Structured Debate Subforum, 1 on 1, no abuse.

[SufiPhilosophy]

Could we have a structured debate subforum, where 1 person takes on 1 person.

I suggest simple rules:
1. No logical fallacies
2. A moderator is to stop a person if they use a specific number of logical fallacies because they are just no longer debating
3. No abuse
4. A fixed number of rounds e.g. 5 rounds
5. A fixed number of words per round
6. A time limit per round.

 

[RJM]

Interesting idea

2. A moderator is to stop a person if they use a specific number of logical fallacies because they are just no longer debating

There isn't always a moderator on hand, though.

6. A time limit per round.

May be a problem across the world time difference?

It could go into the Comparative Studies area?
What do others think?

 

[Thomas]

Good idea. Comparative Studies seems a good place.

 

[Cino]

I'd read with interest, but would not want to moderate.

 

[Thomas]

I suggest simple rules:

1. No logical fallacies
OK, but would then that require respondents to be schooled in the niceties of logical argument? It would also require a well-trained moderator, I would have thought.

Ad hominem and straw man arguments should be unacceptable across all the boards, but a quick check offered 15 kinds of logical fallacy:

• Ad Hominem
• Strawman Argument
• Appeal to Ignorance
• False Dilemma
• Slippery Slope Fallacy
• Circular Argument
• Hasty Generalization
• Red Herring Fallacy
• Tu Quoque
• Causal Fallacy
• Fallacy of Sunk Costs
• Appeal to Authority
• Equivocation
• Appeal to Pity
• Bandwagon Fallacy

Not sure I'm au fait with all of those. Can 'my book says so' not count as an 'appeal to authority' in an argument with an atheist?

2. A moderator is to stop a person if they use a specific number of logical fallacies because they are just no longer debating
We can try ...

3. No abuse
I agree, that includes no abuse against the person, their faith, their sacra doctrina, their tradition ...

4. A fixed number of rounds e.g. 5 rounds
That would be hard, I think. If the discussion is ongoing after five rounds, I'd be loathe to call it to a halt.

5. A fixed number of words per round
A keep it simple formula, yes ... but again, I'd be loathe to censor.

6. A time limit per round
Not everybody has the time, and if a discussion is ongoing, it tends to go at a fairly good pace. I wonder whether there's a benefit to saying "don't snap back a response" which is often the case here.

Generally, IO is a public, not a scholar's forum. That's not to exclude structured debate, but from personal experience the Theology forum did not generate as much traffic as I might have hoped. Then again, I could be (and still am) quite combative, and I do wonder how much that puts people off posting? Not everyone is into 'rigorous debate', I'm sure there are many who've looked here and wished only that their voice might be heard, without bringing down correction from every quarter.

If anyone remembers @Vajradhara ... always polite in any situation. @seattlegal's another ... must be something in the water ...

 

[RJM]

I'm sure there are many who've looked here and wished only that their voice might be heard, without bringing down correction from every quarter.

If anyone remembers @Vajradhara ... always polite in any situation. @seattlegal's another ... must be something in the water ...

What to do? As new admin I struggle with patience/repetition issues. I don't have the right personality for the role. I miss @wil greatly. In many ways he was IO.

Member involvement is the only thing that can keep our courteous little website alive and relevant? Especially old established voices?

 

[Phyllis Sidhe_Uaine]

1. No logical fallacies
OK, but would then that require respondents to be schooled in the niceties of logical argument? It would also require a well-trained moderator, I would have thought.

Ad hominem and straw man arguments should be unacceptable across all the boards, but a quick check offered 15 kinds of logical fallacy:

• Ad Hominem
• Strawman Argument
• Appeal to Ignorance
• False Dilemma
• Slippery Slope Fallacy
• Circular Argument
• Hasty Generalization
• Red Herring Fallacy
• Tu Quoque
• Causal Fallacy
• Fallacy of Sunk Costs
• Appeal to Authority
• Equivocation
• Appeal to Pity
• Bandwagon Fallacy

Not sure I'm au fait with all of those. Can 'my book says so' not count as an 'appeal to authority' in an argument with an atheist?

2. A moderator is to stop a person if they use a specific number of logical fallacies because they are just no longer debating
We can try ...

3. No abuse
I agree, that includes no abuse against the person, their faith, their sacra doctrina, their tradition ...

4. A fixed number of rounds e.g. 5 rounds
That would be hard, I think. If the discussion is ongoing after five rounds, I'd be loathe to call it to a halt.

5. A fixed number of words per round
A keep it simple formula, yes ... but again, I'd be loathe to censor.

6. A time limit per round
Not everybody has the time, and if a discussion is ongoing, it tends to go at a fairly good pace. I wonder whether there's a benefit to saying "don't snap back a response" which is often the case here.

Generally, IO is a public, not a scholar's forum. That's not to exclude structured debate, but from personal experience the Theology forum did not generate as much traffic as I might have hoped. Then again, I could be (and still am) quite combative, and I do wonder how much that puts people off posting? Not everyone is into 'rigorous debate', I'm sure there are many who've looked here and wished only that their voice might be heard, without bringing down correction from every quarter.

If anyone remembers @Vajradhara ... always polite in any situation. @seattlegal's another ... must be something in the water ...

I miss @WHKeith (talk about a real blast-from-the-past!) Hell, I'm not sure how many of the current members remember him!

Phyllis Sidhe_Uaine

 

[Cino]

I miss @WHKeith (talk about a real blast-from-the-past!) Hell, I'm not sure how many of the current members remember him!

Phyllis Sidhe_Uaine

Thanks for that pointer! I missed him by over a decade, but I enjoyed reading some of his posts just now.

 

[SufiPhilosophy]

Hi thanks for the interest. I think it would only work if it were restricted to a fixed number of rounds. Otherwise there's no excitment and no closure.

Also, re: time limits, l guess if the limit is 48 hours it wont' matter a lot what a person's local time is, plus there's UTC

Moderation wouldn't be hard, it's just calling out logical fallacies and counting words and deleting stuff that goes against these rules.

Maybe do a twitter feed on the results? May arouse interested punters.

Plan B: Pay people to come here

 

[Thomas]

Hi thanks for the interest.

Well we could trial it ... Got a topic?

 

[SufiPhilosophy]

Well we could trial it ... Got a topic?

If you want to avoid religious debate that would cut a swathe through my waiting list but l can debate most things.

Ideas:
- Messiah is not God, e.g. because the terms are incongruous.
- Evolution as we know it today (via gene mutations) is baseless and unscientific. It is falsifiable, and l shall show it to be wrong with reasonable evidence.
(this usually results in verbal abuse and a thread lock on so-called science forums, hence should be debated in a structured manner with an eye on logical fallacies)
- The Qur'an encodes the Speed of Light in a verse about angels conveying messages to God, and angels are said to be made of light so it's clearly on-point and intentional and even if random it's too much of a coincidence

- Atheism can not claim morality. I will furnish an example of something repugnant and put it to the opponent, preferably an Atheist, to show how Atheism would debar / deplore this act. I would welcome with relish the obvious 2 weak counterargs: 1. All people do bad things 2. Thing about Atheists is, we don't need a BOOK to tell us right from wrong! <--- i will trash these two counterargs
- Cats not dogs
- How can God allow a baby to be killed?
- What is the greatest good? I forgot what Plato said about this but it might make the entire debate obsolete



I'd welcome any number of pure philosophical topics too, especially western philosophy. Or i may just watch and learn.

 

[Cino]

Debates I'd like to see (starred the ones I'd participate in):

* Does spiritual development imply moral development ("Saint or Psychopath")?

Is a spiritual master/teacher necessary for spiritual development ("Be your own Guru")

Do people need gods or do gods need people?

* Does being determine consciousness or does consciousness determine being?

Equal opportunity clergy or cis-male only?

* Separation of church (insert other religious hierarchy/community) and state.

Religious epiphanies - psychological issues or contact with the divine?

UFO abduction reports and religious experience - same or different?

* Magic and occultism: Opposed to religion or more of the same?

 

[SufiPhilosophy]

As l see it:

* Does spiritual development imply moral development ("Saint or Psychopath")?

No, there are a lot of people that do wrong via spiritual development e.g. the Dugpa Buddhist order and to a lesser extent the Bonpa seeing as they too are organised religion, hence always going to be flawed - as with any organised religion (the unorganised religions aren't exactly innocent either, think abuse cults and thrill kill cults and stuff).

Is a spiritual master/teacher necessary for spiritual development ("Be your own Guru")

Not implicitly, but in practice, with most people, yes, especially if you want to do some Qi trickery and shoot a needle with your fingers at a perfect perpendicular angle through a glass sheet and pop a balloon on the other side.

Do people need gods or do gods need people?

The former, at least if it's singular God, plural is a whole different scenario, no telling where that rabbit hole could go

* Does being determine consciousness or does consciousness determine being?

The latter but very complex

Equal opportunity clergy or cis-male only?

Depends on what resulting religion / cult you want

* Separation of church (insert other religious hierarchy/community) and state.

Definitely. Ibn Rushd was the father of modern secularism. No conflict with being theistically minded.

Religious epiphanies - psychological issues or contact with the divine?

Could be both. Especially considering the divine is about all this material plane is not, even though the material plane isn't necessarily the enemy.
Bound to be conflicts. Wounds are where the light enters - Rumi.

UFO abduction reports and religious experience - same or different?

Often the description reads like evil spirits, often it reads like modern fiction, very modern touches e.g. metallic clothing, emphasis on aviation. Therefore the topic seems too broad.

* Magic and occultism: Opposed to religion or more of the same?

My opinion: Opposed because they draw on energy from the cosmos instead of its creator. The Abrahamic faiths' take (l believe): This would be succumbing to a trick, where we are given rope to hang ourselves, because we couldn't just do things the patient way, suffer patiently, tackle people justly, we instead decide to hack reality and thereby we lose our soul to Satan.

Yes there were many magic grimoires in all 3 faiths. None were ever considered mainstream part of the faith though.

 

[Thomas]

Hi, SufiPhilosophy —

Re subjects:
– Messiah is not God, e.g. because the terms are incongruous.
OK.

– Evolution as we know it today (via gene mutations) is baseless and unscientific.
I'm not a scientist, but that seems a big ask to me. This is an Interfaith forum, not a science one, but if a scientist wants to take it up?

– The Qur'an encodes the Speed of Light in a verse about angels conveying messages to God, and angels are said to be made of light so it's clearly on-point and intentional and even if random it's too much of a coincidence.
Again, I'm not a scientist.

How about 'On the Composition of Angels'?

– Atheism can not claim morality.
Again, you can make a case, and if anyone wants to pick it up?

I would welcome with relish ... i will trash these two counterargs

Tell me ... I'm not speaking as a Mod but as someone who's been around IO for a long time ... do you get the ethos of this site?

I only ask because we're not here to trash anyone. If I may say, that comes across as somewhat aggressive and abrasive – although that could be my misreading – please others correct me if I'm wrong.

I like the idea of a structured debate because it would curtail the usual IO practice of flitting about all over the place; of rolling from one objection to the next without actually closing the door, as it were, at each stage.

Short and succinct, too, would be beneficial. God knows, I'm not alone in failing in that ...

I would similarly like to think that such a debate would be instructive all around, a chance for both sides to put forward their reasoning; it would not be about winning or losing, or trashing the opposition.

Surely, it should above all be fun? (And not a Richard Dawkins 'shooting fish in a barrel' kind of fun.)

No-one is obliged to come to IO, no-one is obliged to post, no-one is obliged to stay. We've had some wonderful characters here over the years and, looking back, a combative atmosphere, I would suggest, is not very conducive to the good of the site.

 

[SufiPhilosophy]

Hi, SufiPhilosophy —

Re subjects:
– Messiah is not God, e.g. because the terms are incongruous.
OK.

– Evolution as we know it today (via gene mutations) is baseless and unscientific.
I'm not a scientist, but that seems a big ask to me. This is an Interfaith forum, not a science one, but if a scientist wants to take it up?

– The Qur'an encodes the Speed of Light in a verse about angels conveying messages to God, and angels are said to be made of light so it's clearly on-point and intentional and even if random it's too much of a coincidence.
Again, I'm not a scientist.

How about 'On the Composition of Angels'?

– Atheism can not claim morality.
Again, you can make a case, and if anyone wants to pick it up?


Tell me ... I'm not speaking as a Mod but as someone who's been around IO for a long time ... do you get the ethos of this site?

I only ask because we're not here to trash anyone. If I may say, that comes across as somewhat aggressive and abrasive – although that could be my misreading – please others correct me if I'm wrong.

I like the idea of a structured debate because it would curtail the usual IO practice of flitting about all over the place; of rolling from one objection to the next without actually closing the door, as it were, at each stage.

Short and succinct, too, would be beneficial. God knows, I'm not alone in failing in that ...

I would similarly like to think that such a debate would be instructive all around, a chance for both sides to put forward their reasoning; it would not be about winning or losing, or trashing the opposition.

Surely, it should above all be fun? (And not a Richard Dawkins 'shooting fish in a barrel' kind of fun.)

No-one is obliged to come to IO, no-one is obliged to post, no-one is obliged to stay. We've had some wonderful characters here over the years and, looking back, a combative atmosphere, I would suggest, is not very conducive to the good of the site.

Thank you, l direct you to some recent posts of yours showing that you do not abide by your own ideals. (Edited to be less emotional)

 

[SufiPhilosophy]

By the way l don't hate anybody here, except the person that was making sexual slurs against the founder of my religion, repeatedly, under full view of yourself and your moderators and the other 1 or 2 people that come here.

I think you're actually quite an interesting guy Thomas (l sent a few questions on the occult subforum, you made some extremely interesting posts there about egregores) and you obviously have some humour which is important.

I shall try to return to this forum in a few months.

I genuinely wish you well, but right now i'm a bit miffed but l do hope your structured debates go well and attract new interest. (Edited to be less emotional)

 

[RJM]

By the way l don't hate anybody here, except Apu "Slap-A-Swastika Save-A-Child". I think you're actually quite an interesting guy Thomas (l sent a few questions on the occult subforum, you made some extremely interesting posts there about egregores) and you obviously have some humour which is important.

I shall try to return to this forum in a few months.

I genuinely wish you well, but right now i'm a bit miffed but l do hope your structured debates go well and attract new interest. (Edited to be less emotional)

You're not really doing us any favours by joining our forums and insulting members in a personal way.

I'm sure we can endure a few months of your absence. Hopefully try not to make it any sooner because your insulting other members will not be allowed.

 

[SufiPhilosophy]

You're not really doing us any favours by joining our forums and insulting members in a personal way.

I'm sure we can endure a few months of your absence. Hopefully try not to make it any sooner because your insulting other members will not be allowed.

There you go l changed it. I pointed out that this person repeatedly made sexual slanders against the founder of my religion, as you well know as you're one of the only people that come here. Why would l start a thread saying no insults if l am an abuser. But you're right in one sense, l shouldn't have made one light hearted parting shot at the slanderer because people like you jump on it, because you could not counterargue me anywhere else.

You had previously called me a "Luddite" in a fit of bizarre rage literally for asking for evidence of evolution via gene mutation

https://www.interfaith.org/community/threads/19707/page-2#post-345795

(nothing else, just that) (and by the way, the author you quoted about a separate issue was making out cells, even if just prokaryotes, can just self assemble, and if you had any sense of science, you'd know how vastly complex cells and their organelles are, like galaxies in their complexity but l didn't have the heart to tell you this nor the time as you just wouldn't get it nor care plus you'd get angry again, and as l predicted, those who are not science-literate would defend evolution to the hilt and even get abusive - as you promptly did - you have no higher education / science background, yet you scream abuse at me when all l do was ask for proof of evolution by gene mutation and that is literally the extent of the thread, and that was literally how you reacted to it) in a thread in the science forum, when all l was doing was asking, not saying anything else, and l was speaking as a science graduate, and all you did was accuse me of this and that, make personal digs, and then call me a Luddite, which l promptly forgave, and then you began accusing me of making personal insults in the Islam forum when l clearly was not at any point doing so (l care about my religion), all l did was point out to Thomas that he was trolling me on my religion's subforum by making repeated negative assertions about a topic, without integrating my pertinent responses (whether he agreed with them or not, he could at least counter them, and you had previously agreed that this indeed was a definition of trolling) - to which you replied l am being abusive, because all you wanted to do was continue hostility.

https://www.interfaith.org/community/threads/19706/page-4#post-345825

You have been a very unpleasant and cruel man, and l'll be honest, l think there's a lot of unpleasantry here toward one single religion, which l very much tried to overlook in my goodbye. But you couldn't help yourself could you? You need to score this point because you wasted your time trying to win vague confused meandering theological disputes in the Islam forum. I'll be frank, you guys have made this a toxic environment, and l just feel really depressed being here. I want to think it will be nicer one day but it's in your hands, can you change?

Will you learn to debate? Or will you just haunt the Islam forum with Thomas, making passive aggressive digs, asserting stuff contrary to our beliefs, and not taking on board our views of our own religion? And even having the gall to accuse the only other Muslim on here - a real gentleman - of asserting stuff and not taking on board your views!

https://www.interfaith.org/community/threads/18088/page-4#post-345820
https://www.interfaith.org/community/threads/19706/page-4#post-345821

You show yourself to be a very intellectually dishonest and cruel denizen of the internet, sir, like so many online. It is the way of the internet l guess? But l hope you change for the better.

Let God judge between us - agree? Now, let me part in peace, thank you.

 

[Cino]

Take care, @SufiPhilosophy. Thanks for stopping by and stirring up things a bit. I hope you find a forum that you feel more comfortable with. Peace, and Ramadan Mubarak.

 

[RJM]

For other readers:

You had previously called me a "Luddite"

True, and I deleted it within minutes along with an apology for not reading your (cut and pasted) OP properly, in the relevant thread:
https://www.interfaith.org/community/threads/19707/page-2

You have been a very unpleasant and cruel man

You show yourself to be a very intellectually dishonest and cruel denizen of the internet

I've had to react to complaints by others here about your insulting personal abuse, and preferring to do so in a non-moderator capacity and without any sanction or (site) warning, so ...