david@ssc-vax.UUCP (David Norris) (12/16/83)
Most of the responses I recieved about my "religious test" were private. I publicly thank those who did respond in private, and I should be happy to continue discussions with these individuals in private. The number of private responses has outweighed the public responses by about 5:1. Happily, (I mean that) all of the private responses have been positive. I will respond to the public responses here. Without singling out anyone, I got complaints about wording from a number of folks. Surprisingly, the private notes indicated that they were dissatisfied with the wording, but knew what I was getting at, so for the sake of continuing the discussion dropped it. I am pleased that there are some who will not get into useless discussions over semantics. The point of the article was to have individuals examine themselves to see if any predispositions or prejudices existed. Most of the private responses understood this perfectly. This, of course, puts me on the spot to provide adequate evidence for my case. But this varies from person to person, and so will be treated privately. Public responses, though, centered not on predispositions in general, but assumed that I was trying to make a case for Christianity on the spot. Which, I guess, was what my original article was testing after all. -- David Norris -- uw-beaver!ssc-vax!david P.S. This article, I think, will cover many of the future public rebuttals. When you see another response to my orignal article, dig this out of old news and use it as a response.
ka@hou3c.UUCP (Kenneth Almquist) (12/19/83)
Dave Norris objects that public responses to his article assumed that
he was trying to make a case for Christianity on the spot. Although
I don't think that is true of my response; it appears that other
responders were more astute than I was.
Let's assume for the sake of argument that I am opposed to integrating
the schools and want to convince other people of my views. I could
of course post an article to the net stating my opinion, but the problem
with this is that people with different opinions will post responses to
my article and so people will have a chance to see both sides of the
argument. This is no good unless I am able to support my position
better than other people, so I develop a plan to keep opposing
opinions off the net. Rather than stating my opinions, I pose them
as questions like
> If I proved that blacks were less intelligent than whites, would
you want your child to be held back by a racially integrated
classroom? <
In a further attempt to shield my views from public criticism, I write,
"Stop! If you reacted negatively to these questions you are obviously
prejudiced..."
Regrettably, some people are astute enough not to fall for this, and
they write articles supporting integration. All is not lost. I write
a flame attacking these articles for failing to address the subject
and claim that their failure to address the subject is proof of prejudice.
This is a risky action because any article I post is likely to draw more
responses, but I have to do something to discredit the opinions of my
opponents. In order to make it unnecessary for me to respond again, I
suggest that people use my flame as a response to any future discussion.
Meanwhile, I have a rich harvest of letters mailed to me by various
people. (I have been careful to make clear that my flame is directed
only against posted responses.) I can now *mail* my arguments to all
these people individually. While some of them will of course discover
the flaws in my arguments, they will probably mail me, leaving the other
people convinced. And of course, I can keep responding to objections
with new arguments until I get an argument that my correspondent is unable
to see through.
How does this compare with what Dave Norris has been doing? I don't
know what Dave's intentions were, and he may very well have had no
intention of squelching debate. Never the less, I am entitled to call
attention to the effect of his actions. Fortunately, the net is always
open. If you receive a letter from David which claims to give a proof
of the correctness of Christianity and you want to know if there are
any flaws in the proof, you can always post it to the net and ask for
comments.
Kenneth Almquistbch@unc.UUCP (Byron Howes ) (12/20/83)
Thanks to Kennth Almquist for his excellent analysis of the form and substance (or lack thereof) of argumentation in this forum. The scenario he presents of continued debate in private mail in order to avoid public scrutiny of content is fairly close to some of the "dialogs" I have been having with some of my correspondents. For the record, I reserve the right to rebroadcast any mail sent to me along with my responses if I feel the subject matter is of interest to the net. I have become tired of wasting my time with repetitions of pinhead arguments and facts that are little more than wishful thinking. -- Byron Howes UNC - Chapel Hill (decvax!duke!unc!bch)