Posted by Fred Flintstonensis [67.40.12.211 - ] on 02 September 2002 at 16.24.01 ZuluTime:

This idiot named kleer_blu was saying this on voice a few days ago. Now OBVIOUSLY this is extremely fallacious logic.

He told us "How can you deny that there is evil in the world?" then he said that since there is evil, then there must be a devil. If there is a devil, there must be a god. I was trying really hard to avoid the objective/subjective morals debate, which I am pretty good at. because that would have taken the conversation in a different direction, although in retrospect that might have been the best way to take it.

I have been an atheist for a nearly two decades, but I have not been a debater very long. I did not want to give in to the temptation o fjust calling this guy an idiot, but I confess I did not know how to methodically break his argument down and show him why it was flawed. He left thinking that he had us cornered, of course. But I want to get this mother fucker. Tireless I can handle, Ray I can handle. But this guy's argument was hard to handle (for me anyway).

He was saying that man could not conceive of doing evil (like 9/11 or those two kids shooting up the school in CO) that it had to be an evil force making them do it. We offered all manner of prosaic explanations, but couldn't really grab hold very well. I told him that he was injecting metaphysical explainations where they clearly are not necessary. I explained Ockam's (spelling) Razor to him, etc. But I could not systematically shred him.

He insisted that it was because his argument was water-tight of course, but I told him that far from being water-tight it was SO bad, SO illogical that it was hard to deal with. I likened it to someone bringing their dog into my house and the dog having diarrhea all over the floor. I wouldn't even know where to start cleaning.

What do you guys suggest? You know, I tried really hard to NOT descend into the typical yes/no/yes/no/you're stupid/no, you are thing. I wanted to take this guy apart.