(October 25, 2016 at 7:26 pm)Jesster Wrote:(October 25, 2016 at 7:21 pm)FallentoReason Wrote: An ad hominem is a fallacy because you're not attacking someone's ideas. You're attacking them.
Insulting someone isn't necessarily doing that. You can insult someone as a conclusion of your argument against them without using that fallacy ("you are wrong, and therefore you are a big bully"). If you use the insult as a method of attacking their ideas, then yes, it is an ad hominem.
I'm not entirely sure if Dawkins has made that fallacy or not, but the way you worded it didn't make it sound that way.
Well, he generally begins with "YHWH was a big bully. He commanded the deaths of blah blah and the destruction of blah blah."
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it" ~ Aristotle
