claims person A makes will be false."
Sharing my observation that the majority of atheists use "there is no evidence for God" as a trump card is just that: my observation. I do not use this observation to argue that claims made by the majority of atheists will be false, which means my statement does not cohere with either the definition of "poisoning the well" given above, or the form of the sample argument.
A second definition of "poisoning the well" can be found here:
..attempting to poison the well is a logical fallacy where adverse information about a target is pre-emptively presented to an audience, with the intention of discrediting or ridiculing everything that the target person is about to say.
Note again that I did not present adverse information about a target, nor did I use my statement to discredit or ridicule everything a target is about to say.
I have shown that two acceptable definitions of the fallacy do not permit jim's opening claim. Further, jim's sudden concern for keeping wells clean is interesting in its own light. As one of many examples I could share, anyone can easily see that he introduces my blog to his readers as a "SOPHISTRY SIMULATOR." I submit that such fulfills both definitions of "poisoning the well" given above, in that jim displays both "[attempt] to discredit what [I] might later claim by presenting unfavorable information," and "[intent] of discrediting or ridiculing everything [I am] about to say." I can only dismiss his charge of "poisoning the well" as unsubstantiated special pleading, at best. I submit that I have not only legitimately exonerated myself from jim's charges of poisoning the well, but further mounted a successful counter-claim against him. We can now move on to his next claim.
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jim's third and fourth paragraphs — his so-called "cosmetic objections" — were not worth responding to other than to say I found their clarity wanting, and their import to anything of substance unclear. The pre-agreed rules of jim's dialog preclude any emendations on his part, so I guess we'll have to leave his "cosmetic objections" right where they are. As an aside, I note that although jim refers to my piece in its entirety as "fatally flawed," he also describes certain aspects of my argument with terms like, "A valid point," or "Fair enough," or "partly justified," which seem to suggest the presence of something redeemable at worst. I submit that's at odds with the "fatally flawed" depiction.
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jim states what is perhaps his central objection here:
My real problem with this article is that I believe cl’s critique boils down to a semantical quibble, centering around the term ‘evidence’.
He explains that in normal language, "no evidence for God" and "not been persuaded by anything hitherto offered as evidence" are categorically interchangeable. jim then goes on to claim this interchangeability renders my argument a semantic quibble, presumably because when an atheist says, "there's no evidence for God," such actually "reflects a body of knowledge and concomitant beliefs" that is an unspoken given in any good faith dialog.
He continues,
When a theist tells me ‘there is a God’, I automatically take into consideration that this statement reflects a body of knowledge and concomitant beliefs on the part of the subject, and don’t merely reject or lampoon his assertion as substance-less or mindlessly arrogant on the grounds of the assertion itself. This is common sense.
jim seems to be under the assumption that I don't take similar things into consideration. He implies that I, "merely reject or lampoon [atheist] assertion as substance-less or mindlessly arrogant on the grounds of the assertion itself." I do no such thing. Nobody should do what jim accuses me of doing here. Nobody should reject a position on behalf of perceived lack of substance or arrogance in an argument. I don't say, "The atheist position is dismissible because atheists who use 'there's no evidence for God' as a trump card are arrogant and lack substance." Rather, I say that all atheists I've encountered who use the "no evidence for God" argument as a trump card either handwave evidence presented, resort to refutation by denigration, or actually concede (for example, SI — who's very fond of the "there's no evidence for God" argument — actually conceded that I'd presented "weak" evidence for a miracle at one point).
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jim's next strategy is to give two hypothetical examples presumably intended to illustrate the difference between a "reasonable" anecdote vs. a "not-so-reasonable" one. He presents the anecdote of a jerk-wad goofing around in class and dinging his daughter's trombone vs. the anecdote of his daughter seeing Godzilla at school, then concludes that,
..what this all comes down to is the difference between evidence, and EVIDENCE. On one hand, any crazy story ever told by anyone about anything can be considered as evidence according to the nit-pickiest, all-inclusive sort of definition. On the other hand, most people are quite comfortable in rejecting questionable claims as ‘evidence’ with the universally understood, though ofttimes unstated caveats.
Yet, the differences between acceptable anecdotes and non-acceptable ones were not mentioned at all in my original post, so jim's comments are dismissible as unrelated musings or non-sequiturs at best. As an aside, I agree that one is more justified in doubting the "Godzilla" anecdote than the "dinged trombone" anecdote. Wouldn't everybody?
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jim's closing paragraph reads,
Ultimately, it seems that the pertinent part of cl’s message can be summed up in the sentence, ‘Reality isn’t always what we think it is, and opinions about what constitutes good evidence are sometimes overturned by that reality’. But then, everybody already knows this…don’t they?
Yes, I would bet that most everybody does know this. Though pertinent, that was not "the pertinent part of my message," which could be summarized as,
1) Any atheists who respond with "there's no evidence for God" when asked to explain their lack of belief offer a tautology;
2) Strong atheists who respond with "there's no evidence for God" when asked to explain their lack of belief offer an argument from ignorance (as DD argues in his own post I linked to);
3) For ALL claims of type "there's no evidence for X," a certain percentage of those claims are undeniably false, so the theist has no compelling reason to suppose the skeptic's assertion is in the category of "there's no evidence for X" claims that are true, vs. the category of "there's no evidence for X" claims that are false;
4) "There's no evidence for X" is an ill-formed argument, and no justification of anything.
Gideon
says...How’s the ‘debate’ with the troll going, bud? I see your esteemed adversary has gone south on you, already. No surprise there! I quote:
“Here’s the real problem, as I see it. You just don’t have the stuff, cl. Oh, you bluster and point fingers about how nobody’s being cogent ‘cept for poor little ol’ you, but in the end, all you’ve really got is a knack for flame wars. I figured this format would bug you in the end, because it takes you out of your comfort zone, where you can mitigate, seek allies, and rile everybody up to your heart’s content. On the other hand, I had hopes that you might find value in rising above all that. But you can’t do it, can you? This is what you like, arguing towards no purpose. Even during our simple correspondence to set this thing up with you, you’ve tried to get me going on more than one occasion, but I just wouldn’t bite. And now this response. You’re nothing but a big baby, cl. Put up or shut up, ya wuss.”
Our suicidal, unshaven, drugged-out fry cook’s “better way to debate” ensures that he and his cronies (the ones that bother with him, that is, we’re not exactly tripping over them, there, are we?) have the tactical advantage, since he only lets ass-kissers comment there. Nevertheless, I believe most of those see the dummy for what he is, and don’t really want to associate with him any more than they have to. After all, a big stupid guard dog is a good thing to have in a flame war, otherwise, it’s not something you want around when you’re trying to run a civilized blog, having a drooling Doberman slinking around sniffing your guest’s crotches!
Trying to talk to a troll is like talking to an ass… all you’ll get in response is a lot of hee-hawing and fleas. Trying to read his convoluted clap-trap reminds me of Moron-ales’ bullshit. They’re both of them pigs dressed in satin. You can dress up a pig, but, underneath, he’s still a pig.
Jimbo has no other intention than to try and draw you into rounds n’ rounds of the type of useless banter that characterizes every ‘Jimbo Experience’. He’s everything that he accuses you of being, and then some. I knew the butt-head couldn’t stay away, it’s probably the only joy he gets out of life, trolling blog sites and writing nihilistic garbage trying to get sympathy from other schizophrenics.
Oh well… it’s always a hoot watching Jimmy-boy revert to his Neanderthal side whenever someone dares question his distorted views. I don’t think he can help it, it’s like Jekyll and Hyde, only there’s no Jekyll, only Hyde! Hyde turning into a worse Hyde!
I can’t remember, cl… was Hyde suicidal?
LOL!
cl
says...I had a feeling the whole thing was an ambush. I’ll publish my responses to his second and third responses, just because I already wasted the time in writing them. Other than that, no further comment on or about jim, whatsoever.
jim
says...Gideon:
Lie #1- “Our suicidal, unshaven, drugged-out fry cook’s “better way to debate” ensures that he and his cronies (the ones that bother with him, that is, we’re not exactly tripping over them, there, are we?) have the tactical advantage, since he only lets ass-kissers comment there.”
Fact- No one is allowed to comment. My critique of cl’s post, followed by cl’s rebuttal, and that’s it. As a matter of fact, it was cl who was whining about lack of other commenters, not me. You’re a liar, Gideon.
Lie#2- “Jimbo has no other intention than to try and draw you into rounds n’ rounds of the type of useless banter that characterizes every ‘Jimbo Experience’.”
‘Rounds and rounds’ of useless banter is cl’s thing, not mine. Exactly the opposite, as a matter of fact. That was the whole point of the new format. You’re a liar, Gideon.
Lie#3- “Oh well… it’s always a hoot watching Jimmy-boy revert to his Neanderthal side whenever someone dares question his distorted views.”
The whole point was for cl to be able to question and challenge me. Instead, he chickened out. You’re a liar, Gideon. Funny how the always objective cl didn’t straighten you out on any of this. Funny that.
cl:
Ambush? How’s that, cl? You were given the opportunity to answer, and you simply weaseled out. As for the ‘wasted the time in writing them’…hm, thought you weren’t going to bother. Now, suddenly, #3 is written? My…oh…my! Gotta learn to keep your stories straight, cl. I assume you’ll be trying to make it look like it was written all along now? Will you even go so far as to twist your very own words, to make it look like I did an end run around your imaginary ‘response’? We’ll see, I suppose.
Here’s the real story for anyone who’s interested, in mine and cl’s own words, start to finish. Let the reader judge.
Gideon
says...“Here’s the real story for anyone who’s interested, in mine and cl’s own words, start to finish. Let the reader judge.”
Good idea, Jimmy! Let everyone read for themselves what an unbiased, civil, respectful, ex-drug addict you are. They’ll also see how tolerant an infidel you are, too, reading all the kind things you’ve written about Christ and Christians! I’ve been claiming the opposite, here, but I’m sure your blog will set all that straight, once and for all!
Folks… be sure and check it ALL out… Jimmy’s blog, that is! You don’t want to miss a thing!
Gideon
says...Now, he’s written a fast post blowing his horn about how his objectives have been met, and that he’s such a righteous and caring individual and feeling bad about cl, yadda-yadda-yadda-yaada…
Man, this guy’s self esteem must be hovering just above the level of the ocean floor!
Better rent a suit and tux and head on over to SI’s for some support, Jimmy! Think you can resist humping all the guest’s legs while you’re there, boy?
cl
says...I don’t think anyone really cares, but I’m glad jim included that link. For those who DO want the real story:
Finally! Unequivocable evidence of jim actually lying! As anybody can see, jim responded in to my rebuttal in his last post – rather viciously – despite the fact that he said he wouldn’t in his own “Rules of Engagement,” where he said:
Unless of course, jim wants to flame me, in which case “absolutely no rebuttals” means “rebuttals when jim sees fit regardless of jim’s own rules.”
Also, when I told jim I would be cross-posting my responses here — because I don’t want him to end up deleting them next time he gets mad — jim said:
Yet here he is, rebutting where he said he wouldn’t, and participating where he said he wouldn’t. So yeah, you, the reader, be the judge.
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Sorry, jimmy: not interested – unless of course you want to keep to the pre-agreed format.
cl
says...Gideon,
I’m sure he did. I won’t be reading – or responding to it – either. Like I said, if he wants to distill his objections into coherent sentences minus the personal
attacks, he can email me the link, and I’ll take another stab. Same goes for any future post of mine.