Shii Posted:

I’ve already said there’s no point, and I’d rather not let someone who doesn’t know how to debate civilly irritate me further.

It’s funny because that’s how I feel, except I’m not irritated. Just exasperated.

EDIT: You just nevermind that they mean the same thing.

Shii, are you familiar with transference?

EDIT: I’m sorry, a more accurate term would be psychological projection.

EDIT2: I do hope someone will pick up the torch where Shii dropped it.

man-man Posted:

If you just want someone to argue with, I could try taking the other side… but it’d be really goddamn hard for me to do convincingly, I’d be too distracted by how much I disagree with myself.

I don’t want to argue, I want to debate. I think there’s an important difference. But Shii suggested I ask you where I went wrong during our discussion… what do you suppose I could or should have done differently?

man-man Posted:

Sorry, to answer that I would have to have been paying attention…

Fair enough. Question’s open to anyone.

I can offer general points that apply to any discussion of an often-sensitive subject. The key one is recognising that people tend to have some kind of reason for believing what they do, that isn’t just to be annoying and awkward in internet discussions.

Sometimes people really are just stupid, and have a set of beliefs that are inconsistent, ill-founded and generally nonsensical. Such people can often be picked out by their use of all-caps and frequent reference to how you’re going to “brn in hel, fabulous personget” if you disagree with them. These types are inimical to sensible discussion and should be ignored, or dealt with by use of extreme sarcasm. It won’t make the slightest impact on them, but it can be fun to poke them and see what happens if you like that kind of thing.

I’d hope more commonly, people are not pants-on-head very special, and do have their reasons… I seem to have spent more time talking about the retards than I intended to, it was just a fun subject, but anyway… first step is trying to understand why it is that people hold the beliefs they do, without jumping to the “brainwashed/dumb****” conclusion, that way you can at least speak about their actual beliefs instead of taking a guess then insulting them when you tell them all the ways that their reasons are wrong without mentioning any of the reasons they actually have.

Easier to do in a private conversation than a public discussion.

This post is longer in every way than I set out to make it, I get verbose when I’m tired…

Longer tl;dr

———

Inertia: Who made the universe?

Atheists: Don’t be a ‘tard, no-one made it

MCB: I disagree

Believers: @Atheists: You can’t prove that

MCB: I disagree

Aldo: Quantum Mechanics did it!

MCB: I disagree

Atheists: @Believers: You’re full of ****

Believers: @Atheists: You’re just as full of **** as we are.

Hobart: I’m full of eagle ****!

*tangential discussion about evolution and the sun going round the earth*

*Shii and Moniker take over the thread*

*Rapid descent into madness*

man-man Posted:

A pretty accurate description

lordofawesome Posted:

I believe in a god. I would like to pick up where Shii left off.

Cool. I’m going to try and be as civil as possible.

Why do you believe what you believe?

lordofawesome Posted:

Because I grew up in a religious household.

Alright, then let me ask you the question I should have asked first. What do you believe?

lordofawesome Posted:

I believe that a god exists, but mandkind can not comprehend what it is.

How would you define God?