It wasn't an accident, Prince James. And it wasn't an ad hominem, either. I'm not saying that LG isn't correct because he is a moron, which is what an ad hominem does. It directs your argument "to the person" instead of to their own arguments. I called LG a moron because I have explained to him the concept of an ad hominem many times, and he keeps confusing an insult for an ad hominem (just as you have). It is the concept of being a moron that I am discussing with LG, and his refusal to go read up on the term that he tosses around with wild abandon I take as further evidence for him being a complete idiot. None of this is ad hominem. It is insulting and rude, but not even close to being an ad hominem. What kills me is that LG is the one consistently GUILTY of ad hominem. Everytime he ignores people's points, and cries "ad hom" instead, he is doing PRECISELY what he is INCORRECTLY accusing others of doing. If any of the other readers here understand the concept of ad hominem, I'm sure you are laughing right along with me.
Swivel: "Ad hominem abusive (also called argumentum ad personam) usually and most notoriously involves insulting one's opponent, but can also involve pointing out factual but damning character flaws or actions." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem Calling someone "a moron" is, in and of itself, an ad hominem attack. As far as I am aware - and please, quote LightGigantic if I am wrong - LightGigantic has never outwardly insulted anyone. He has attacked their premise. He has used similar arguments as he has in the past. But he has never insulted someone. The same cannot be said for the majority of people on this sub-forum, including the moderators.
Ad hominems are not insults. Wikipedia is written by the same people that missuse the term all day long. LG commits an ad hominem every time he attempts to discredit the ideas of others by accusing them of posting with ad hominems, rather than focusing on the logical merits of their points. Please tell me that someone else here sees the irony in this. The basic flaw in LG's thought process is to miss the fact that ad hominems are a type of logical fallacy. When someone insults another person, they are not trying to make a logical point. They are just asserting an unfounded opinion. Being rude. How can they be making a syllogistic fallacy when there is no syllogism? Only a complete moron would think that an insult is even related to syllogistic fallacies, much less a perfect example of one. It is a direct assault on reason and intellect, and the rest of you should rise up with me and shame LG into some semblance of intellectual honesty. Do not let him bully you, and commit his ad hominems any longer. Seriously.
Swivel: Please provide a contradictory source for your assertions. Moreover, pointing out that he is being disrespected instead of attacked on the merits of his arguments is -perfectly- valid. The fact that the moderation aren't doing more to curb this? Also disgraceful.
In today's politically correct world where people aren't allowed the truth the average curator would hide them for fear of being fire bombed by atheists.
But why should it come up that mods are on the side of atheists? Atheists don't have that much clout as they are still a minority... for now. So it can't be atheists they fear.
Atheists outnumber and outpower PETA and PETA alone got the exhibit of Foie Gras cancelled all on their own. Do the math.
I split the above posts from Defining what is god and moved the new thread to the site feedback since it no longer fit the Religion subforum. The meta-discussion above may be of interest to others with regard to ad hominem vs. insult and the definitions thereof. I reversed the infraction given to Swivel in the OP because I had already given the infraction in the original post. The OP in this thread is about that insult and thus an new infraction is unnecessary.
Because this whole site is a co-op effort of united atheists - yo would at least expect to find a theistic mod on the relion sub forum - instead, ironically, you find guys with the hugest chip on their shoulders at the mere suggestion of the word "god" (charcaterized by their tendency to go absolutely senseless in an intelligent discussion on the topic)
Perhaps you should move on to a non-science forum. The religion subforum here is in a Science Forum, so why wouldn't one expect religion to be treated more along rational and critical lines than credulous and faith-based. In any science forum there is a need to discuss religion: how it intersects with science; how it affects scientific endeavors; the interference by religion on science; the scientific study of religion and its adherents; the anthropology and sociology as well as the psychology of religion and its adherents; and so on. Yet, what we end up with is credulous believers interested only in defending their credulous ideas rather than discussing these, more important, topics. But, then, this is only my opinion. One, however, shared by many.
then why have a religion subforum, if posts will be greeted with "god doesnt exist, so you must be stupid for believing so." the moderation needs to be evened out. i myself have been reading the subforum again, after a long break from it, handing infractions to everyone who breaks the rules of the site.
Like it's never been the reverse, just instead of being called Stupid you might of been burnt for not supporting the consensus. As for Ad Hominem, I usually see a lot of them when a thread doesn't have supporting evidence yet the initial poster becomes hostile to people asking for evidence. This usually in turn causes those people to become hostile and you end up with a flame war. It's all very well trying to deal with one or other poster if it reaches this situation, but for the most part nobody cares who is actually in the wrong as they are more interested in the flaming, which usually just results in a thread closure. Unfortunately not everyone is nice to everyone and sometimes they way they react is spawned just by a mistake in how someone has said something. (although stupidity so some is not excusable)
the problem i see is that the kind of sentiment i described above is against the forum rules, and yet it flourishes in the religion subforum....and the moderators do little to deter it. in fact, in some cases they take part in the rules violation.
