MH runs away with his tail between his legs:
No mistake was made about intelligent design since I never attributed the view to you, but suggested it is a topic because of its current status in our culture. Furthermore, I made no claim about familiarity with your “work.”
I certainly believe that religion in the past was among the major causes of wars in Europe and some strife elsewhere and that is a well worn topic that I see no need to revisit. I don’t think religion plays a significant role, per se, in wars of the 20th or 21st century.
However, I don’t think I need to be “corrected” by you on any of my statements (you should try to read them a little more carefully before you respond) or what can be inferred from them. Furthermore, I prefer not to engage any further. I have plenty on my plate with my professional duties and especially with an upcoming philosophy conference.
Regardless of what he thinks, he obviously does need to be corrected. It’s a piss-poor teacher of logic that believes the following quotes are compatible:
1. your site has served of some use in providing more real life versions of fallacies to employ in my critical thinking courses
2. I made no claim about familiarity with your “work.”
And then, of course, there’s this probable contradiction:
1. I didn’t know your view on intelligent design. I suggested it because of the popularity among conservatives and especially among Southern Baptists, since the convention assumed an official fundamentalist position some years ago, our benighted president seems to endorse its teaching in our schools, and the recent legal battles over its status.
2. No mistake was made about intelligent design since I never attributed the view to you, but suggested it is a topic because of its current status in our culture.
Given that the context was to “argue” (the title of his initial emails to me), there is a very high probability that MH believed that because I am a Southern Baptist and and (he wrongly assumed) I am a conservative, I would be a defender of intelligent design. He most likely felt confident that this would be comfortable ground on which to engage; once it turned out that there was no disagreement there, he suddenly became unwilling to argue about other matters, even those on which he admits we disagree.
No wonder he’s teaching at community college. You see, MH, that’s actually what I do. It’s kind of like kicking you in the groin after knocking you down… but even an expert in logic should be able to see that the fact one was unfairly kicked in the groin doesn’t mean that one didn’t get decked in the first place.