Do stereotypes have any truth to them?

[Thumpalumpacus]

Is there an interpreter in the house? What on earth are you saying?

Which words are tripping you up?

The English ones. He evinced an ignorance of the meaning of "racist" over at AD, such that I had to link him to a couple of definitions. This boy's 'bout as sharp as a bowling ball.

[Sheldon]

Which words are tripping you up?

The English ones. He evinced an ignorance of the meaning of "racist" over at AD, such that I had to link him to a couple of definitions. This boy's 'bout as sharp as a bowling ball.

Well I don't want to leap to ad hominem, but yes the reasoning on display is poor, filled with unevidenced rhetoric and hyperbole, but maybe the poster is young. I know that I would not have recognised common logical fallacies, or understood their implication until I was in my 30's. Though of course I was horrified to realise how poor my reasoning was as a result, and have tried not to make such errors since, and more importantly to honestly admit to errors and correct them...

Which by the way @Jamiesmithie is precisely the point I believe Silver was making, that one should have the integrity to accept when one is wrong, and to admit it.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

The English ones. He evinced an ignorance of the meaning of "racist" over at AD, such that I had to link him to a couple of definitions. This boy's 'bout as sharp as a bowling ball.

Well I don't want to leap to ad hominem, but yes the reasoning on display is poor, filled with unevidenced rhetoric and hyperbole, but maybe the poster is young. I know that I would not have recognised common logical fallacies, or understood their implication until I was in my 30's. Though of course I was horrified to realise how poor my reasoning was as a result, and have tried not to make such errors since, and more importantly to honestly admit to errors and correct them...

Which by the way @Jamiesmithie is precisely the point I believe Silver was making, that one should have the integrity to accept when one is wrong, and to admit it.

Implying that Jamie may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer isn’t necessarily an ad hominem. That would only apply if we said his positions were wrong because he’s desperately, dangerously stupid.

The opposite is the case here - Jamie’s positions were wrong before he ever met them. The fact that those positions themselves are desperately, dangerously stupid has nothing to do with Jamie - his is an independent stupidity.

Boru

[Deesse23]

There's another stereotype concerning atheists I see occasionally. People who study theology seriously will make fun of what they call "Reddit atheists." These are people who 1) talk a lot about religion on line, and 2) have enormous confidence in their own reasoning power, and 3) know little or nothing about theology. And of course until quite recently they often referred to the works of Dawkins and/or Hitchens. 

And those other atheists you see occasionally in other places, have wtf exactly to do with anyone here? Right, nothing.

Complaining about others overestimating their own reasoning power, coming from someone like you, who does not have thoughts on his own, from someone who is constantly name dropping, thats....rich.

This is the sort of person who thinks he has any and every Christian check-mated, while not bothering to learn much more about Christian thought than "TalKinG SnaKES!!1!" "NO MaterIAl EvidENce!!!!!"

Material evidence?
Use the quote function (i am sure you know how it works. Someone with your reasoning power knows much more than this) and show us who, on this board, not Reddit, not anywhere else, demanded material evidence from you.

Its really, really rich, when someone like you, who keeps using the same script over and over, after it has shown to him that you are straw manning people 99% of the time, and the remaining 1% you are cowards hiding behind famous philosophers, accuses others of the very things you are doing. I guess you are the poster child of a hypocrite.

[Sheldon]

Well I don't want to leap to ad hominem, but yes the reasoning on display is poor, filled with unevidenced rhetoric and hyperbole, but maybe the poster is young. I know that I would not have recognised common logical fallacies, or understood their implication until I was in my 30's. Though of course I was horrified to realise how poor my reasoning was as a result, and have tried not to make such errors since, and more importantly to honestly admit to errors and correct them...

Which by the way @Jamiesmithie is precisely the point I believe Silver was making, that one should have the integrity to accept when one is wrong, and to admit it.

Implying that Jamie may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer isn’t necessarily an ad hominem. That would only apply if we said his positions were wrong because he’s desperately, dangerously stupid.

The opposite is the case here - Jamie’s positions were wrong before he ever met them. The fact that those positions themselves are desperately, dangerously stupid has nothing to do with Jamie - his is an independent stupidity.

Boru

For clarity I wasn't suggesting it was ad hominem, I worded it poorly perhaps, I was just wary of heading in that direction by focusing on him rather his "arguments" such as they are. 

I'd also say that offering demonstrably stupid claims, does not in and of itself make one stupid, and of course being poorly educated doesn't necessarily mean one is stupid either. 

I agree about his claims though, woeful stuff. The real irony is it takes just a few minutes of cursory research to disprove them as well, so he could have easily investigated this himself. The claim he is happy to revel in poor reasoning might simply be an attempt at face saving of course, no one enjoys appearing foolish.

[Sheldon]

My favorite is 'atheists have no morals'.

Yeah, that's certainly not justified. Lots of atheists have morals.

It's true that a lot of atheists think that morals are simply social conventions, with no objective existence. But even if a person believes that, he can still do his best to obey the conventions of his time and place. 

There's another stereotype concerning atheists I see occasionally. People who study theology seriously will make fun of what they call "Reddit atheists." These are people who 1) talk a lot about religion on line, and 2) have enormous confidence in their own reasoning power, and 3) know little or nothing about theology. And of course until quite recently they often referred to the works of Dawkins and/or Hitchens. 

This is the sort of person who thinks he has any and every Christian check-mated, while not bothering to learn much more about Christian thought than "TalKinG SnaKES!!1!" "NO MaterIAl EvidENce!!!!!"

I think we've all encountered people like that, but Reddit atheists are surely not representative of most of us. They are on line and visible by definition, while the great majority of atheists don't care enough about it to go on the Internet every day and criticize.

The word atheist is entirely redundant in that post. Poor reasoning is poor reasoning, and FYI there are theists who believe every word of the bible and Koran is literally true, it is risible to decry people who address such claims, as if they must address the 45k different sects and denominations of Christianity globally, or all the various claims theists generally make and believe, in every single discussion. 

If anyone wants to sneer at me as poorly educated they can knock themselves out, it's likely true on a wide range of topics, but I would still disbelieve claims that were unsupported by any or insufficient objective evidence. If sneering contempt is all they have, then they're likely holding an empty bag. 

This argument sounds like the tired old chestnut that one cannot disbelieve the Islamic religion unless one has Arabic as a first language. I don't need to be an expert in Bigfoot, in order to withhold belief, and the same is true of deities, from the risibly falsifiable, to complex nut ultimately vapid arguments that can must not one shred of objective evidence that any deity exists or is even possible.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I don't believe this. I came here in good faith and this is the treatment I get. I guess my name is mud around here now. I don't suppose there's anything I can say to make a good impression. 

Oh well, never mind. God bless you all.

Me old china, you wouldn’t know ‘good faith’ if it bit you on the bum.

Boru