Essay talk:My Response to a Creationist Troll

This one? Although this kind of shtick has been going for a while. Decent enough response, although I wouldn't necessarily use questions at the end so much; you want to truly answer rather than challenge with equal amounts of rhetoric. ^postate 02:21, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Personally I would ask where this loving all powerful god came from. EddyP ^{Great King! Disaster!} 15:03, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Except that's just answering a silly question with another silly question! You'd just get "God was always there" as your response. Instead you'd want to equate the two beliefs. If someone is going to use a straw man, you should also try to roll with the hit and send it back at them. So if atheism means "everything came from nothing" then by extension "God came from nothing" - thus both, when phrased like this, are equally illogical (and the initial question is "which is more logical?"). You still get "but God was always there", or some sort of outside of time nonsense, thrown back at you, but it more actively highlights the special pleading. ^postate 16:36, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

I was trying not to sound too hostile, trying to facilitate discussion. Of course, it was a creationist I was talking to... The Marbityr (talk)

Point out that he seems to be conflating material and final causes and call it a night.WilhelmJunker (talk) 05:28, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

For that matter, he's proposing a false dichotomy. So yeah, that's fun.WilhelmJunker (talk) 05:30, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

That's the thing, if you want to not sound "hostile" to a creationist you either have to 1) agree with everything they say or 2) say nothing. Remember that the entire premise of things like creationism rests on the idea that faith and belief can trump fact; so any contrary opinion will always be interpreted as an attack. This poses quite a problem because you have very little chance of changing the mind of a True Believer (of any stripe, including one who is a True Believer in evolution!). So the best you can hope for is to explain your own view (which you do in the last sentence of this answer, I like) and provide thought provoking arguments and ideas for your own "side" (this is where pointing out logical fallacies comes in, you know, learn good argumentation by laughing at crap argumentation!). This is why I disfavour merely answering with yet more questions like that - you'll not get an answer and they'll just interpret it as you being difficult anyway (*sigh*). ^postate 14:05, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Bible

But is the Bible a stone/bronze age sheepherders book of stories or THE INFALLIBLE WORD OF THE GREAT ALMIGHTY HIMSELF ! hmmm ?^{— Unsigned, by: Hamster / talk / contribs}

Don't Even Bother

There are a number of arguments that aren't worth the candle unless you enjoy the cut and thrust of debate with no hope of any positive outcome. These include - but are not limited to:-

• Pro Life vs. Pro Choice.
• Conservative vs. Liberal (using the US meaning of those terms)
• Fundie vs. Atheist.

The root problem is that we use absolute presuppositions to create our own universe and find it hard to understand why others - who of course will have differing absolute presuppositions - fail to see our reasoning. As a f'rinstance I find it unbelievable that Americans aren't rushing headlong towards socialised medicine, it's so self evidently the best way to provide health care. Similarly there is nothing you can do or say that will convince millions of pro-lifers that abortion is anything other than murder. The end result of this is that when the differing sides are so entrenched your arguments will fail to register in exactly the same way that his fail to register with you. Right and wrong have nothing to do with it.

So, why do you wish to *prove* the fundie wrong? As soon as (s)he wants to dictate that science should be run along religious lines or that moral judgements should be made by cherry picking from some bronze age myth collection then there is a point but, until then, it's just a waste of energy; you won't succeed in changing his, or anybody else's mind. Indeed, unless you're very careful you'll end up appearing just as much the fanatic as they do.

My favourite piece of fundie bashing was the Pythons vs. the bishop of Southwalk (I think) and Malcolm Muggeridge - I'm sure I'll be corrected if wrong - when they debated Life Of Brian on UK TV. YouTube it if you haven't seen it. The important point was that the Pythons said and did practically nothing and ended up coming across as reasonable, fair and balanced. Meanwhile Muggeridge's buffoonery made everyone see the religious establishment for what it was - the rantings of self important fools. They made their point by not arguing.

So, am I saying that we should ignore such fundie tripe - in a word, yes. In my lifetime the forces of reason have made significant strides and I have every hope that they will continue to do so. Fight the fights that are important and winnable. Show that you're the reasonable one, the sensible one and, when appropriate, the compassionate one and the fundies will be seen for what they are.

My 2d. Jack Hughes (talk) 13:32, 13 December 2010 (UTC)