Maybe the principles could be listed:
1. Atheists cannot win a contest against actual disciplined logic.I have sometimes kept a list of issues which a particular Atheist has dodged, and then presented it to him. Sometimes the Atheist will claim to have answered every issue, so I go through that again and again if necessary. Sometimes the Atheists will charge "gishing" and will run for the door. Either way, it is the observer who counts, not the particular Atheist. Don't allow dodging or off ramps: stay on point.
2. Generally Atheists use rhetoric, rather than logic; their goal is to "win", not to elucidate.
3. Always "play to the stands", meaning that the actual target is those who are watching and might yet have an open mind. With that in mind, there is no need for anger or dismay: the audience will understand the attack on you and why it is irrational, especially if you point it out calmly.
4. Never expect an Atheist to be convicted by logic; Atheism is an emotional decision and is not influenced by logic.
5. The Atheist is just an unwitting foil in the demonstration of the irrationality of Atheism. Expect nothing of him but irrational attacks, because that is what you will get served up. So prepare to demonstrate to the audience what the Atheist is doing, in terms of calm logical analysis of his claims and attacks. If there is no audience (the stands are empty), there is no point in even talking to an Atheist.
6. Keep doing it as required.
7. Always keep in mind that the Atheist always "wins" a yelling match: that's his intent; he cannot "win" if his position is logically analyzed.
There are some arguments which circle around and around, and those should be ended, with the reason for ending it made clear, and the end brought about definitively and finally.
Learn the principles of rhetoric and be able to recognize the rhetorical tricks. I've been doing this awhile, and even so, I get caught out sometimes. But a quick correction of course always works.
11 comments:
The atheists always want the last word. That does not signify victory! lol!
5 More Atheist Tactics:
1.They raise the bar and move the goal posts ad infinitum,after you've given a satisfactory explanation.
2.They abuse Occam's Razor; claiming the Atheist's explanation is always the most simpler and therefore believable.This theory of course fails at the quantum level.
3.They dismiss any and all anecdotal evidence which counts against them but frequently use anecdotes against their opponents
4.They claim not to have beliefs,only doubts but when pressed they seem to have more faith than doubt and evidence.
5.This is one of my favorite Atheist tactics:
Every genius christian philospher,scientist and intellectual that's deceased now was secretly harboring atheist views when he was alive.Such as Rene Descartes,Sir Isaac Newton,Galileo,Copernicus,et al
I'm surprised. This is precisely the same advice I give to atheists who want to debate theists. I think it shows how many missionaries there are at work on both sides who absolutely never consider that there might be something wrong with their point of view. As for debate, I like to think of it as a contact sport conducted in clean clothes. I learned as a participant in formal debates as a teenager that the "winner" is often not the one who has the best logic or evidence, but the one who "carries the crowd."
As far as I can tell, the "fairest" debate is a scientific debate between two experts in their field in front of a learned audience who only consider logic and evidence and rule out all emotional or rhetorical appeals. Even then, things don't always go as they should.
Have we hit upon the reason why the Pew Research Center polls find much lower rates of belief among scientists than the general public, less than a third (31%) say they "believe in god?"
Mad Lurker,
If anyone in the crowd is actually looking for rational argumentation, then the person with the logical, rational argument is the one who will satisfy that requirement. But that requires that the rules of logic and rational thought be known and applied to the arguments. Only those in the audience know if that is the case.
Atheists have changed the definition of Atheism for the specific reason that they have no logical reason or reasoning in support of their belief, so they now claim not to have a belief in order that they not have to defend it. This is a demonstration of the lack of rational arguments available to Atheists; that's why they use rhetorical devices instead.
When it comes to debates, Atheists have only blind rejectionism to offer, and they cannot back up that rejection with sound reasoning. That is why they get their panties in a bunch when it is pointed out that they have a responsibility to support their belief that theism propositions are false with logical arguments showing why theist arguments fail logically. But they cannot. Instead, they tend to claim that they have no burden of proof, under their new, false definition of their belief. They think that this approach shields them from having their irrationality exposed.
When it comes to scientists, the teaching of science has abdicated the teaching of the principles of scientific limitations and the theoretical boundaries of physical knowledge. So there are many scientists who are actually ignorant of the logical fallacies which infest physicalism/materialism. They have accepted scientism as a faith proposition, and it is false, logically, a blind faith.
"Have we hit upon the reason why the Pew Research Center polls find much lower rates of belief among scientists than the general public, less than a third (31%) say they "believe in god?""
Ideologues often dominate a field of expertise to gain a monopoly and pursue their political agendas. The same thing happened in Nazi Germany.
I suspect that the 31% are scientists who actually understand what science is.
Mad Lurker
The statistics I got says that 33% believe in god and 18% believe in a higher power or universal spirit.That's a total of 51% of scientists are dualists as opposed to materialists.
http://www.pewforum.org/2009/11/05/scientists-and-belief/
Also note that the same article exposes atheists' intolerance of scientists who do believe in a god,just like Whatevs said.
I was unfamiliar with the term "gishing", so I did a search for it.
Courtesy of PZ Myers on Pharyngula
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The Gish Gallop is a notorious tactic used by creationists: spew out lots and lots of bad arguments at a rapid fire pace, and mire the poor scientist in efforts to refute them one by one…which she can do, but only at a slower pace than the creationist can assert them.
Wow! Does it ever cross Dr. Myers's mind that this very accurately describes atheist "debating" technique?!?
Perhaps another definition would be more apropos regarding atheist bloviation...
From the Urban Dictionary:
Gishing
The act of expelling gas from ones anus directly into anothers anus, for the purpose of erotic pleasure.
I'm sorry for the graphic nature but that seems much more descriptive of the "blow it out your arse" responses that I've read on too many atheist blogs.
My apologies for the digression... back to the regularly scheduled topic.
Project much?
To whom are you speaking?
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