It's stupid when feminists say that porn is misogynistic

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True, but cigarettes contain nicotine, which is addictive and positively reinforcing. Almost anyone can end up being addicted to smoking, regardless of mental health.



No, not always. I guess you mean alcoholism is unhealthy, which I agree. Alcoholism is considered a mental illness by many professionals.



Now that's a horrible counterexample.

Not particularly rude, no. Contestable, yes - I'd ask you to clarify and debate you on it.

I am insane by some societal definitions, anyway, and quite happily so. But you wouldn't be aiming it at me, just some more nebulous idea of 'feminists in general'. People make generalisations when forming and sharing ideas and this does not offend me.

Tbh, even if you said, 'feminists are insane' (which actually would be kind of rude, but still nowhere near as bad as saying 'you are insane' because of the generality - there's more to my identity than just being a feminist) I wouldn't honestly care because you're just some guy with an opinion.

http://www.americanhumanist.org/HNN/det ... ornography

It's also occurred to me that the feminist group discussing rape fantasies would not necessarily have to come to the conclusion that said fantasies are bad things that shouldn't be indulged - even if they think they have an abusive trigger. I feel that way about people who make puke porn - in and of itself it's not bad, I just suspect the trigger for it lies in the realms of abnormal psychology.

Also, I don't seem to attach stigma to mental illness in the way other people do. 'I think person x is mentally ill' isn't really a negative judgement on that person's character for me...but then I'm insane.

Last edited by puddingmouse on 18 Jun 2013, 11:42 am, edited 1 time in total.

Calling fundamentalist ideas absurd is one thing, calling fundamentalists stupid, crazy, or liars is something else entirely.

It's not just a matter of politeness (that too), but there are strong arguments for calling fundamentalist ideas absurd, where there aren't strong arguments for calling them names.

In general, I take the presence of ad hominem arguments as evidence of the lack of actual arguments.

Maybe the person saying 'I think fundies are mentally ill' isn't looking to debunk their ideas? They're just stating reality as they see it. Lots of mentally ill people have very good ideas.

No, it's just a matter of politeness, nothing more. There are strong reasons why they're at least brainwashed. Their religious beliefs are absurd => by clinging to such beliefs and insisting they're valid means they are at least brainwashed and, at worst, intellectually dishonest.

Ad hominem is not always a logical fallacy by the way. It depends on why the ad hominem was committed.

You're assuming that their beliefs are absurd and calling them names, rather than explaining why their beliefs are absurd. I don't understand why you're doing that. You're abandoning a strong position so you can take up and defend a weak one.

If I did not know about the fundamentalist positions and the arguments against them, I would be assuming that there were no good arguments against the fundamentalists right now.


That doesn't make sense. A logical fallacy is an argument that is invalid. Why a fallacious argument was given is irrelevant.

There are many posts in this section of the forum where I elaborately explain a lot of things wrong with Christianity and religion altogether (especially fundamentalism). Check my post history if you're so interested.



Yes, so you already see they are absurd without my telling you why. So why are you upset that this means fundamentalists are, therefore, either brainwashed or intellectually dishonest?



It would only be a logical fallacy if I had argued that fundamentalists' beliefs are absurd because they are dishonest/brainwashed (or something along that line).

My argument is they are intellectually dishonest or brainwashed because their beliefs are absurd and indicate delusion thus showing this to be the case.

You should instead argue that the logical fallacy I committed would instead be a non sequitur or false dilemma or some other fallacy because the ad hominem argument isn't working.

I am responding to your posts in this thread, not your entire post history. If I see something elsewhere that I think is worth responding to, whether I agree or disagree, then I will.


You haven't established this. This is just repetitions of your previous insults.

I have known a number of fundamentalists who could not be described as "brainwashed" or "intellectually dishonest". It irritates me when other people insult these people and imply bad things about these people, rather than expressing a disagreement with these people's ideas which I also happen to disagree with.


I won't say that other fallacies might not apply (circular argument, for example), but I think ad hominem still fits. In this one sentence, you have "dishonest", "brainwashed", "absurd", and "delusion", which could all be seen as at least indirect insults. In this thread, I don't believe a single specific belief of fundamentalists (absurd or not) has been discussed.

Ok, then respond to the points I'm actually making about them here in this thread, rather than demand that I explain why their beliefs are absurd.



I did (which you overlook), but now I see this is more personal than I had thought and not just a matter of you trying to be objective.



Yes, I see. A Christian/Muslim fundamentalist who takes the Bible/Qur'an literally and sincerely is not brainwashed in your eyes.

So it really isn't a matter of me failing to establish what I'm arguing but you not wanting to accept what I'm saying for personal reasons (whatever they may be).



And yet you don't explain how the ad hominem still fits as a logical fallacy after what I explained.

What points? I looked back over the last couple of pages and saw no points. I saw some bald assertions. Is that what you're talking about?


Do you know what the word "brainwashed" means?

And yes, I do think that.


The part you quoted explains it, but in the interest of clarity: Your argument contains insults. Your argument does not discuss specific beliefs. "Ad hominem" means "against the man". You have argued against those you dislike, but not against their beliefs. It still looks like a good fit to me.

I don't think you actually understand what makes an ad hominem a logical fallacy. It's only a logical fallacy if I'm arguing something like "you are wrong because you're an idiot" => insinuating that his character is the reason for him being wrong.

But that's not what I'm doing. I'm arguing along the lines of: "you are an idiot because you insist you're right when you're wrong".

And, yes, people who believe in talking snake disguising Satan, Adam and Eve being real, Noah's Ark, God creating man directly from dust are brainwashed if sincere and if they're the typical Christian apologist, then they're more likely to know they're following bullsh*t and to be intellectually dishonest by insisting that evolution is wrong and that God created us all directly from nothing and weaving lies and half-truths to justify their arguments.

That's a misleading analogy, in two ways.

Firstly, "pedophile" has two meanings. If by "pedophile" you mean "child molester", then that's a completely different topic because it involves harming other people.

Secondly, I'm not simply saying that it's rude to call people "mentally disturbed". I'm saying that it's rude to not believe what a person tells you about their own motivations using the excuse that they are "mentally disturbed". The correct analogy would be if you went up to a person who claims to be attracted to children and said "you're not really attracted to children, you just think you are because you're crazy". And yes, actually that would be rude.



You do realise that might be an accurate description of homosexuality?

I guess I can understand that way of thinking. But that means you are admitting that you wanted to have a discussion about it, which means you're not really allowed to say "I was just wondering, sheesh!"



Fair point. But I can't help but feel that there is some important difference between "maybe Phenomenon P is generally caused by Cause C" and "every time I see Phenomenon P, I tend to think that it's probably caused by Cause C", especially when it comes to people.

Here is an analogy: it might be an extremely good theory that "being a criminal and being non-white are correlated". But it would still be weird to say, "Every time I see a non-white person, I slightly raise my guard because they have a higher chance of being a criminal". You have to give individual people a chance to explain themselves, instead of just lumping them into your theory.

The first commenter completely murdered the authors and their screed; immature, condescending, and naive. They also claim to be "humanists", but their article is quite clearly written from the feminist perspective.