Hello! I've been a longtime lurker, but going off to my first year of college has given me the space to really understand what this site is trying to accomplish and decide that yeah I want to participate.
I have somehow gotten myself into an ongoing debate with a theist "rationality" group on campus (they do at least have the stated goal of seeking truth and they want people with multiple perspectives even if it is my considered opinion that the leader/only other person who contributed to our most recent discusiion abandons the truthseeking claim by saying he's "not afraid of any question"). My main problem I'm having is that it's a small group- I was the only atheist at the last meeting, and I debated the leader while the two theist students just kind of sat there and said we "both had good points," which I don't think was especially helpful input (especially as neither of them could tell me which points in particular were good). So I guess mostly I'm here because I'd like to win our future conversations a bit more effectively and to do that I'm going to need to get better to do that. I'm not sure if I don't really understand what I think or if I'm just bad at thinking on my feet, but somehow there's a disconnect here and we seem to be misunderstanding each others' arguments.
Is there a particular thread where one can ask for help for either debating in general or religious debates in particular? Because that's what I need I think and quick uses of the search feature provides a lot of semirelevant articles with comments as new as 3 years old... Alternatively, any advice here would be great.
Hello! I've been a longtime lurker, but going off to my first year of college has given me the space to really understand what this site is trying to accomplish and decide that yeah I want to participate.
I have somehow gotten myself into an ongoing debate with a theist "rationality" group on campus (they do at least have the stated goal of seeking truth and they want people with multiple perspectives even if it is my considered opinion that the leader/only other person who contributed to our most recent discusiion abandons the truthseeking claim by saying he's "not afraid of any question"). My main problem I'm having is that it's a small group- I was the only atheist at the last meeting, and I debated the leader while the two theist students just kind of sat there and said we "both had good points," which I don't think was especially helpful input (especially as neither of them could tell me which points in particular were good). So I guess mostly I'm here because I'd like to win our future conversations a bit more effectively and to do that I'm going to need to get better to do that. I'm not sure if I don't really understand what I think or if I'm just bad at thinking on my feet, but somehow there's a disconnect here and we seem to be misunderstanding each others' arguments.
Is there a particular thread where one can ask for help for either debating in general or religious debates in particular? Because that's what I need I think and quick uses of the search feature provides a lot of semirelevant articles with comments as new as 3 years old... Alternatively, any advice here would be great.