(September 22, 2020 at 9:24 am)Mister Agenda Wrote: If you don't believe him, would you explain why? 'Clear thinking demands careful language' isn't exactly a controversial claim.
I'm just playing their same game with the word 'believe', because my post can be interpreted more than 1 way ...
The claim that "faith in chairs is as the same faith in god" is a demonstration of such obfuscation played upon in Bel's post #241. I don't know if he does this intentionally or not, or if it is just a result of confusion or maybe even just not getting it (or if Bel is being dishonest, and saw an opportunity to obfuscate, but he has given me no reason to think that) - the effect is the same: ambiguity.
It is not my problem that the English language contains so many fucking ambiguous words, it is for anyone trying to understand what someone is trying to convey to themselves.
Also, 'Clear thinking demands careful language', is a just a re-statement of this problem in recognizing ambiguity, in a futile attempt trying to resolve the usage of the word 'believe'. 'Faith' even more so.
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool." - Richard P. Feynman