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Your exasperation is the result of your own dogmatism

Posted by Steve Eddy on August 2, 2003 at 00:39:07:
Steve, you like to play devil's advocate from both sides! This is too much to defend because it is hard to follow what to counter and when.
Sorry, Kurt, but I don't play devil's advocate.
Playing this game gets you in trouble from everyone. Good luck with it. It's more frustration than I can bear. At least you're honest.
Not playing any games either.
The worst times that frustrate folks is when you yourself get confused in your own arguments and lose track which side you're now defending and why.
That's the whole problem, Kurt, SIDES!
Some people have taken up sides based on what amounts to nothing more than leaps of faith. In other words, dogma. You've got the "yeaysayers" dogmatically clinging to their side and the "naysayers" dogmatically clinging to their side.
Theists and atheists.
If a theist asks me "Do you believe in God?" I would answer no. And they would likely assume I'm an atheist. If an atheist asks me "Do you disbelieve in God?" I would also answer no. And they would likely assume that I'm a theist. And they would both be wrong. I'm neither theist or atheist. To be either would require a leap of faith which I find wholly irrational. There's no conclusive proof either way. So for now, I remain agnostic.
And if an atheist or theist saw me taking issue with claims made both by theists and by atheists, they might also conclude as you have that I'm simply fucking with them, playing a disingenuous game of devil's advocate, alternately defending one "side" then the other. And again they would both be wrong.
I wouldn't be playing devil's advocate, I'd be saying that I don't see that EITHER position is a tenable position.
Dogmatists have a hard time dealing with that concept because dogmatists simply aren't comfortable dealing with the notion of "we don't really know." A dogmatist HAS to know. And lacking any convincing objective evidence one way or the other, they simply take leaps of faith one way or the other.
So when I take issue with things said both by "yeasayers" and "naysayers" I'm not playing a game of devil's advocacy and trying to defend both sides. Quite the opposite. I'm saying that NEITHER side's position is a tenable position.
The fact is that the "yeasayers" haven't a shred of convincing objective evidence to support their claims and that lack of evidence doesn't prove the "naysayers'" claims. So why would any rational person dogmatically cling to either "side"?
I simply don't understand it.
To say that I'm playing devil's advocate is to say that I must be either a "yeaysayer" or a "naysayer." Or a theist or an atheist. But I'm neither. I don't know for certain one way or the other. And so far it seems, neither does anyone else. And choosing to dogmatically believe one way or the other doesn't make it so.
se