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Old 08-02-2003, 10:16 AM   #53 (permalink)
Moonduck
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Location: SE USA
Quote:
Ah, the good old straw man argument, combined with a simple ignoring of *my* arguments. Okay, a principle: if I ignore religious people, like you advocate, they will not go away. Religious morons will still try to influence my life, other idiots will still try to blow me up; all in the name of religion. Therefore, I will not ignore them, but will instead try to confront them and their stupid belief system.
Do you know what a Straw Man Fallacy is? I asked what principle drives you, you respond with a series of fairly random complaints about religious people. That is not a principle. Me telling you that it is not a principle is not a Straw Man.

The term Straw Man comes from the idea of setting up a fight in which your opponent is a straw man, then claiming victory. In essence, you set your opponent up for defeat by denying worthwhile channels of argument. I denied nothing. I asked for what principle drives you as an atheist (you in the generic sense). You did not answer with a principle. A straw man would be "Aside from the unprovable nature of God, what reason do you have for not believing in him?". Another version, the more common of which, is to restate your opponents position in the weakest manner possible, so that you can then attack it easily. Do yourself a favor, learn what a fallacy is before you decide to call someone on it.

Lastly, and here is the big one, you never mentioned ignoring anyone in your post. You made a laundry list of complaints, nothing more.

Quote:
That is a principle, isn't it? They want to kill me, therefore I'll try to change their mind. And before you start about other systems killing people: religion is responsible for more deaths on this planet than any other system of beliefs, including the "atheist" communism. No argument can possibly change this underlying fact.
Now this is a Straw Man: "Before you start about other systems killing people*snip*". You really should try to avoid incorrectly calling someone on the use of logical fallacy when you plan to use the selfsame logical fallacy in your own argument.

As to the killings that you are alluding to, I would counter that population pressure and power struggles were the root cause, that religion was simply window dressing to get the normal populace to comply. I would also hold up the examples of Hitler and Stalin, both secular in their reasoning behind their pogroms, both responsible for more deaths any other two figures in coupla centuries.

You're right that religion was abused by many people. You are incorrect in assuming that it is the root cause. The modern and post-modern ages have both been dominated by a long series of secular causes behind wars and massacres. Quite an enormous chunk of people have been murdered for entirely secular reasons in the last two centuries alone. Does this make up for 18 centuries in which you claim that religion has been killing people? Probably not, but it does beg the question as to whether it is religion's fault, or simply human nature to murder each other.

As an atheist and skeptic, you really should be more skeptical of some of these arguments. Then again, this is why I call popular atheism a belief system. It has its' own lies, propaganda,and dogma, just like any other belief system, as well as its' evangelists and foot-soldier True Believers.

I really should add a sig with the definitions of ad hominem and Straw Man, so people will know what they bloody well refer to. I see those terms being misused more often than any other fallacy term. Feh.
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