https://clips.twitch.tv/GloriousRespectfulRutabagaTBTacoLeft
An open letter to Matt Dillahunty:
Matt Dillahunty…you are wrong. I politely ask you to please stop lying about me. You have continually lied about my positions for 2 years now. Contrary to your unfounded and erroneous assertions based upon a gross misunderstanding of my arguments…I am not a prescriptivist.
If you do not know my positions then ask me or people that follow me regularly like my moderators for clarification. You have repeatedly strawmanned me and I am finally telling you that you’re simply WRONG. Not simply by fiat, but with evidence as you can go to my web page and read about some of my basic positions which would tell you that I am a descriptivist and always have been.
This open letter is also to inform anyone who ever hears Matt ever again call me a prescriptivist to challenge him and inform him once again that he is willfully lying about me. Matt simply asserts things ipse dixit rather than actually addressing anything that I actually argue because it is much easier to burn down an effigy than it is to try to assail a strong argument. Matt makes claims about me that I will challenge him on as:
- I do not prescribe usages.
- I do not insist people use my usages.
- I do not insist some atheists are agnostics.
- I do not promote agnosticism.
- I do not think the normative philosophical understanding of the word “atheist” being a belief that God does not exist is the only one that exists (far from it).
- I do not believe words have “correct” or “intrinsic meaning”, but are ascribed to them meaning by usage to convey some context by illocution.
Here are my positions since 2018: https://greatdebatecommunity.com/2018/12/28/steve-mcraes-actual-positions-to-help-with-strawman-abatement-work-in-progress/
Eric Murphy from Talk Heathen erroneously claimed I was a prescriptivist once and he was honorable enough to correct it and recognize that I am a descriptivist…Matt, however, seems unwilling to correct himself, and to me, I will categorize that at this point as willful deception.
I will graciously await his retraction of his claim that I am a prescriptivist which has resulted of years of having me have to expain to people that I am not.
-Steve McRae
RossFW
You either believe something or you don’t.
If you don’t know if something is true, you don’t know that it is. You are absent that belief.
Theism- belief in a deity
Atheism- the lack of that belief.
There is no middle.
Steve McRae
Please review my primer on this topic:
https://greatdebatecommunity.com/2018/10/24/agnosticism-atheism-theism-and-logic-101/
I hold to academic usage and normative understandings:
Theist = Bp
Atheist = B~p
Agnostic (middle ground) = ~Bp ^ ~B~p
Thank you.
RossFW
Your reply function sucks- two long replies have been lost.
Steve McRae
You have to click the reCAPTCHA first…
but I don’t have time to read long replies here nor communicate in the forums here…anything past a few sentences will prob go unanswered.
Keep things brief.
But best to msg me on FB, Twitter, or Email.
RossFW
Sure- Hold to any definition you like, but saying you do not meet a label from some-one elses POV when they use different definitions is being prescriptionist.
Steve McRae
Please refer to my actual positions:
c. I have always argued that people should be allowed to use any definition they prefer to label themselves.
d. Use of a preferred label is not transportable such that I do not use my preferred use of definitions to assign a label to other people.
e. I argue that if people accept a more broader definition, that they should not use their preferred broader definition to label me.
https://greatdebatecommunity.com/2018/12/28/steve-mcraes-actual-positions-to-help-with-strawman-abatement-work-in-progress/
RossFW
Plus you are ignoring the origins of the words. Gnosticism, to do with knowledge, is a different concept than Theism, to do with belief. You simply assert Agnosticism is middle ground- well, I can call a cat a dog, but I’m changing the language by doing so.
Steve McRae
This is incorrect. Please refer to my prior blog on this that explains your error.
3) Modern usage of the word “agnosticism” is merely the belief that one is not justified to assign a truth value or T or F to p where p=”at least one God exist” (theism). In this usage the person has attempted to evaluate the proposition, but believes that they do not have sufficient justification to say p is T or p is F and they are therefore suspending judgment on p. In this context it is the psychological state (as opposed to a normative epistemic principle or epistemological proposition) of being agnostic on p, or someone who tries to evaluate p, but does not believe p is true nor believes p is false.
https://greatdebatecommunity.com/2019/01/21/agnosticism-in-3-ways/
RossFW
Well, that’s a silly position. I don’t have to use different labels for people with the same position because THEY have different definitions. I label in order that I categorize people. Doing so would make language unusable.
Steve McRae
Please refer to my actual positions:
c. I have always argued that people should be allowed to use any definition they prefer to label themselves.
d. Use of a preferred label is not transportable such that I do not use my preferred use of definitions to assign a label to other people.
e. I argue that if people accept a more broader definition, that they should not use their preferred broader definition to label me.
https://greatdebatecommunity.com/2018/12/28/steve-mcraes-actual-positions-to-help-with-strawman-abatement-work-in-progress/
RossFW
Right, so my definition is simply asserted to be incorrect- but your not a prescriptivist.
Maybe the reason you’ve had to spend years explaining why you’re not a prescriptivist is because you’re actions meet the description of a prescriptivist.
Steve McRae
Then you get removed and blocked.
Have a nice day.
RossFW
I’ll label you as I wish to label you. You do not get to prescribe the labels I use.