So that brings me to another question. Is islamaphobia real? Or do you perhaps feel this is in fact a term made up by apologists in order to allow Muslims “play the victim”.

“So, [Ayaan Hirsi Ali] was going to speak at Brandeis [University], but she called Islam the new fascism, so they said she could not speak. And they said she is Isl…[Read more]

…something that’s literally not nude is.

Yeah.

Sometimes I say it out loud two or three times, just to make myself feel crazy.

Strega wrote:@bellerose hey! We don’t all use you! Well, we use your posts to cheer ourselves up because they’re great :). Let it go, honey.

+1

Strega is right, Belle. I appreciate who you are and I enjoy your posts. A lot of us do.

Don’t let the screen door smack you in the ass on your way out, Bob.

umar wrote:It is not my field. @gallupsmirror may try to explain.

It is lawful to link to copyrighted materials but not to infringing materials. By law, links to infringing materials technically must be removed upon discovery of the site manager or upon notice from the copyright holder. Usually it’s the originating site (not the site with links…[Read more]

I know the [poisoning the well] fallacy well enough to understand…

You really don’t. Poisoning the well is a preemptive ad hominem. My criticism was neither.

…that you’re basically criticizing the provider of the chart rather than the chart itself. I guess that’s a combination of an ad hominem and poisoning the well.

Ad hominem is fal…[Read more]

It’s worse than that, Stutz. [Gallup is] conflating murder in general with all deaths (including suicides, defensive shootings, and accidents) using a specific type of device.

I am saying ‘murder in general’ includes gun murders, and the study specifies that gun murders are included as a gun related death. I have stressed and restated this at l…[Read more]

Unseen wrote:You have no answer for the chart other than to poison the well.

I’ve already answered. You don’t know what poisoning the well means. It is not logically fallacious to point out a conflict of interest. Gun rights activism is not epidemiology.

Yes, Gallup, but you have no answer!!! Say it again, Unseen. I double dare you.

Belle: It does matter. You cannot make a sweeping generalization on this issue. The problem (and the solutions) are not uniform cookie cutter that can be the same in all places. A more regional approach makes sense in tackling this issue AND in understanding it.

Unseen: You don’t understand what this thread is about, then. I’m REFUTING the swe…

[Read more]

Gallup: …you started fantasizing that our respective positions are reversed; paraphrasing with dishonest euphemisms that my point has failed (“GM’s last stand!”) despite your own failure to rebut it.
Unseen: Yada yada yade.

Willful ignorance. You can’t rebut, so you must avoid…

Bush on the deck of the aircraft carrier.

…and lie.

So GM’s last stand would be a poisoning of the well.

Pointing out a conflict of interest is neither a logical fallacy nor a poisoning of the well. The political dogma surrounding gun rights is just as stupid as any religious dogma.

I knew you were out of ammunition when I saw how short your post was. LOL

Face it, Unseen. You got your brains b…[Read more]

That conclusion [published in a clinical research study in the American Journal of Medicine] flies in the face of the studies I showed.

You did not produce a study. You referred to data on two Wikipedia pages, one showing homicide rates by country and the other showing gun ownership rates by country. The analysis and explanation of what they mean…[Read more]

Have you ever known a person who believes ‘just in case’ I think its called the Religious Insurance Policy. They don’t believe because they want to they believe because they want to play it safe.

I’ve never known anyone like that. Religious Insurance Policy is Pascal’s wager by another name. It doesn’t work. The problem is that a sincere belie…[Read more]

You got the first one wrong. Just take off the conclusion part (“so…”) and you have it. It’s an attack on the person not what he says.

Without the explicit or implicit claim that the “attack” is relevant to the target’s position or the topic at hand there is no logical fallacy. It also doesn’t have to be an attack; it could be a complim…[Read more]

Where I think it would be more effective is to concisely and clearly define hate speech because this is where things are ambiguous depending on who you ask….I think a definition more clearly stated within the guidelines would be appropriate regardless of who says it.

Your point about ambiguities is well taken, as there is neither a universal d…[Read more]

Unseen wrote:In other words, simply because someone acts in a way inconsistent with their stated beliefs, it doesn’t follow that those beliefs are wrong.

Your paraphrasing is off target. Who is claiming discrimination against LGBT people is wrong simply because the discriminator is hypocritical? I hold that discrimination against LGBT people is h…[Read more]

If you don’t mind the question: what would happen if you were discovered as an atheist and apostate?

I believe we are in a kind of grey area, where either side’s position is correct dependent on the circumstances. I’m quite sure we can both create scenarios to support the two positions.

Absolutely.

We can also examine real world examples. Take Ted Haggard, once arguably the most powerful evangelical leader in the United States. Haggard was piv…[Read more]

1. Which type of bike(s) do you use? (Examples: Road bike, Mountain bike, Touring bike, Cruiser bike, BMX bike, Folding bike, Fixie bike, Track bike, Other bike (please specify).)

I grew up riding junker single-speed bikes which I cobbled together mostly from discarded parts. I used these mainly as utility bikes for delivering newspapers. I…[Read more]

1. Answer as many questions as you like (the more the better), preferably with descriptions rather than a yes or no.
2. Read what others have posted. Comment on anything you find interesting. Return later and comment on more comments.
3. Chuckle to yourself. There is no third step.

Thanks for…[Read more]

Should people ever be outed for their personal sexual choices?

That depends.

Is the information about the person’s sexuality reliable and reasonably true?
Is the person in a position of significant social or political power?
Is the person using that power to harm others directly or indirectly?
Is outing the person likely to curtail his or her…[Read more]

A lot of money will be diverted and a lot of lives adversely affected based on these climate models, so it’s rather important that they be right.

Yes indeed.

The challenge is that it’s impossible to predict complex outcomes with certainty. The best we can do is estimate the odds of different scenarios coming to pass and assess the quality of t…[Read more]

Faith is necessary when there is lack of evidence. We have…[Read more]

———————–
“Danes enjoy a high standard of living and the country ranks highly in numerous comparisons of national performance, including education, health care, protection of civil liberties, democratic governance, prosperity and…[Read more]

The crackpots win again.

The point is becoming better informed.

If somebody was spending far more than they were making…

That poorly describes the cause of the economic crisis in Greece.

…and had no plans to curb their spending…

This is wrong too. Greece has drastically curbed spending.

…or increase…[Read more]

In what way?

Nobody is denying that slavery and it’s horrors existed.

Nobody accused you of denying the existence of slavery.

I’m suggesting your argument willfully ignores that Confederate flags actually represent the Confederacy. That purpose is true as a matter of fact, not opinion. It remains true e…[Read more]

If that’s the way it worked then Christian shrines on public land would be ubiquitous. It’s better to limit the power of government, local or otherwise, even in a democracy, when it comes to minority rights. In some…[Read more]

No.

1. You cited spending cuts in ranges from 2009 or 2010 to 2013 or 2014, then linked to a chart showing GDP growth as of 2012. You’re implying causality when you failed even to reach correlation.

2. You cited spending…[Read more]

Davis is actually citing sources of information, allowing others to verify that his assertion is true. A group of leading economists wrote an open letter to Merkel pointing out t…[Read more]

Yes but a judiciary stocked with Christian apologists will square the circle to ensure that “history” repeats itself no matter what the law says.

I mean public land and not just cemeteries either. For instance the legislature of South Carolina removed the Confederate flag from the (public) grounds of the state house today.

And I a…[Read more]

Not to put too fine a point on it but there are no Confederate cemeteries.

The Confederacy never existed at all from a legal standpoint. No foreign government ever recognized the Confederacy. The southern states were in rebellion to defend slavery. That’s all.

There are American…[Read more]

Nobody suggested that we ban flags.

“…of political entities which have committed crimes against humanity, we will be obliged to remove the Stars and Bars of the U.S. and the British Union jack, and all derivations of these. In fact, we will be obliged to destroy almost ever flag ever flown.”

The “political…[Read more]