Dubious stated worthy, accurate points about you and your style.Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Jan 31, 2024 5:24 amI love it when people use passive voice to hide their lack of substance. It's "been proven," has it?
Well, Mr. Hitchens, I'm quite certain, knows he was wrong now.
Anyone who brings an idea to your attention that is an interconnected nexus of ideas or observations that function together, you do exactly what you did here: you extract a minuscule portion out of it and make some pithy comment while negating the larger, and more important thrust. One is then left to attempt to analyze why you do this and why you resort to a strange, fallacious mode of philosophical argument (the negation of what has been said to you which, in this environment, you are obligated to respond to).The incredible ability and variety of your responses to morph each and every unfavorable fact into a counterfactual proves conclusively you have what it takes. It's a scenario in which philosophy itself becomes ineffective when supplying factual arguments in terms of reason, history, and logic. Disregard all these conditions and what remains is an epic farce, an infinitesimal example of which is supplied here, relying solely on the artfulness of wordplay to establish credibility. The inevitable conclusion is that your posts cannot be responded to philosophically, since there's nothing of philosophic importance in them. Your style of argumentation rely on two main methods: distortion in the form of wordplay and simple, unmodified negation to proclaim your unquestionable obedience to an ancient and medieval worldview long defunct.
As you know I concluded that the answer is religious fanaticism. To have confronted a man -- you -- so encased within a fanatical structure has for me been a significant boon. In relation to you (here I use the second-person plural) I have had to adjust my entire outlook toward *religiousness*. And I was not an overt opponent.
Religious fanaticism, indeed over-extreme reliance on a religious approach, requires a deep critical analysis. But what is interesting, at least from where I sit, is to notice that what Hitchens said about religion generally (all general statements are necessary but problematic) is brought to the fore by your constant demonstration: religious fanaticism has poisoned your mind. If we believe that we can recognize a standard of sound philosophical technique (a way to reason, a way to converse, etc.) you demonstrate constantly that you are outside of that possibility.
Thus we are left with no choice but to ask: How, in this personage Immanuel Can, has this come about?
You see? This is all we are left with. At this point you are not really talked with you are talked about.
I always want to mention and re-mention that, for us (most who write here), we will not be able to return to any religious fold, I think we must recognize at least two things:
One, that the need of religion universally is not diminishing but increasing, and both Islam and Pentecostalism are gathering converts (in the Global South) and certainly not losing converts. And that which does *poison* things is raising its head like never before (that I am aware of) as the Middle East begins to kindle and the poisoned, overheated, hallucinating heads of the many begin to externalize their inner madness. (A very strange and complex state of affairs).
Two, that for those who have had the *horizon* of their metaphysical world erased, that they must face that there is a HUGE cost entailed. Those without an internal rudder (religious view does provide this), and those who do not have the maturity and inner strength to make replacement choices, do indeed seem to go adrift. Certainly people who are not sufficiently prepared cannot sustain themselves outside of a defined, overarching order that religious structure generally does a good job at providing.
