More and more of my online debates have been blighted by a common ending, one where the person taking the original untenable position calls troll and leaves the debate. This is probably largely due to the media reaction to trolling, if you believe Fox news (and apparently some do) they are the next worst thing on The Internet¹ after pedophiles². This reaction seems to come most commonly from those who are believers of the ‘no god’ doctrine, those who have utter and complete faith that there is no higher being and that All Churches are Evil™. Many of these people masquerade as intelligent people, completely missing the point of the Dunning-Kruger effect which they cite so often, and make bold statements of their belief and their smugness that their fundamental belief in the absence of a god is more legitimate than those who hold a belief that there is a god.
Personally I have no real interest in who is right and who is wrong. It makes about as much difference to my life as the existence or not of the Higgs-Boson particle. I will almost certainly never know for sure and I am truly skeptical that it would make much of a difference to my life either way. If you follow the Roman Catholic Church or some other variation on the theme or you follow the Church of ‘Atheism’ and worship the prophet Dawkins I couldn’t really care a monkeys but when you start making stupid statements like ‘there is no god’ or you judge an organisation that comforts many by the evils of a few within that organisation then you should probably prepare to be called out on it.
Unfortunately once called out on it don’t then call me or anyone arguing a similar point to me a troll. I am staking a claim to this as Painter’s Law of The Internet whereby someone occupying an indefensible position will call troll to avoid admitting they made an illogical statement. I would also like to claim on behalf of @spiderham the Davies Extension of Painter’s Law wherein the same person may also call troll on someone occupying a stance similar to an actual troll to distract from the fact that they are holding an illogical view.
¹ I capitalise because although it is just an internet, an inter connected network of computers, it is also The Internet or rather the specific interconnected network of computers that we refer to as The Internet; thus it’s a proper noun. I created a couple of networks recently at work as a proof of concept lab for our IPv6 deployment and this was an internet; it was not connected to The Internet though (yet).
² I would generally go with ‘paedophiles’ but I am using a Mac from the USA and have not figured out how to change to spell check. I also think I may offend it if I don’t respect its local cultures and traditions.
“you judge an organisation that comforts many by the evils of a few within that organisation”
How about if you judge an organization on the way its hierarchy protects the “few” who commit evils and conceals their crimes?
I think there’s a whole blog post in that question alone.
“Personally I have no real interest in who is right and who is wrong”
There’s no (evidence for)any god.
But why should you care?
I think I was quite clear in saying that I don’t care, it won’t make a jot of difference to my life either way. Some choose to believe there is a god and some choose to believe there is no god, they are both entitled to their opinions and both are equally valid, if either side claims their opinion as fact I will point this fallacy out to them.
By the way could you please learn how to use parentheses correctly?
First, your post has been answered before: http://xkcd.com/774/
Second, why is “there are no unicorns,” a reasonable statement but “there is no god,” stupid?
“Personally I have no real interest in who is right and who is wrong”
Then you are preaching – don’t bother with comments.
Well played Sir,
You have successfully trolled PZ Myers with the above bait. He wasted valuable time dissecting your crap, and others followed his link here to read it.
You, Sir, are a troll God!
And there you go, calling troll and thereby breaking Painter’s Law. Thank you for such a vivid example.
Seeing as it was discussions around the Catholic Church yesterday that, in part, triggered your post – what do you make of my reasons for hating said institution?
http://furtherthoughtsfortheday.blogspot.com/2011/12/why-i-despise-catholic-church.html
Actually the idea for the law has been knocking around in conversation for a while, the discussion with your nearest and dearest yesterday was just the tipping point because I was bored of having to define it to people. I look forward to reading your blog post soon and we can hopefully discuss it at length without you calling troll and running away if I happen to find fault in your argument.
Simon, the trouble is you are a troll, as I have pointed out to you before in an FB discussion:
Me: Whilst I can’t be arsed getting drawn into another FB discussion in which my answers are ignored, just to point out Simon, not all atheists hold a belief that there is no god, and so semantic arguments about agnosticism and atheism can also be added to your tool kit for winding people up on the internet
Simon Painter: Dave, I don’t ignore you, I just have to keep challenging you every time you try to ram your bullshit religious beliefs down my throat.
Me: *stretches arms and yawns* Bored face
Simon Painter: Ah, the ‘I won’t argue with you because I am strong in my belief’ face.
Me: Not to be confused with the “I won’t argue with you because it’s been done quite a few times before, and is now interminably dull as nothing ever happens because one side says something and doesn’t listen to what you have to say, and then, a few months later, says exactly the same thing again, leading to the conclusion that the person is just out to troll, which is fine, and also, is ready armed with the Calling-Troll-means-you’ve-not-got-an-actual-argument-to-come-back-at-me-with-defence, which in itself is quite a poor intellectual response, but expected as the person is a troll and not actually concerned with a thought provoking discourse* face. Thankfully, neither of these two look anything like my cum face, as I beleive that would be terribly off putting
This would be the x did y once so x is always doing y. I could dig up examples of your past trolling and state that you are therefore always a troll but that would be a logical fallacy.
Also by calling me a troll in this debate to avoid having to accept that your opinion is just an opinion rather than fact you provide an excellent example of Painter’s Law, for this I thank you. I respect your beliefs in the same way that I respect the beliefs of a religious person, I object to you passing it off as fact in the same way I object to a religious person passing their belief off as fact.
there is no god
Prove it.
Do I need to remind you that you don’t care one way or the other?
BTW, you are either lying or deluding yourself if you say you do not care about the truth. Perhaps you don’t care about whether there is or is not any god(s) (though methinks thou doth protest too much in your post for this to be true), but you certainly care about the truth or falsity of most aspects of life. You care enough about the truth to call out those who argue from what you see as an indefensible position. If their position is indefensible, you obviously see it as false. An indefensible position is by definition false. Thus your claim that you don’t care about the truth is an indefensible claim in itself.
This is the one example (and it’s a pretty obvious one) of you caring about the truth that I can glean from reading your post. I’m sure there are plenty of other examples. For instance, you probably care whether or not a romantic partner is telling the truth when they say they love you. I’m sure you can think of many more examples.
Trolololo~
You are the one making the claim there is a god – where is your evidence? If you make the assertion that there is a god then it’s up to you to convince others that the rational null hypothesis (there is no god) is wrong. Without convincing proof that there is a god the null hypothesis stands.
Twiggy, please cite your sources, I don’t recall making a ridiculous claim that there is a god. If you had read the post you would realise that I have stated quite clearly that I do not know and we cannot know. You are as valid in your opinion that there is no god as those who believe there is a god; as neither have proof in either direction I cannot align myself with either belief.
Oh, the irony is strong with this one.
The characteristics and abilities attributed to god contradict our established and long since proven knowledge of reality. Therefore no god.
Unless of course you (or he) are willing to break the rules and ignore physics and logic. At that point you (and he) are definitively trolling.
I agree that the probability of there being a god is fairly slim but it is impossible to prove that there is no god, no fairies and no unicorns.
We have proved there is no god to a very high degree of probability , the last 600 years of scientific endeavour have shown no evidence for any ‘supernatural’ force acting within the natural world. What you personally choose to believe is irrelevant when compared to the volume of evidence.
Give some credible real-world evidence that a god exists and we will listen. Otherwise its up to you not science to put up a proof.
That is what you choose to believe and I respect that, you can’t state there is categorically no god though.
Posted here to so people can see. Sorry for double post Si.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. The idea that someone arguing a simultaneous point who hasn’t been accused of trolling at any point also is no longer included in the debate as they are obviously “trolling” themselves by having a similar point to argue. Even if arguments previously have been reasoned, thought out and accepted as so by all parties. The Davies extension in full flow, cf throwing the baby out with the bath water.
Your “Law of the Internet” is kind of correct, with one minor change. The one that is being called the troll is the one with the untenable position.
If you don’t have any interest in who is right and who is wrong, then why even bother to enter the debate on the issue. Some people actually do care who is right and who is wrong. Sure the atheists’ statements can be “called out” as you say, but the statements are correct and can be defended. It is correct that there is no evidence of a god, and it is correct that the organization prevents the evil “few” from going to prison.
You missed the point of the law, it applies when one is falsely called a troll. Never let reading get in the way of having an opinion.
Well okay, if being “falsely” called a troll is the criteria, then you are not “falsely” called a troll, you are correctly called a troll. So even your Law of the Internet doesn’t apply in this case.
By what definition am I correctly called a troll in the numerous arguments I am referring to? I am looking forward to you citing arguments you didn’t witness to support your judgement.
Go on…
How about the definition where you don’t actually CARE about whether a position is right or wrong, yet you still claim to want to “call out” the position. I’d say you would be correctly be called a troll for doing that.
OK, I’d love to know the answer but accept that I probably never will. I do, however, dislike people presenting their beliefs as fact. I seem to be getting a lot of criticism from the atheist community for staying open to all possibilities and being skeptical of people who hold beliefs not based on evidence and then presenting them as fact.
There is no Spaghetti Monster
Again I say prove it.
Oh man – this is simply evil genius. Why should trolls have to travel to troll? Simply create a post about trolling that you can then troll. Respect sir.
I think I just trolled myself.