(October 21, 2014 at 8:26 am)Arkwright Wrote: Thanks Fidel... Arguing this by proxy is very lazy of me. I'm going in for the kill.Don't look at it as an argument that you need to win or a point you need to defeat. Simply approach the discussion rationally and think your replies through. Don't look beyond whatever point it is he's making. For example, when he presents a miraculous story (the one about his back) ask for verification. If the only verification is his word, explain that it's insufficient for you to accept. He may simply write you off as unwilling to believe, which would be the truth; you have no reason to accept his claim without evidence.
And that's it. The important thing is to discuss, listen, and learn. There are few arguments that end with a winner based on a clear and irrefutable explanation or presentation of fact. Don't "go in for the kill"; if he manages to deflect your approach or even turn it around on you, will you be sitting next to him at his next church service?
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould
