Doctor X

I do not persume to know the motivation behind the reliance upon fallacious arguments.

The individual attempted to deflect valid criticism of his fallacious methods with an invalid citation of fallacies as demonstrated above.

"So he sowed . . . so he reap'd." Will note that:

does not rehabiliate his methods.

I refer the individual to the answer I gave previously.

That remains the poster's error. When he builds is arguments upon fallacy, he falls with the fallacy. If he wishes a more "serious" attention then he needs to fashion his posts with more responsibility.

The emperor cannot blame the child for the fact he is naked. He can, however, put on some clothes.

I refer the individual to his argumenta ad hominem recognized previously.

The rather clear perspective allows recognition of the fallacious practices.

If the individual recognizes his ignorance in the fine art of responsible rhetoric, I must congratulate him that "admitting you have a problem" is the first step toward growth. Otherwise, he is the poor artist who blames his audience.

Throwing names out, which will not lend validity to the fallacious arguments revealed previously, will appear more "impressive" if the individual bothered to learn to spell them properly.

Failure in that proves most ironic.

Argumentum ad captandum vulgus et verecundiam, yet, really a non sequitur since it fails to rehabilitate the fallacies and ungentlemanly behavior exposed previously.

Given the consistent misuse of vocabulary and abuse of language, perchance Dr. Seuss . . . no . . . the "good doctor" proved quite precise in his rhetoric.

--J.D.

Hopeful Monsters

peripeteia …

Your postings tenderate to presentify insurmountable problemifications to people particificating in this thread. You possessify a truly remarkable abilificatorary skillerization in over ornatificating your highly questionable, laughicatorary expositorification of the English language.

Mageth

peripeteia:

And Mageth dont confuse yourself more then you actually are..Stand up for yourself and dont hide behind the dresses of others here..

And when exactly have I done that? Note that everything I've said here, save my quote of W.C. Fields, has been in my own words, without appeal to authority, and without flaunting my education, vocabulary, or denigrating the intelligence of other posters.

And recall that I challenged you to respond in your own words sans the obtuse language and appeals to authority. In other words, to come out from "behind the dresses" of the various philosophers you are hiding behind.

Here's a free philosophy lesson from a "mental midget" for you. I hope that you take this right: my purpose is not to insult you, but to educate you:

There is a fundamental difference between education and intelligence. On this board, and in the "real world", how educated you are carries no weight in a discussion. It's the intelligence you express in your arguments, and how well your arguments are presented (hint: comprehensible to the audience) that wins the day. A well-presented, succinct, intelligent argument from a high school dropout may well overcome the verbose, authority-appealing obtuse philosophical ramblings of a PhD.

I can't recall off the top of my head where I read this, but the comment goes something like this. The vast majority of philosophy students learn about philosophy, read the philosophers, and learn to discuss philosophy (through reference to the philosophers, as has been your case). But only a very few are able to do philosophy. In other words, very few are philosophers.

From what I see so far, you fit squarely into the former. If you want to practice at becoming more of the latter, then I'd recommend that you, in a sense, forget all that you learned in philosophy class, try thinking for yourself (one thing that most schools fail to teach, if it can be taught), and formulate and communicate your own arguments, preferably sans the appeals to authority and affectation of obtuseness that you think makes you sound intelligent.

peripeteia

Doctor X

Mind explaining some of your sorry attempts of rebuttal ..
1. I do not persume to know the motivation behind the reliance upon fallacious arguments.
2. The individual attempted to deflect valid criticism of his fallacious methods with an invalid citation of fallacies as demonstrated above.
3. "So he sowed . . . so he reap'd." Will note that:
4. That remains the poster's error. When he builds is arguments upon fallacy, he falls with the fallacy. If he wishes a more "serious" attention then he needs to fashion his posts with more responsibility.

The emperor cannot blame the child for the fact he is naked. He can, however, put on some clothes.
5. If the individual recognizes his ignorance in the fine art of responsible rhetoric, I must congratulate him that "admitting you have a problem" is the first step toward growth. Otherwise, he is the poor artist who blames his audience.
6. Throwing names out, which will not lend validity to the fallacious arguments revealed previously, will appear more "impressive" if the individual bothered to learn to spell them properly.
7. Argumentum ad captandum vulgus et verecundiam, yet, really a non sequitur since it fails to rehabilitate the fallacies and ungentlemanly behavior exposed previously.

Tell me my friend how you are able to go from what I wrote to your little attempts at refuting me..And please don’t pretend some ‘silent lucidity’ according to platitudes or clichés..Listen my little misguided friend: Disiunctiva est illa, quae componitur ex pluribus categoricis mediante hac coniunctione ‘vel’ vel mediante aliquo aequivalente sibi[ if you prefer i can illustrate this with an example]….In other words the disjunctive nature of the two arguments are attested..And no emotional verboseness was intended[neither here nor in my other posts]..

The ‘arguments’ were meant to palliate your ignorance of my post and not a predication of it..I would have thought that was obvious..Second the arguments facilitate NOTHING MORE THAN your espousal of the trend here and not the actual ideas ‘or’ issues presented..My little explanation above explains with the vocab that even you can understand the dissociative character of my two little forays..


Oh and last thing a ‘gentleman’ does not pretend to intelligence by refraining from actually discussing something and resorting to nitpicking and giving ones undivided attention to the nonessentials..And yes I should have spelled Fredric without the ‘k’..
Now lets let the ‘gentleman’ practice what he preaches and present something worthwhile..Critique, me refute me, hell even cuss me out, but do so according to the material presented and not the esoterics of the ‘texts’..Or is the ‘gentleman’ a veteran here specifically because he cowards behind all the unnecessary pretheoretics of the discussions..


Enjoy!!

peripeteia

Hello glad you joined in..I dont know which is more amusing, my actually understanding what you wrote or your actually writing it..Regardless i truly enjoy such linguistics..

AmbiguousUbiquity

I couldn't resist.....

Does Peripeteia remind anyone else of Ignatius J. Reilly from A Confederacy of Dunces ?

That was the first character I thought of....

Lauren

Hopeful Monsters

peripeteia

Thanks for your reposte above - I recognise that your response illustrates that you do look at this particular point (which others comment on above) with humour.

... I would be really concerned if you genuinely could make sense of my nonesense!!

I'll say no more tho', as this is not on topic.

TomboyMom

Working through the thread in order:

factfinder:
We're here because we think it's interesting. Why are you here?

Well, if they were only a minority, they might be only a curiousity, but since they are the great majority and dominate our society and our political life, I think it's actually quite important what they think and whether and how they are trying to impose those beliefs on the rest of us. Or to put it more succinctly, they do get in my way all the time.

May I remind you that this is an atheist forum that christians for their own reasons choose to participate in? I am not going over to the christian forums and trying to talk them out of anything. In typical christian fashion, they are trying to convince us of their beliefs. If they don't like it, stay out. This question should be addressed to the christians and other theists only.

Magus55: Clsssic No True Scotsman. So, Magus55, who died and put you in charge of determining who is an actual christian? Easy to define "christian" as meaning "good christian", thereby eliminating all the bad christians from consideration. How about if I define atheist so as only to include the good atheists? This won't fly. The working definition of "christian" is "people claiming to be christian." Alternatively, you can use "people who have the following beliefs: God gave his only begotten son....[fill in basic christian beliefs.]"

to Godless Sodomite: right on. Well said.

No. I'm not trying to impose my beliefs on them. I'm only trying to prevent them from imposing their beliefs on all of us. I am exercising free speech, not supressing it. In that process, I may or may not change their minds, which is not the same as trying to suppress their free speech.

more kudos to Godless Sodomite. I love you.

This has been discussed many times at length in the Morality board, where this question belongs. If you want to explore it, I suggest you split off the thread and post it there.

right on also to Wayne P.

No True Scotsman rears its tedious head once again. See above response to Magus55.

Does the name Galileo ring a bell? How about Copernicus?

Now your true agenda comes out. In your OP, you claimed to be asking both sides why they liked to argue with each other, even though, as I stated above, your questions applies much more to christians who visit the atheist board than vice versa.

Magus55: LOL! ROFLMAO! Really, Magus55, you crack me up! I don't know where to start! 1 + 1 = 2 is not in the bible, therefore it's false? We know the bible is true because god said so and we know what god says is true because the bible says so? We're told in the bible to use the bible? I mean, this drivel is so weak it's hilarious...or would be if people who think this way weren't so influential in my world.

peripeteia: sorry, didn't understand a word. Not sure if this reflects on you or me. Anyone else have trouble? you do have a large vocabulary, tho.
I guess that would be me.

TruthisTold: Thanks for the laugh.

Biff the unclean

Ach! Thank you, I was wracking my brain trying to remember.
I had been thinking "Prof." Edwin Cory of vaudeville fame or maybe that mailman character from the old Cheers TV show…but you hit it dead on.

peripeteia

Hello again Mageth.

Good morning to you..Hmm..Let me see how I should answer your little assessment of me..


Tell me my brilliant friend does your astuteness take in account the revelatory character of such assessments..What does “to do philosophy” actually mean to you? Is it a person who is the top student at several universities and achieved recognition and rapport from his professors? Or is it a person who publishes in journals and authors a book and is recognized internationally? Or still is it some poor schmuck who seduces an underground publishing firm to reproduce his material and gets mainstream support? Or better yet, is it a poor soul gazing at the stars and feels the sturm and drang of his existence and begins asking the perennial questions:why am I here? What is the purpose of life? What is out there?.

Now since you placed me in the ‘former’ tell me was it solely because of my ‘obfuscations’ or even better my ‘obtuse convolutions’? Listen my little ‘Einstein’ do you actually believe you can ‘do’ philosophy and ‘think for yourself’ without acquiring some knowledge of the subject and the philosophies out there? But since its obvious your enlightenment derives its impetus exactly from such procedures,, continue dancing to your drum..But sadly I cannot..I need to learn the subject according to my materiality.. My revelatory capabilities are nonexistent thus I must go forth with the sweat and tears of my struggle..