Lots of people hold beliefs that lots of other people find weird. Sometimes there are paradigmatic differences that make just understanding—let alone any agreement—difficult.* Most of our arguments on here really end up being little more than information sharing, that can at least promote understanding (in my opinion, argument—or debate, if you prefer—is a very good way to do that), but hardly ever results in any agreement. At best, it results in an impasse in which we understand a bit more about one another.
This seems also true of arguments over what one should accept as evidence for belief formation. The exception seems to be where one person (or group) can identify actual contradictions in another’s views. But who would not welcome that?
So, I have pretty minimal expectations in any of these arguments. I expect to learn more about the other, to (hopefully) force the other to defend their views in such a way that I at least come to understand them, and to have my own views challenged in such a way that I have to re-examine them (and how I articulate them). That’s really all.
Galveston and Robbie have shown themselves as capable as their opponents in arguing their positions. I may disagree with them across the board (after all, I am not a Christian at all), but I am willing to hear them—and I find arguments of content interesting. If I want to press them on their arguments, I will (and have)—but I no longer consider myself “qualified” to argue points of Christian doctrine (history of those doctrines, perhaps, a bit; but Conrau does a good job of that).
A fundamental dictum that I adhere to is this: the very willingness to argue with someone is an expression of respect (no matter the tone of the argument). Proclamations followed by dismissals of any competing views are not. Having read his stuff before, I think that Manny fully intended to start such argument with this thread (that is, I don’t think he’s into “proclamations and dismissals” ).
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* For example, when I started studying Judaism a number of years ago, I discovered that Judaism and Christianity (as both have evolved) are paradigmatically different religious views. Words like “messiah” and “salvation”—to which Christians have given clear doctrinal definitions—are subject to broad and varying understandings in Judaism (without any centralizing doctrine). Scriptural hermeneutics are so vastly different that the two religions (no matter which denomination in which religion) just don’t understand “scripture” (and its role) in anything like the same way (or even an analogous way) at all—and this aside from the fact that Jews do not recognize the NT and Christians do.
So, to argue something like “Judaism versus Christianity” in a forum like this would be a fruitless endeavor. It can be at best, as I said above, information sharing to further mutual understanding. That, in itself, is difficult enough.