Dart, if an individual in argumentation attacks the other person and it is not relevant nor supported with evidence, then that is fallacious.
But that's is not what I do. I criticize people like JAK for their faulty reasoning and even their ignorance on any given issue, and I always present the evidence. The past week JAK has lied twice, and you didn't lift a finger to condemn it. Instead you complain that I keep drawing people's attention to it and insist I'm just doing "ad hominem." By your own standard here, it isn't ad hominem if it is supported with evidence. I did better than that; I presented proof.
It is faulty reasoning employed to argue
It isn't "reasoning" at all. It is an assertion that is either true or false. For example,
"JAK is lying when he says I claimed all historians accept the historicity of Jesus." That is an assertion that can easily be verified by perusing the documented history.
Another example,
"JAK is lying when he says I claimed Thomas Paine was pro-Christian." That is an assertion that can easily be verified by perusing the documented history.
Another example,
"JAK is lying when he says I am in denial because I say I never said that."
Or,
"JAK is plagiarizing this website..."
That isn't fallacious reasoning. It is an assertion that is either true or false; an important point that needs to be made which is entirely relevant to the issue because JAK is pretending to have knowledge on a subject he really knows nothing about. Observers have the right to know what little knowledge he really has. At least that is far more relevant to the discussion that knowing who the moderators are.
It is not up to you to decide whether your opponent is stupid.
It is up to everyone to decide for themselves. It isn't up to you to tell people they cannot make judgments like that simply because you call it a personal attack. Heck, I feel attacked all the flippin time, but you don't see me crying foul about it. You and JAK only cry about it when you cannot argue your way out of your own corners.
Address the argument they make, not the individual.
I'm versatile enough to do both. As long as I tackle the argument head on, you haven't a leg to stand on in your various accusations about ad hominem.
An argument stands or fall, independent of the people presenting
Of course. And the credibility of a poster will stand or fall depending on his or her methdology. And if one's method ends up being nothing more than googling, while refusing to read real books, then this needs to be known.
Let the reader decide who is or isn't making a good argument.
That's all I ever do. I think what really upsets you is that my analysis wins minds., I never force anyone to believe anything. This is the same thing I had to deal with at MADB
And like the MDB mods, you want the audience to make judgments without all the facts. You prefer to have people fall prey to JAK's pseudo-intellectual ramblings the way you have, when in fact he is constantly sniping clips from various websites and using them to form his posts. This is why so much of what he says has no flow to it.
If you want to discuss this in a new thread go ahead. If my post was fall. ad hom, then having the mods remove should have satisified you ..no?
Not at all. I don't want it removed, though I imagine you probably do now. I think it documents the kind of problem I want to highlight in this current debate about the Celestial forum. The forum has been overrun by people who never liked posting here before. People like mercury who spends most of his time in the telestial forum cursing at the moon. Why? Because that is more his style. I stick with teh terrestrial, but I have a proven track record of debating in a civil manner here in celestial. Other newbies here are here only to stir the pot, that's it. You're here to push the envelope.
You are going off on tangents. I'm not planning to turn this thread into a discussion on past behaviors. What you are doing kevin is within this post of yours which I'm addressing you are not responding to my question but instead are attacking me.
Attacking you? I am making a valid point. You are complaining about diversion and ad hominem in the celestial, yet your recent venture into celestial, which took place four weeks ago, was nothing but diversionary and ad hominem. You were a stranger in a strange land, acting like you were back at home in telestial.
I opened a thread in celestial so I could get away from the rhetorical littering by the not-so-serious posters over in terrestrial. It was an invitation to sethbag and sethbag alone, because he and I were the only ones really addressing the issue of memes. And before he had a chance to respond to my opening post, you took it upon yourself to invade the scene with your usual derailing and "attacks." I mean you called me dishonest simply because I kept to the dictionary definitionof atheist! I call JAK dishonest, but I present evidence. You presented nothing except a bald assertion. And what you responded to had nothing to do with memes. You were not interested in the discussion. You derailed with another semantic quibble.
You are demonstrating what I'm talking about, that is shifting focus off an issue onto a person.
Earth to marg: these discussions are written by people. We're talking about the actions and behaviors of people. The more we focus on the people, the closer we'll be to a solution.
So is this saying you do think there should be zero tolerance of fall. ad homs as per what J.G. suggested ?
As long as it holds to true ad hominems, and not your silly standard for what it constitutes, they shouldn't be tolerated any more than liars and derailers should be tolerated. The mods are raising this issue because threads are being derailed against the will of the author. It should be pretty easy to see who the culprits are in that.
“All knowledge of reality starts from experience and ends in it...Propositions arrived at by purely logical means are completely empty as regards reality." - Albert Einstein