I disagree. It depends upon how it's done. Largely the idea that there's a true winner who is right on the issues regardless of who accepts it is just an excuse for the kind of people who must always be right to feel they really won.
There are contexts in which you have to play by "if you walk away you lose." For example a real debate, especially the extra curricular kind in high school and college. In such a debate if you don't respond to an argument the judge usually assumes you lost it. Of course there are rational contrary examples. Say a team makes an assertion in their affirmative case and has no evidence, The negative team answers it with evidence then doesn't talk about it again so in the last rebuttal the 2nd affirmative says "they dropped this they lose it. No you never had it they have the only evidence.
I find that if you walk away you lose works a letter against atheists than the chess approach in the article. Often that's the only way to make them realize their answers aren't adequate. Atheists tend to drop a lot of arguments because my arguments are evidentially oriented. They don't do the research. They tend to just no answer. Left to their own devices they will never reason about the arguments a and voluntarily admit their argument doesn't work against a God argument. The only atheists I've seen who are that honest are Jeff Lowder and Parsons (can't remember first name)vat secular outpost.
I remember being a little kid and learning to play chess and thinking the mark of a good player was to expand the end game ad infinitum. I remember when I first realized "O, if I get to this poi t it means I've lost already so just cut to th4 chase."
Even after the plain truth has been thoroughly demonstrated, so far as a person is capable of doing, the confirmed skeptic will insist on maintaining belief in his own irrational notions. This is due to either a great blindness, which renders him incapable of seeing what is plainly set before him, or on account of an opinionative obstinacy, which prevents him from acknowledging the truth of what he does see. Thence arises the woeful necessity of going to ridiculous lengths to expound yet more fully on what we have already made perfectly clear, in hopes that we might get through to those who close their minds to reason.
And yet how shall we ever profit from our discussions, or what bounds can be set to our discourse, if we forever fall to the temptation of replying to those who reply to us? We must acknowledge that those who are so hardened by the habit of contradiction will never yield, but would rather reply out of stubbornness, even when they recognize their own error. (Saint Augustine, The City of God)
*gasp* Even a highly-regarded saint is saying that some people intellectually dishonest, and is then pointing to their own behavior as being all the proof that is needed to know that they are intellectually dishonest? *gasp*
It's ironic that Gilson chose to wrote this post after being placed in about 7 deft checkmates in a row by the commenter DJC.
You can read the hat-handing in the post: https://www.thinkingchristian.net/posts/2015/09/abortions-other-death/#comment-118720
Ironically (or, if you're an apologist, predictably), Gilson's inability to understand the many ways that his thinking was shown to be inconsistent and his arguments poorly-examined led him to accuse his interlocutor (DougJC) of not realizing he had been shown to be overmatched but not realize it.
Irony, it turns out, is not just a way to describe old heating elements.
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If one pays attention, one will notice that this is a very common play. It's especially common amongst so-called atheists, but not limited to them.
I disagree. It depends upon how it's done. Largely the idea that there's a true winner who is right on the issues regardless of who accepts it is just an excuse for the kind of people who must always be right to feel they really won.
There are contexts in which you have to play by "if you walk away you lose." For example a real debate, especially the extra curricular kind in high school and college. In such a debate if you don't respond to an argument the judge usually assumes you lost it. Of course there are rational contrary examples. Say a team makes an assertion in their affirmative case and has no evidence, The negative team answers it with evidence then doesn't talk about it again so in the last rebuttal the 2nd affirmative says "they dropped this they lose it. No you never had it they have the only evidence.
I find that if you walk away you lose works a letter against atheists than the chess approach in the article. Often that's the only way to make them realize their answers aren't adequate. Atheists tend to drop a lot of arguments because my arguments are evidentially oriented. They don't do the research. They tend to just no answer. Left to their own devices they will never reason about the arguments a and voluntarily admit their argument doesn't work against a God argument. The only atheists I've seen who are that honest are Jeff Lowder and Parsons (can't remember first name)vat secular outpost.
I remember being a little kid and learning to play chess and thinking the mark of a good player was to expand the end game ad infinitum. I remember when I first realized "O, if I get to this poi t it means I've lost already so just cut to th4 chase."
Of course, there is always this:
Even after the plain truth has been thoroughly demonstrated, so far as a person is capable of doing, the confirmed skeptic will insist on maintaining belief in his own irrational notions. This is due to either a great blindness, which renders him incapable of seeing what is plainly set before him, or on account of an opinionative obstinacy, which prevents him from acknowledging the truth of what he does see. Thence arises the woeful necessity of going to ridiculous lengths to expound yet more fully on what we have already made perfectly clear, in hopes that we might get through to those who close their minds to reason.
And yet how shall we ever profit from our discussions, or what bounds can be set to our discourse, if we forever fall to the temptation of replying to those who reply to us? We must acknowledge that those who are so hardened by the habit of contradiction will never yield, but would rather reply out of stubbornness, even when they recognize their own error.
(Saint Augustine, The City of God)
*gasp* Even a highly-regarded saint is saying that some people intellectually dishonest, and is then pointing to their own behavior as being all the proof that is needed to know that they are intellectually dishonest? *gasp*
What is the world coming to?
Goodness! Next thing you know, there will be barbarians in the streets.
Well, in Saint Augustine's day.. that was the next thing they knew!
As I recall, The City of God was written in response to barbarians in the streets.
It's ironic that Gilson chose to wrote this post after being placed in about 7 deft checkmates in a row by the commenter DJC.
You can read the hat-handing in the post: https://www.thinkingchristian.net/posts/2015/09/abortions-other-death/#comment-118720
Ironically (or, if you're an apologist, predictably), Gilson's inability to understand the many ways that his thinking was shown to be inconsistent and his arguments poorly-examined led him to accuse his interlocutor (DougJC) of not realizing he had been shown to be overmatched but not realize it.
Irony, it turns out, is not just a way to describe old heating elements.
Goodness! Next thing you know, there will be barbarians in the streets.
If not the Whitehouse
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