I apologize for not completing my earlier discussion of the debate. For those who don't listen regularly to The Non-Prophets, I just wanted to mention that we had a fairly lengthy discussion there. You can hear the end by listening to this episode.
If you have listened to the episode, feel free to post a summary of what we said in the comments.
Hey, Kazim. First, thanks for the posts on the debate; they were very informative. Second, I would like to echo my comment from the last post on this debate (the comment got washed out in the ensuing troll war.)
ReplyDeleteYou guys do great shows, you really do, but on the discussion on the Shermer debate, you fall victim to the trap that ensnares so many atheists when debating religion. You get caught in a semantics slap fight to the point that someone in the background (perhaps you or Schilling) sarcastically drolls, "arguing the english language makes great radio."
Typically, this is a point that the NonProphets gang emphasizes: don't get caught arguing stupid semantics. While I would have to review the episode to give a concrete example, I'm sure something similar happens on the TAG episode of AxP. Matt begins by completely smashing the foundations of this argument, but then loses sight of the big picture and winds up getting in a slap fight with Slick.
Sorry to preach to the choir; I love both of the shows- keep it up.
To be fair on the TAG one, Slick was the one whose argument was BASED on semantics
ReplyDeleteIt is all to easy to get dragged into semantics by the dogmatics.
ReplyDeletePresupposition is the nemesis of trith.