Help me out here...

[cynatnite]

I opted to take a step into the Religion group and post a few things. Someone there was making all sorts of assumptions about atheists which I challenged.

As a result, they opted to change the course of the discussion by focusing primarily on me and my "shortcomings" which they were able to determine from the two responses I posted.

I always have a bit of a tough time adjusting to this tactic. I don't know if they're doing it because they don't have an adequate response or if they know they already lost the argument or whatever. I just don't know. I never know quite how to respond.

[Lordquinton]

1. It's what they do

That guy is crossing so many lines, it's not even funny. "I can only intimidate you with my "superiority" if you feel inferior." he's being a bully, and when you call him on it he tells you to relax, he was "only joking" that whole thread is one big atheist slap fest, one that has been going strong ever since they found a nice atheist who said what they wanted to hear after her house got leveled by a tornado.

I actually got a couple of them to admit that they are anti-choice, one was tomb-stoned shortly after, the other heaped on tons of insults before leaving the thread.

I find a question and keep at it until it gets answered, ignore anything else they say, and they will say a lot, and find your answer, be nice, be polite, be direct and simple, with no wiggle room.

[Warpy]

2. When it turns into a personal attack, you've got three options

You can either rub their noses in the fact that you're words on a screen and they know fuck all about the person behind them or you can alert on it and get that subthread shitcanned.

Or you can make one final post detailing where the religionist has gone off the rails and slowly back out of that thread forever, leaving the religionist spluttering in impotent fury.

[skepticscott]

3. As Goethe said

Last edited Sun Jun 2, 2013, 02:57 PM - Edit history (1)

you can either be the hammer or the anvil. Perhaps that's too aggressive a metaphor, but I prefer an aggressive approach in such cases, to the point where it will do any good, at least. Very often, these types of people will blather on irrationally forever, needing to get the last word in every time, no matter how badly they've been beaten down. All you can do in such cases is to make your best argument, one that will settle things for the rational and reasonable people reading the thread, and then, as Warpy says, just walk away and let them wallow.

[LostOne4Ever]

4. Is this the correct thread?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1218&pid=81490

I think you did well in proving your point as did longship, pokerfan, skepticscott, and others. You got him to pretty much admit defeat:

[div class="excerpt" style="background-color:#dcdcdc; padding-bottom:5px; border:1px solid #bfbfbf; border-bottom:none; border-radius:0.4615em 0.4615em 0em 0em; box-shadow:3px 3px 3px #999999;"]Big Blue Marble[div class="excerpt" style="background-color:#f0f0f0; border:1px solid #bfbfbf; border-top:none; border-radius:0em 0em 0.4615em 0.4615em; box-shadow:3px 3px 3px #999999;"]I can disagree with you about anything I chose and I will regardless of how much evidence you offer.

Right here he is admitting he is putting his fingers in his ear and going "lalalalala NOT LISTENING lalalala." He does not even care if hes right or not.

Imagine if the debate were on the topic of whether a circle is a polygon or not or if an isosceles triangle was a type of triangle or not and he said this. In fact, that is what most of the arguments in that dumb thread were about. People trying to say that isosceles triangles are some sort of middle ground between triangles and not triangles.

The only thing I would have done differently is that I would have ended the discussion sooner. No matter what you do he is the sort that will get the last post no matter what and will just draw you into an never ending debate of an increasingly asinine nature.

Just leave post 173 as your last response to him and follow my signatures advice

[cynatnite]

5. Thanks. I'm leaving it alone.

I don't like that endless debate stuff. It gets nowhere.

[Gore1FL]

9. I countered a couple since the link was there

He's trolling for dollars, but it doesn't hurt to correct people and call them on their bullshit.

[dimbear]

6. We're like characters in a play, saying our lines. We only have to play our parts well.

The characters in a play don't change from performance to performance. Still the audience takes something away.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

7. you are not the one who needs the help.

you did fine. in the face of assholes.

[Iggo]

8. I have no idea who you're talking about...

...but they sound like real assholes.