[split] AF Hall of Shame, various discussion including Denmark & bible contradiction

[Angrboda]

but but but but but............... DENMARK!

What is this in reference to? There was quite a heated debate in a certain thread about whether or not Denmark had a secular government, which it clearly does not seeing how it has a state sanctioned church \ religion, you think those facts mattered any?

To top it of that whole thread gets posted here in the hall of shame (which i'll post below, the discussion pretty much starts at page 13) as if i'm being somehow unreasonable in taking the position that the government of Denmark isn't secular.

Having looked back on that thread, it appears the debate in question started with this post. In this post, you link to studies that show that the country of Denmark is one of the happiest in the world, and attempt to make some point about secularism not being linked to happiness in these top countries. Pandemonium in responding to your post about the happiest countries, specifically Panama and Denmark, stated, "I reiterate - countries that have secular institutions and secular structures of government not only tend to be happier, they tend also to be much more productive economically and more cohesive socially." It's not clear that he is here specifically claiming that Denmark in particular has a secular government, rather than that he was simply speaking in general about the lists you presented. Several pages later, you introduce the dubious claim that a state (meaning country) is not secular if its government is not secular. I went through the pages rather rapidly, but from what I could see, you kept pressuring people on the question of whether Denmark had a secular government or not, and your interlocutors continually refused to answer that question directly, generally inclining toward trying to direct the conversation back to the question of whether Denmark was a secular state (meaning country) or not. I didn't find any examples of anybody claiming that Denmark had a secular government, but my examination was rather cursory, so if you have an example of such, please provide it.

So, if my perusal of that thread is accurate, the claim under dispute was whether or not Denmark was a secular country or not. (You yourself say as much at several points in the discussion.) Whether you were or were not right on that point is debatable. Claiming victory on the main point of that discussion would then be completely improper. Instead, you are claiming that you won a victory based upon a question which you yourself independently introduced, and which, to the best that I can see, was never argued contrary-wise by any atheist. How you see that as some kind of a victory for you, and a shameful defeat for the participating atheists, is something of a mystery to me. The evidence appears to be that the "Denmark issue" is simply a case where your vanity led you to claim a victory based on your self appraisal of the matter, an appraisal which appears to be in contradiction to the actual facts of the matter. But, as I said, my examination of that thread was not completely thorough, so I'm open to being shown wrong. Simply provide a link to where one of the atheist debaters in that thread claimed that Denmark had a secular government, and I'll concede the point.

Turning back to the general matter at hand, you've just posted two examples where you think you personally provoked a shameful response from an atheist (Khemikal, I believe). Not only in both do you assume that your point of view is the right and proper one to have, but you are essentially tooting your own horn in the process of posting them. The Hall of Shame and Hall of Epic/Wit threads have traditionally been for people to post examples good and bad of other people's work. Your posting examples where you feel you were so right, and your interlocutor so wrong, as to deserve shame, simply makes you look like a self-aggrandizing twat. Perhaps that's why you don't garnish kudos for such posts, rather than some rather global atheist hypocrisy. I think there are probably substantive reasons why atheists don't kudos the posts of theists, but it's a fact that the reverse is also true, theists tend to exclusively kudos posts of other theists as well. Regardless, you seem to be promoting the theory that the atheists are failing to kudos your posts in equal measure to that of atheists because they stubbornly refuse to admit they are wrong about anything. I simply point out that there are other possible explanations for your failing to garnish as many kudos as an atheist than the one you seem focused exclusively upon (another I've drawn attention to is the possibility that social deficits on your part may be implicated in the responses you get). I've seen you make good arguments and I've seen you make bad arguments. And I've seen you claim victory/correctness where your claim appears to be nothing more than the product of your imagination. I think the current thread is yet another example where the things you believe you are seeing are largely a product of your imagination, and nothing else.