Hyper-skeptics

[liamconnor]

Hyper-skeptics are distinct from skeptics.

the biggest deterrent to my participation here is due to knee-jerk skeptical reactions WHICH DO NOT ATTEND TO THE MEANING OF THE POST.

An example (of which the actual variants are legion):

I say:

There were 500 people who CLAIMED that they had seen the risen Lord. That is, I am not saying their claim is true, only, that they did claim this.


But I am frequently met with a response:

"Just because they claimed this, doesn't mean its true."




This is frequent. I think it will repel non-member readers. It certainly fatigues me.

Is there a way to hold this kind of blatant disregard for the obvious meaning of a statement in check?

Can we report "Not reading to understand" or something?

[Divine Insight]

I say:

There were 500 people who CLAIMED that they had seen the risen Lord. That is, I am not saying their claim is true, only, that they did claim this.


But I am frequently met with a response:

"Just because they claimed this, doesn't mean its true."

I don't see where there is anything wrong with this response.

You can't even be sure that there were 500 people who CLAIMED that they had seen the risen Lord. And that's no doubt what the skeptics are referring to.

In other words, they are saying that just because Paul claimed that 500 people saw the risen Lord doesn't make it a historical fact.

And that's a legitimate response I think.

Also, who CONFIRMED that Jesus had ever actually died? If you can't confirm that Jesus actually died then claiming that people saw a "Risen Lord" makes no sense. All you could say is that people saw Jesus alive after the crucifixion. The most rational conclusion at that point would be that Jesus survived the ordeal.

So the idea that there were 500 people who CLAIMED to have seen a "Risen Lord" wouldn't be meaningful anyway. All we could conclude from this is that Jesus never actually died. I don't see where it's a problem.

Why call people "Hyper-Skeptics" for that?

In fact, why accuse anyone of anything? Why not just deal with their responses directly? It's not like they are being uncivil. They simply see no reason to believe the claims of religious dogma that cannot be verified. What's wrong with that?

Calling them, "hyper-skeptics" would be no different from a Muslim calling you a "hyper-skeptic" for not accepting what's written in the Qur'an at face value without question.

You just can't demand that atheists need to explain every claim in your Holy Dogma lest you'll brand them as being "hyper-skeptics". That's just utterly absurd.

In fact, this is precisely what the Abrahamic religions are designed to do. They try their as hard as they can to belittle or discredit anyone who refuses to accept their dogma as the "Gospel Truth". Calling people "hyper-skeptics" for not accepting your religious dogma at face value is not a valid debate practice.

What are we supposed to do when you start citing the scriptures that God spoke from the clouds proclaiming Jesus to be his is Son?

Are we to be dismissed as "hyper-skeptics" for not accepting these scriptural CLAIMS as historical facts?

Where does this evangelical tactic stop?

[benchwarmer]

[Replying to post 1 by liamconnor]

It sounds to me that you are simply complaining that people are DEBATING your position.

As to your example, most replies I've seen (and made) are not about the claims of the 500, but about the claim made by 1 about the claims made by 500. Major difference which you constantly seem to avoid.

If you are frustrated with responses then simply don't reply to them. Only reply to those you want to engage. There is no rule where debate opponents must engage you exactly how you want to be engaged. Either deal with the responses your posts generate or simply ignore them.

Since we are focused on response to your posts, could we maybe discuss why you feel the need to start topic after topic after topic .... about the same thing? Usually on the same day?

Now, before you get upset, let me say that I very much enjoy the discussions that you start. Your topics generate a lot of discussion and debate and that's good. What I can't fathom is why you abandon thread after thread and keep starting new ones on basically the same thing. It's like chasing a puppy that you really want to play with, but it keeps darting off somewhere else. It's very hard to have a coherent discussion when it keeps moving to different threads.

I'll reiterate, I do enjoy discussing/debating the topics you bring up. We certainly don't agree, but if we all agreed this site would be pretty boring. I only ask that maybe you could stick around in your threads instead of almost immediately wandering off and starting another one on essentially the same topic.