by proplog2 18 Replies latest jw friends
Debate lesson:
Referring to the APA as the American Poodle Association is NOT a straw man argument nor was it intended. I was using one of the most imaginative and effective strategies in attacking false reasoning. It is called the "absurd example method". This is a way of demonstrating faulty patterns of reasoning without appealing to technical jargon or rules.
Found this interesting... Anyone else want to take a gander:
http://www.psych.org/pnews/97-04-18/cult.html
It's from the American Psychiatric Association. Notice how the Scientolgists managed to get a hold of CAN. It's in the first few lines.
Smudgee
Found this interesting... Anyone else want to take a gander:
http://www.psych.org/pnews/97-04-18/cult.html
It's from the American Psychiatric Association. Notice how the Scientolgists managed to get hold of CAN. It's in the first few lines.
Smudgee
Proplog2:
"Referring to the APA as the American Poodle Association is NOT a straw man argument nor was it intended. I was using one of the most imaginative and effective strategies in attacking false reasoning. It is called the "absurd example method". This is a way of demonstrating faulty patterns of reasoning without appealing to technical jargon or rules."
Yes, first you use a truly absurd way to detract from what shows up on the list you yourtself led us to. Absurdities (parody) is a method to illustrate the absurd with the absurd ... however, the material I presented in no way went to absurd extremes. I simply reported what I got from the sites that you yourself identified in the Goggle.com search for Margaret Singer and APA ...
Second, I used not false reasoning, so there was none to expose. I cited the APA sites as they appeared on your listed search criteria. That is simple a material statement, not a round of logic. So your attempts at defeating flase reasoning are in themselves false reasoning.
Amazing:
You still haven't explained how you worked the American Philosophical Association into this discussion.
Proplog2 wrote:
The best solution is to attack each religion on its own. Find the fallacies in the structure of their belief systems. Of course if you do that then "all" religion is non-sense.
I ran across this thread and immediately felt sorrow for you. I know many have an axe grind.... I am no exception in some ways. But the above statement is so far outside the realm of experience, I just had to participate.
I appreciated your cult definition. So, I'll provide one on religion from Websters.
Religion: ... "something which has a powerful hold on a persons way of thinking".
So, are you actually suggesting that if a hole can be found in someone's belief system then that is proof that all belief systems are "non-sense"?
Please answer this question: Do you have a belief system? If you do, then it must be non-sense according to your reasoning. I can assure you that someone will find a hole in it.
If you don't, then you are claiming that you at no time make value judgements based on probability or practicality.
Think about this: If logic and practicality has a powerful "hold on our thinking", then by definition we are religious according to Websters.
Furthermore, please prove to the members of this discussion board that it is even possible to function without any belief system.
In the absence of such proof one can only conclude that you are promoting a hypothesis-free existence. I honestly don't know how a normal human being could close his mental capacities to actually live such an existence. I suppose some level of degenerency or depth of the mentally challengened could actually accomplish this but, short of that....please enlighten us.
The cult business has as their target "customer" people who would like to get their family member back into their "old-time" religion.While I concede that people have a right to hook up with the mother ship behind a comet as was the case of the Heaven's Gate cult, their loved ones also have a right to try and reason with them so that relations can be resumed. Your "old-time religion" motive is complete non-sense.
You make it sound as if when any person has a family member in a cult, the only reason they want them out is so that they can go along with an older more established belief system.
I'm sorry that you evidently missed the joys and benefits of loving someone for simply who they are, because why else could you miss such an obviously common motive?
Most people just want to be able to love those dear to them that are trapped in a belief system that prohibits this.
The fact of the matter Proplog2 is that you have a belief system just like everyone else. Instead of focusing on it's usefulness or lack therof in your life; it appears that you have chosen the hollow path of denying its existence in a vain attempt to elevate yourself at the expense of your more honest peers.
Amazing:
I am still confused by your connecting the American Philosophical Association with the sceintologist etc.
Are you saying that the scientologists were reporting something innaccurate?
Please clarify this.
Perry:
I have a "believing" system rather than a "belief" system. By that I mean - I rely on an ever improving set of methods for determining the "probability" - not certainty - of something being true. The "methods" are whats important to me.
So please don't feel pity for me. Your maginifcently wonderful and most deep humility just overwhelms me. Quit taking this stuff so seriously. At best its only a matter of life and death.
Quit taking this stuff so seriously.
Well, let me just say that it was evidently serious enough for you to make your outlandish statements.
I'll tell you why I believe that this is serious. Many people come here with very raw and sensitive emotions. They are flabergasted that they have been duped for years if not decades; then its compounded by the loss of family and a support system.
It is in this condition that they face more manipulation by people who esentially say, " if you don't believe anything you'll never be ripped off again, you'll be free". Then the thought evangelist contradicts himself goes on to espouse his views as if they are superior to others.
After having suffered much personal loss at the behest of the WBTS, it fills me with a sense of intellectual revulsion to observe unethical marketing of ideas, especially to those ill equipped to deal with it.
