On debates and dialogue

I’m fairly good on not blogging about the latest blow up on social media.  This post isn’t important in the grand scheme, though it may serve as the “Suburban Agrarian Manifesto.”  The other day some guy on Twitter asked about “Day Jyer” and should he debate him. I told him don’t worry about it.  Day Jyer has the same standard arguments against every position.  I said its better to focus on the original languages.   Day’s arguments don’t ever interact with the Hebrew or Greek in any real exegetical form.

Innocent enough, I suppose.  I didn’t think twice of it, so I logged off.  The next day Twitter exploded.  He then challenged me to a public debate.   I said no.  Let’s examine the terms of the word (good debating tip).  His view of “debate” means going to his (not yours) platform and “debating.”  What happens is that he talks over you, interrupts you, and insults you.  This, most gentle reader, is not a debate.

Please understand, in my criticisms of him I mean no disrespect to classic Eastern Orthodoxy.  I’ve learned much from them. They, for the most part, have disowned him. He even tried to get me to call Eastern Orthodox heretics.  I’m like, “Dude, I don’t even care.  Why are you so interested in me?”

When you think of a public debate, what do you think of?  Something like a Ciceronian forum, or the Bahnsen-Stein debate, or William Lane Craig.  Even the degenerate DNC debates look something like a real debating platform.

That’s not what Day Jyer has in mind.  He can’t yell over you in that format.  Case in point.  The Facebook Page Inspiring Philosophy was open to debating him.  They then asked him if he could promise not to insult people.  He got angry and started insulting them.  You can read it here.  Do read it. It’s hilarious.  Ask yourself: “Am I the kind of person that I simply cannot give a promise to not insult someone?”

That’s not the only reason for my turning him down. Another is I am an adult with adulting responsibilities.   I have a wife and a daughter.  They demand my full attention, and to them I gladly give it.  Why would I shove them aside to go get insulted by someone?

There is another reason, and this comes back to one of my earlier comments: languages.  I read Greek, Hebrew, and Latin every day.  I would link you to his comments, but he blocked me. He essentially acknowledged he didn’t know the languages and simply ridiculed us as “a group of sectarians and heretics who read the languages.” Gentle reader, would you really want to go “debate” someone like that?    Anyway, reading the languages demands much of my time.  Should I put these noble pursuits aside simply to entertain his howler monkeys at my expense?

That brings up another point: seeing that I am going to get insulted at the cost of my time and family, what exactly do I get out of it?  His disciples couldn’t answer that question.

Here are some of the screenshots.  I edited them for anonymity’s sake because I am a nice person or something.  Kind readers, are these not the remarks of someone is is unhinged?

 

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