It always bother me when atheists argue about the right way to argue with believers. This presupposes that there is a single Right Way. Personally, I’m happy that I live in a world where there are blunt and uncompromising people like Richard Dawkins, and people who take a gentler approach. And I’m happy that there are people using David Brin’s clever Bible-quoting tricks. The combination of multiple approaches is more effective than picking one and using it consistently.
You’re just arguing that a “mixed strategy” (rather than a “pure strategy”) is better, which might well be true, in which case we should figure out which mixed strategy is the Right Way...
Different atheists also perform differently with different strategies. Thus, taking into account comparative advantage, unless there is a severe shortage or excess of practitioners of a strategy, or a strategy’s usefulness has been severely misjudged, the Right Way is simply for everyone to keep doing whatever they’re best at. Hence “don’t criticize each others’ strategies” rather than “75% of incendiaries should switch to being diplomats”.
On re-reading, I agree with you. I’m pretty sure that a reasonable argument can be made that closely resembles what I said, so I’m just going to post this instead of strikethrough-ifying that comment.
It always bother me when atheists argue about the right way to argue with believers. This presupposes that there is a single Right Way. Personally, I’m happy that I live in a world where there are blunt and uncompromising people like Richard Dawkins, and people who take a gentler approach. And I’m happy that there are people using David Brin’s clever Bible-quoting tricks. The combination of multiple approaches is more effective than picking one and using it consistently.
You’re just arguing that a “mixed strategy” (rather than a “pure strategy”) is better, which might well be true, in which case we should figure out which mixed strategy is the Right Way...
(I’m not sure how your comment was relevant.)
Different atheists also perform differently with different strategies. Thus, taking into account comparative advantage, unless there is a severe shortage or excess of practitioners of a strategy, or a strategy’s usefulness has been severely misjudged, the Right Way is simply for everyone to keep doing whatever they’re best at. Hence “don’t criticize each others’ strategies” rather than “75% of incendiaries should switch to being diplomats”.
On re-reading, I agree with you. I’m pretty sure that a reasonable argument can be made that closely resembles what I said, so I’m just going to post this instead of strikethrough-ifying that comment.