Jim

I understand what he is trying to say. You cannot choose to be gay but you can choose to be a homophobic-homosexual. You can choose to be an activist against racism but you can also choose to be a secretly-racist activist against racism. The first part in each phrase doesn’t matter…it’s the latter part that does. The difference (per the first…[Read more]

Any attack based on hypocricy is ipso facto an ad hominem tu quoque. In other words, “You say one thing but do the opposite.”

No…this falacy applies to debate on a particular topic (which is not under debate here). It does not apply when considering the weight of someone’s opinion in a decision making process, as a leader or as a rep…[Read more]

Just read Davis’s reply to this, and he brought up some scenarios, completely different from outing a hypocritical bible thumper (the situation I had in mind when I wrote the above), where outing is not only appropriate but downright necessary (e.g., exposing an enemy agent of influence in your ranks).

And so…outing someone who works against y…[Read more]

@Unseen

It is true that there are a portion of self-hating homosexuals who believe they don’t deserve the rights that everyone else does. The only thing is…the record of outed politicians who admit that they are gay and then move on to champion gay rights is pretty high. Randy Boehning is but the most recent example.

An ad hominem attack only…[Read more]

if this had been a black and white clear cut matter, you would not have raised it in a moral debate now would you?

Hence phrases like “I’m not so sure” or “that’s one way of looking at it”.

I believe there is a moral blind spot in us when we ridicule others, because I think it feeds into a smug sense of superiority by the ridiculer that is…

[Read more]

I have created a PDF file with all of the non-video articles for easy reading on phone or tablet. I’ve made it public so anyone can download it off my google drive. Surprisingly it is only 10Mb … and most joyously … I’ve left the comments sections out!

The link is here.

@Strega ,

Calling out a homosexual intent on limiting the rights of others (as well as himself) to keep his seat in a legislature…is not ad hominem. It’s revealing that the person…quite likely…doesn’t even agree with the argument he is making. How is that ad hominem? It would be ad hominem if we said “hey…that politician was a closeted…[Read more]

@erock68la

Indeed. Predatory banking is a silly example and hardly relates to what we are talking about here (those who campaign or vote to discriminate against a protected class of people (while they moonlight as one of them) attacking their rights, dignity, sense of equality and making them lesser than others. Outing this person is hardly…[Read more]

Oh very nice Sunday school Reg. I especially like the reincarnation woo of the week. So easy to forget about this little woo (as it so rarely comes up and is so rarely linked to agression or nasty behaviour on the part of such woo-meisters).

For me, that sort of thing is just a form of violence. I think it should be possible to disagree with people, and argue with people, while remaining compassionate and still seeing them personally as fellow human beings, and treating them as such.

Says the guy who calls fellow Christians stupid morons. LOL