Debating God's existance, then and now(oh how we have fallen)
consider, on the one side, the debates we have {or rather, have had in the last 8 or so year of the site's existance} in the relegious forums on the one hand and the intellectual domain of debate that was the late part of the 19th century and early part of the 21st century.
seems like this debate is the IDEAL of all the right ways to debate about something{like the existance of god} and the negation of most of the ways in which people do debate relegion on KMC.{i blame the dumming down of the populace by relegious media/churches, among other non relegios private and state institutions}
concise, precise, giving claims and explanations that are accepted or falsified in a simple and non convoluted way, never going off at a gradient and taking attention away from the specific topic/thread being debated, conceding at every point that the opposition makes a precise and obvious deductive or inductive counterargument, always progressing to more fundamental properties of the stances taken by each in an almost linear process of negation to a point where two fundamental and necessary properties of each stance come out where you can simply pick either a winner or two {justified} points of view that are mutually exclusive and not sufficiently provable or unprovable. and MOST of all, no friggin REPITITION of already dealt with ideas and claim.
Debates like those still take place, on a variety of topics. I've watched several.
The internet just allows those of us not in the ivory towers to take part too, albeit in a much less controlled environment.
Anyway, if you don't like KMC religious debate, wtf are you doing here? Because a general appeal of "hey you guys? debate better plz" isn't going to do much.
to be honest a lot of those traits that you mention in an honest debate would be hard reached, for you would have to have people who are intelligent, extremely non ignorant, and very open minded. people who wont get offended when they are proven wrong and concede immediately when they are, and get off that point when they are done.
this is very hard, as more than one person is usually in a debate, and knowing the general population of people and how they react to facts and points revealed to them, its rare.
How are we defining intelligent? What does it mean to be "non ignorant" (sic)? Conceding immediately once "proven" wrong (another tricky term, because what constitutes enough proof) is not a quality of any skilled debater I know of, even the level-headed, rational ones. And returning to a topic to test a hypothesis, or deciding that we need to look into it further, is a hallmark of rational inquiry, not leaving the point once something's been decided.
I'm sorry, but in all of that you had maybe one trait I'd actually look for in a high level religious debate.
As much as I appreciate your sincere yearning for an honest debate, everytime I read this I get the impression you're trying to reduce it to an equation, where every input has a definite value, yielding an exact conclusion.
Never gonna happen.
For one thing, a position relying entirely on logic, and one relying entirely on faith operate from two vastly different paradigms, where different axioms rule. So there's no agreement on even a common starting point. For another: "God" is not a numeral: "He" can not be reduced to a precise, operational value. At best, one can pick a metaphor (eg, the Abrahamic God) and elucidate inconsistencies.
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Shinier than a speeding bullet.
I don't think any religious metaphor would work as a common starting point if it's not even going to be acknowledged (by the "faithful") as a metaphor. Science uses as-if's too, but at least it acknowledges that.
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Shinier than a speeding bullet.
Since when is jehovah a metaphor? You act like that's some kind of obvious starting point to the discussion, but I don't know of any christians who have said that; it seems like that's simply your own projection.
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Last edited by King Kandy on Sep 1st, 2011 at 07:59 PM
Whether the faithful acknowledge it or not, that's what any written/visual/conceptual representation of "God" is: an as-if. And all I'm saying is that, at best, one could logically attack a given as-if.
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Shinier than a speeding bullet.
Last edited by Mindship on Sep 1st, 2011 at 08:25 PM
I'm sorry, but you don't get to define what other people believe. They believe there is a literal god jehovah described in the bible, and accurately represented by it. This isn't a metaphor, this is literally incorrect.
Ah, that's what you're protesting. Indeed, it is not for me to tell someone what they believe in. But in the context of leonheartmm's post, I am entitled to define what I see as the problem.
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Shinier than a speeding bullet.
intelligent as someone who knows what they are talking about, thinks before they talk, being as leased bias as you can.
Conceding once you are wrong, for example: Someone says george washington was not the first president, the other person says you are wrong, he is, and they look it up. George washington was indeed the first president, so person #1 admits they were wrong. There is no point to going back to this as it was already shown and proven that gw was the first president, and this topic is done. this is just an example though, as debates are never this simple
And what traits would you say are needed for a high level religious debate?
Edit: i dont see the point of going back to a topic once you have full proof of what you were claiming to not be true. Its like dwelling on a topic that is already finished.
Last edited by cool_ghost on Sep 1st, 2011 at 11:34 PM
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Aug 10th, 2011 02:59 AM
