I'm not sure that everyone on this forum knows what Ad Hominem is, but it is a logical fallacy that is used an incredible amount on this forum. I've seen it from Christians, Muslims, Athiests, and pretty much any other demonination in this forum. I was just curious if there was actually anyone out there who wanted to have a decent discussion instead of just a contest to see who can keep attacking the other longer.
This is not a skeptics forum, or a forum that values logic and enforces rules of logic and reason. Therefore, you would expect to see a lot of it happening. Don't get yer dander up, it's actually the way most people argue and discuss things. Logic is crap anyway, because it can be used to justify anything.
Logic can at least get you somewhere. Attacking others only gets enemies, and few answers. The only time that I have seen any answers on this forum is when someone employs at least some logic.
Ad Hominem arguments are common in Religious and Philosophical debates. I think they result often times in response to arguments from ignorance.
Exactly! Why can't we have more discussions about religions were the believers try to answer questions instead of ignorant people attacking a religion.
Why can't we discuss evolution, the big bang, etc without ignorant religious people attacking the science with logical fallacies?
The definition of Ad Hominem: ad ho·mi·nem   [ad hom-uh-nuhm ‐nem, ahd-] Show IPA adjective 1. appealing to one's prejudices, emotions, or special interests rather than to one's intellect or reason. 2. attacking an opponent's character rather than answering his argument. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ad+hominem
#1 Being right is serious business ibn America. #2 Religious people get attacked a lot too for their beliefs. I remember one time one guy actually hit me just for saying that I believed God existed. On the other side of the coin, when I was a non believer, I was often ridiculed and scorned as well, so i have seen both sides of the issue. and the big problem that non-believers have in common with believers is this: They will only see the one side, their side, and argue only for their interests. Me, I was taught to believe that a discussion should be an exchange of information and a learning experience, rather than be combative about what one believes. Placing emphasis on being right is what turns discussions into a combat zone. It doesn't really have to be that way. People should be free to be themselves, regardless of what they believe, and as long as they aren't harming anyone, why should it really matter what a person believes? if it does matter, then the underlying reason is that a person must conform to another persons' belief. And people who value individuality don't conform to another person's belief, they go their own way.
Why can't we discuss SPIRITUALITY instead of manmade religions? Why can't we answer questions about what it means to be close to God, even (and maybe especially) when GOD is not limited by an image imposed on Him/Her/It by man, man's culture, man's bias, man's greed for power, man's ignorance and involving knowledge (factual, scientific knowledge) developped over time?
I dont think you've gone far enough here. Or maybe it's not quite direct enough in the definition. In a debate venue it is where you perhaps are losing in the argument and you say that your opponent believes something else that the 'audience' if you will, finds serious enough, even if NOT relevant to the matter, to discount your target's argument. It's a kind of misdirection or almost like an evil red herring.
The problem with this is that sometimes these things will cause fights because different religions believe different things.
I like preemptive ad hominem attacks: "Only an idiot would argue that ... " or "Only a heartless bigot would argue that . . ." Squeeze in the attack before the opponent even gets a chance to speak.
Really? I would like to see an irrefutable logical justification of the existence of God. Please demonstrate.
I thought that was actually referred to as a red herring. Red herring a speaker attempts to distract an audience by deviating from the topic at hand by introducing a separate argument which the speaker believes will be easier to speak to.
That's the problem with logic, there is no such thing as irrefutable logic. Anybody who is intelligent enough can ALWAYS refute another person's logic. And that is its greatest weakness. Of course, the people who believe in logic will never admit to this, because logic has a nasty side effect of turning people into arrogant buttholes as well.
I agree that both of those are fantastic topics for discussion within a Science forum, but they have no place in religious forums unless they are deliberately introduced into a religious forum to create contention. Now if you are declaring science to be a 'religion', then those topics would be appropriate for a religious forum.
well they are two different things, aren't they? though possibly very closely related in certain instances.
Actually the idea of a logical argument has issues stemming from differing assumptions and values of the participants. For instance, if you assume that God doesn't exist, you will come to a different logical conclusion on many issues than someone who assumes that God does exist. Or if you value the lives of your family over the lives of a stranger, you will argue differently than someone who values all human life the same or someone who values animals the same as humans. So even logical arguments are often difficult and rarely lead to much of a change of thinking.
I think you're looking for "Strawman Argument": A straw man is a component of an argument and is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position. To "attack a straw man" is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by replacing it with a superficially similar yet unequivalent proposition (the "straw man"), and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the original position. For instance (not an original example): A: Abortion is wrong because it is the murder of human life. A child in the womb has as much right to live as any child outside the womb. A fetus has most all of his human features intact before birth, and even kicks his mother. B: The fact that a fetus kicks gives no sign that it is human. A cow kicks - does that mean it is human, and we shouldn't eat beef? Abortion is OK because a fetus is not yet human. In the above case the argument is about the right to life, not that kicking means something is human. The strawman argument creates a new point of argument, defeats it and claims overall victory.
