Saturday, July 09, 2011

Classic wasted-time argument

Bob: I believe {A}, because of {1}, {2}, {3}, {4}, and {5}.

Fred: How dare you believe {gavlorstabrini}?!

Bob: I don't. I believe {A}.

Fred: But {gavlorstabrini} is bad and stupid!

Bob: Perhaps so. But I believe {A}.

Fred: The reason that {gavlorstabrini} is bad is {&}, {@}, {%}, and {*}.

Bob: Maybe, maybe not. But I believe {A}.

Fred: But there is no reason to believe {A}!

Bob: There are many reasons to believe {A}. There are at least five reasons.

Fred: Oh yeah? What reasons?

Bob: The ones I listed off at the start.

Fred: You never gave any reasons. You just said you believe {gavlorstabrini}.

Bob: No, I said I believed {A}, and listed off five reasons.

Fred: Reasons for what?

Bob: < face-palm >

23 comments:

threegirldad said...

Spot on, Phil! This is why I love your blog! ;-)

:-)

Anonymous said...

So is gavlorsabrini some new book by Rob Bell? If so, I'm against it, whatever it is...

=o)

Anonymous said...

My husband is currently listening to a calvinism debate as I type. Exact same thing...

Randy Talley said...

Maybe so, but that only happens on days that end in "y".

trogdor said...

Lemme guess. Some voices-in-my-head worshipers have taken offense at your dismay over the Assemblies of God growing and spreading their harmful view of 2-stage Christianity, and you wasted time debating them as though they were intellectually serious.

Chris H said...

Seems to me that Bob was being uncharitable in this example. He should have dealt with the issue Fred was so diligently trying to discuss: that {gavlorstabrini}is bad.

Bob is obviously a bad listener.

DJP said...

3GD, you're killin' me.

DJP said...

< one finger on nose, other points at Trogdor >

threegirldad said...

I don't see any of your back-and-forth with AoG folks on your FB Wall, so I guess it took place via private correspondence?

DJP said...

Twitter. I don't know whether they're AoG, I just know they're mounting a massive defense that the AoG statement of faith (A) doesn't mean what it plainly says, and besides (B) it's not that big a deal if it does, and (C) they don't really believe it, anyway.

It is like talking with RCs in that the defense is (A) we don't really believe that, (B) you don't really understand our beliefs, and besides (C) we're right anyway.

Herding Grasshoppers said...

Ohhhh.

See, my mom-genes kicked in and I thought you must've been trying to reason with a toddler.

Oops. ;D

DJP said...

LOL; I see the similarities.

I think this may be a post I link back to again and again and again and again...

Fred Butler said...

Oddly, I have had almost this exact conversation.

Fred

Susan said...

Wait, you're Phil now? But I thought you were John...











...Malkovich, that is.

Somebody's not listening, but it's not me.

;)

Unknown said...

Formulary response to any theological demurrer.
First Level: you don't understand what I said. [I am smarter than you]
Second Level: What makes you think you know so much? [You are arrogant]
Third Level: You are uncharitable [If you loved me, you would agree with me.]

Mike Westfall said...

I just love it when I see meta-syntactic variables used to templatize an argument (or nonsequiter, as the case may be...)!

Aaron said...

@Fred: and here I thought it was a quote from a discussion you had. It does say Fred...

Penn Tomassetti said...

Pudiera tener tu permiso para copiarlo?

Gracias,
Penn

DJP said...

Probablamente. A donde, o en cual manera, lo quieres usar?

Penn Tomassetti said...

Querría hacer un post en el forum de Primier Community Forum donde los ateos y los Cristianos a menudo debaten.

DJP said...

Seguro que si. Tienes mi permiso, y que Dios te bendiga.

Penn Tomassetti said...

Ay, muchas gracias! Que Dios te siga bendiciendo!

Penn Tomassetti said...

Thanks again, Dan. I thought this would be great for some of the folks at Premier Community Forum to read.

http://www.premiercommunity.org.uk/forum/topics/classic-wasted-time-argument