What you said was that Religion is / causes Mental Illness. And here is where you said it:
https://www.namepros.com/threads/wh...-and-rob-monster.1128748/page-62#post-7247610
The implication is that Rob is โseriously mentally illโ, and Religion โ[did this] to Robโs mindโ. In other words, Religion causes mental illness. That is what you said, is it not?
And
Whatโs this then?
So you say that religious people have the โinfectious disease (which religion is)โ. But you โnever said religious people were infectious or diseasedโ? Explain that contradiction please.
Moving on โฆ
No, I never said you wanted that. In fact, I have said repeatedly that you DONโT want that. See here:
https://www.namepros.com/threads/wh...-and-rob-monster.1128748/page-64#post-7249818
By claiming that I say you want violence, you are being disingenuous. We have been over this before, and you know it.
Do you still not understand what a reductio ad absurdum proof is? It starts from a bad assumption, which corners someone in a conclusion they are not prepared to accept.
In this case, a policy of repression toward Religion follows logically from your belief that Religion = Poison. But you are unwilling to accept that.
I explained this days ago. More than once. Let me spell it out for you yet again:
(1) You say you believe X.
(2) I point out that X implies Y.
(3) Y is false.
What you should do next โ logically โ is one of the following things:
(a) Embrace Y as true.
(b) Abandon X as false.
(c) Explain why X does NOT imply Y.
Specifically:
(1) You said you believe Religion = Poison / Plague / Cancer / Mental Illness.
(2) I pointed out that society always regulates, restricts, contains, bans, eradicates, inoculates against, or quarantines those things โ especially if they have NO BENEFIT. You say religion has no benefit. So, logically, society should take a similarly harsh action against Religion.
(3) You say that conclusion is false. Or, rather, you refuse to explain what responsible action Society ought to take to limit the Poison of Religion.
You have been cornered at that point for DAYS and DAYS. Specifically, let me show you what I mean when I say you are cornered. I challenged you to respond to this:
To date, you have NOT responded to it. Because you have no response, you are cornered. You have been saying all sorts of irrelevant things in order to distract from your lack of response to the arguments where I have you cornered. And everybody can see your evasions.
Remember, there are only 3 possible answers to a reductio ad absurdum maneuver:
(c) You have not provided any convincing response regarding why X does not imply Y โ because no convincing argument exists.
(b) And I donโt expect you will embrace Y as true โ meaning that you would advocate for policies of repression against religion โ though I live to be surprised.
(a) Rather, I expect the only viable outcome for you is to abandon X ... and distance yourself from your previous assertions that Religion = Poison / Plague / Cancer / Mental Illness.
It has taken a week, but you are finally doing exactly what I expected and wanted. Here are you are โ finally โ walking back your earlier inflammatory, bigoted language, pretending you never said it or that it means something less than it means:
and
Not true. See my refutations at the top of this post. But I will allow you to contradict yourself. If that is what NEEDS to happen, in this case, for you to abandon your own earlier positions, then so be it.
Really, this contradiction of yours is cause for celebration. Every day for roughly a week, I have given you the opportunity to DENY that you believed Religion = Poison / Cancer / Mental Illness / Plague. Every day, you have seen this characterization of your view and refused to disown it or retract it or back down. But you finally understand there is no other way out. At long last, you are backing out of your corner!
Of course, you reaffirmed those offensive, untrue claims about Religion daily for a week โ ever time I confronted you with them and gave you a clear opportunity to disown them. Every day you doubled down. But Iโm not going to bother holding you to them. The goal was always to get you to disown the bigoted claims that you began with.
You have accused me of misquoting you, though (as everybody can see above) my characterization of your remarks is pretty fair.
So that there is no ambiguity, please define what you DO or DONโT believe, in this respect:
(1) Does Religion = Poison? If so, how so?
(2) Does Religion = Mental Illness? If so, how so?
(3) Does Religion = Plague (that is, a contagious Disease with possibly fatal consequences for society) If so, how so?
(4) Does Religion = Cancer? If so, how so?
Supposedly you believe Science is the proper source of truth. So if the answer to any of those 4 questions is YES, then please cite a scientific study that substantiates your claim. If these assertions of yours are NOT supported by any science, then you can acknowledge that they are NOT LITERALLY TRUE and are merely metaphors. Thatโs fine.
I assume you meant this stuff as a metaphor โ not as literal truth. But thatโs for you to clarify. Most people would only call something โPoisonโ / โCancerโ / โMental Illnessโ / โPlagueโ โ when they know it isnโt literally true in a scientific, objective sense โ for rhetorical effect.
I can think of 2 reasons for such an inflammatory, offensive rhetorical effect โ either to harass people you dislike (religious people) or else to advocate doing something drastic to regulate or get rid of something that is (metaphorically) Poison / Cancer / Mental Illness / Disease.
Which of those 2 options best describes you? Were you merely a bully engaged in hyperbole, motivated by bigoted intolerance of religious people? Or do you really believe Religion = Poison, etc. in some sense? Or was there some other motivation for your non-factual metaphors? If you wish to assert that the metaphors are true in some sense, thatโs fine. But weโll be back to where we started โ with you cornered. And, in that case, you must look for a different escape from the reductio ad absurdum corner you find yourself in.
In that case, you must deny that X implies Y or else embrace Y (repression of Religion, as a poison). If you wish to deny that X implies Y, then you must answer my earlier question:
I will give you a hint to escape the awkward position youโre stuck in. You can change your earlier answer to this related question:
(5) Does Religion benefit mankind? If so, how so?
If you believe in rational discourse, then you should try to navigate the argument I have just laid out โ going through it step by step. Or you can continue to run away, if rational discourse is too hard.
Yes, I like precision. If I have ever flip-flopped, then you can cite an example. But I expect you canโt. And you would be better served by presenting your own case, instead of constantly looking for distractions about ME. Say what YOU THINK. If you can.
Paraphrase is a very important part of debate. It ensures that opponents have a mutual understanding of each othersโ positions. Otherwise, debate is simply miscommunication.
For the past few days, I must have asked you 20 times to state your own case, or to correct my version of your opinion, or to present some explicit argument. But you have done NONE of those things. Instead, as Iโve pointed out before, you play โHide and Seekโ, daring me to GUESS what your secret mystery opinion really is, and then denying that I have guessed it correctly, hoping that you can avoid refutation forever by simply refusing to present your own ideas.
When dealing with an opponent who runs away and hides, all someone can do is paraphrase that personโs apparent viewpoint or argument, giving the runaway opponent a chance to say either โYes, thatโs what I believeโ or โNo, what I believe is thisโ. And thatโs what Iโve been doing, though you havenโt been cooperating, since you are not sincerely interested in debating ideas.
When I present a viewpoint or argument that I assume to be yours, I am ASKING you to say YES or NO or to present your own case. If you were engaging in a rational debate in good faith, you would do so instead of playing hide and seek and running away. You would answer direct questions. Or present counterarguments. Or state what you actually believe in your own words.
I expect you will run away from this post like all the others. But Iโve already won. I cornered you long enough that you repudiated your own views. (See quotes at the top of this post.)
