Will Challenges Chris Smith to a Formal Public Debate

[_Droopy]

http://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/560 ... 1209060503

Will has now asked Chris to bring everything he has forward and lay it out on the table of public debate (as opposed to his continual claiming that he has devastated and refuted Will et al's arguments in sundry drive by posts here and there). Chris initially responded with the very kind of argument by assertion and chest thumping less actual evidence presentation that Will has identified as a major problem in Chris's approach to the issue ("One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six (just for the heck of it). Then there's the published paper you completely ignored in your presentation. And there's this post by Brent. And this is just scratching the surface. The rebuttals are so abundant that it must have taken a special kind of amnesia to forget about them.").

Will then responded with what now has become rather obvious:

I have prepared a detailed reply where I have actually pulled in all the text behind every one of the links he provides. But I have decided to delay posting my reply in order to challenge someone, anyone to follow the links Smith has provided and then attempt to identify in the video and posts behind them anything that you believe constitutes a substantive counter-argument to my arguments that the EA/GAEL is dependent on a pre-existing text of the Book of Abraham.

Will Chris now pick up the gauntlet Will has thrown down and cease his claims of having definitively refuted Will's apologetic arguments and actually come to the formal table of debate with all his evidence and put his arguments into the crucible to be tested in direct contest with his opposition?

We shall see. We've already observed, in the recent past, Metcalf's unequivocal avoidance of this same table of debate with the same individual on the same issue (odd Chris should mention him here), but hope, as they say, springs (almost) eternal.

[_Buffalo]

If Chris accepts, what do you want to bet that Will will puss out at usual?

[_MsJack]

One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six (just for the heck of it). Then there's the published paper you completely ignored in your presentation. And there's this post by Brent. And this is just scratching the surface. The rebuttals are so abundant that it must have taken a special kind of amnesia to forget about them.

In his OP, Droopy removed the links from Chris's original comment. Of course, four of the seven actual links in Chris's comment were ruined by MDDB's anti-MDB text-editing software. Two posts later, William kindly re-posted Chris's links with tinyurls (and, mysteriously, was not banned from MDDB for circumventing the forum's anti-MDB software as other posters have been), so I have used the tinyurl links as provided by William. I have replaced what Droopy removed and cited it above so that posters can judge for themselves what Chris actually provided as a response.

Droopy also failed to provide the reply that Chris already gave to William's challenge in the thread itself:

After your behavior here, probably not. But talk to me again in January after I'm done with my quals.

Now that the OP has been properly contextualized, carry on.

[_MrStakhanovite]

Debating is a game, and is not a valid method of finding the truth, merely a means to walk one’s rhetoric for a little exercise. Will would rely more on his lame community theater histrionics (and rightly so) than any sort of scholarship.

This challenge is merely part of Will’s game; he’s rack up more and more conditions till Chris tells him to go away, so he can proudly claim that Chris backed down from a debate. This is all part of his false macho bravado, along the same lines of what he told Cam some time ago when Cam challenged him to a boxing match (or some such thing) and Will told him that when he fights, he fights to the death (this attitude is generally understood as a sign of incompetence in the Infantry), and invoked a war criminal as his example.

I’d suggest to Will that he get his work published in a venue where informed people can examine it under a proper lens, and stop dicking around trying debate grad students about topics most people don’t follow or care about.

[_Droopy]

If Chris accepts, what do you want to bet that Will will puss out at usual?

It wasn't Will who "pussed out" that last time, but Metcalf who, with a polished, sophisticated circumnavigation of the idea of an open, formal debate as Will presented to him, fled from the opportunity. My sense is that Chris is going to follow exactly the same path at the end of the day.

[_MrStakhanovite]

Hey Loran, didn't that happen in the same thread where you claimed to have debated in a formal academic setting, but upon questioning, it turned out that it was just some kind of speech class?

[_Chap]

Debating is a game, and is not a valid method of finding the truth, merely a means to walk one’s rhetoric for a little exercise. Will would rely more on his lame community theater histrionics (and rightly so) than any sort of scholarship.

This challenge is merely part of Will’s game; he’s rack up more and more conditions till Chris tells him to go away, so he can proudly claim that Chris backed down from a debate. This is all part of his false macho bravado, along the same lines of what he told Cam some time ago when Cam challenged him to a boxing match (or some such thing) and Will told him that when he fights, he fights to the death (this attitude is generally understood as a sign of incompetence in the Infantry), and invoked a war criminal as his example.

I’d suggest to Will that he get his work published in a venue where informed people can examine it under a proper lens, and stop dicking around trying debate grad students about topics most people don’t follow or care about.

+ (rather a lot), especially the bolded and underlined bit.

[_Droopy]

In his OP, Droopy removed the links from Chris's original comment.

No, I just didn't post them, which is hardly relevant as anyone can go to the original thread and find them there all by themselves.

I have replaced what Droopy removed and cited it above so that posters can judge for themselves what Chris actually provided as a response.

And, as Will has been saying for quite sometime now, these responses are not, in any sense, substantive refutations of Will's arguments, but primarily drive-by rock throwing. That is why a lengthy, formal debate in which Chris does more than claim he has refuted Will, but actually does so, if he can, is called for.

Droopy also failed to provide the reply that Chris already gave to William's challenge in the thread itself:

Yes, and Will then provided links to each and every argument himself, including yet another link to his video, and observed:

Again, please someone, check these links out. See what Smith has done.

Absolutely incredible. No wonder he wants to avoid a formal debate.

Yes, no wonder.

[_Drifting]

Maybe Chris will debate Will in the period following publication of Will's long awaited, much vaunted, previously pulled, piece of work.

When/where will that be?

[_Molok]

Poor Will. Everyone is out to get him.