Please critique my arguments

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zertech

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So i got into a debate the other day. Both of the people i was debating with their have spent a significant amount of time in the past trying to prove me im wrong in my beliefs.

Id just like to get some other’s opinions on how i responded to things and whether you think it was a good way to respond or not. Specifically my last response, so if you dont want to read the whole thing maybe you could just read the last part.

I photo shopped together the conversation and blacked out last names just to respect their privacy.

Oh yeah btw, im sean.
Here is a link so you can see the thing full sized

the comments were in reply to this graph thing i posted.
http://a5.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hpho...1360_342105489166811_1044787_1080281791_n.jpg
http://img32.imageshack.us/img32/4283/debateh.png
 
Show me the data.

Figures don’t lie, but…

The key points on the graph are, I think:

1.) Narrowing the selection to those that are “at risk” for an unwanted pregnancy.
2.) Not limiting the response to artifical birth control.

I would hope that 100% of Catholic women “at risk” for an unwanted pregnancy were practicing natural means of “birth control”.

We are also missing some key qualifying data points that would help us draw conclusions about the data. For example if we segment the respondants by those who attend mass weekly and those who do not. If we segment the data by those who are married and those who are not. etc.

I would hope, for example, that 100% of the women engaging in sex outside of marriage don’t add to the sin of fornication the stupidity of exposing themselves to STDs and unwanted pregnancy. So if “100%” of the “19%” fall in that group, I wouldn’t necessarily think the results of the survey were a bad thing.

I would suspect that we would see dramatic differences in the responses within various sub groups.

That said, 98% is, I think absurd at face value. I’d be willing to bet that no where near 98% of women, in general, are practicing safe sex.

If they were, we wouldn’t have millions of abortions every year.

Chuck
zertech said:
So i got into a debate the other day. Both of the people i was debating with their have spent a significant amount of time in the past trying to prove me im wrong in my beliefs.

Id just like to get some other’s opinions on how i responded to things and whether you think it was a good way to respond or not. Specifically my last response, so if you dont want to read the whole thing maybe you could just read the last part.

I photo shopped together the conversation and blacked out last names just to respect their privacy.

Oh yeah btw, im sean.
Here is a link so you can see the thing full sized

the comments were in reply to this graph thing i posted.
http://a5.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hpho...1360_342105489166811_1044787_1080281791_n.jpg
Click to expand...
 
I think your focus is wrong. You’re debating statistics. Who cares? Go ahead and stipulate (for the sake of discussion) that 100% of Catholic women - each and every one of them - uses artificial birth control, regardless of age. Then ask how that is relevant to the discussion?

It’s not. These women are not the ones being required to provide contraception. The CHURCH is being required. Maybe no Catholic woman would have any moral objection (according to our stipulation), but the Church (as has been pointed out MANY times) is not run by women. It is run by the Holy Spirit through the Magesterium.

If Catholic women want to disregard the teachings of the Magesterium, that’s their business. But don’t expect the *Church *to pay for it.
 
“Figures lie and Liars figure.” Mark Twain. Or did he say “There are lies, ______ Lies and then there are statistics!”

Good grief I will never accept statistics unless I do it myself. Have you ever noticed that the people that offer a statistical social survey have a vested interest?:rolleyes:
 
Statistics schmamisitics. You know, statistics hardly ever are right, because hardly ever is the entire population of a group actually considered in the survey. A group of Catholics were polled, so then that group was stuck with the title “all Catholics”. While statistics do present a good, general, survey, I wouldn’t rely on them for a penny.

I like your graphic, too!
 
Zertech you make me proud to be a catholic. If you ever need advice on defense of our faith please don’t hesitate to message me personally. I do the same thing you do. Defend catholisim on facebook amidst controversy. I also do this in the real world but people seem to just get mad at me in person. I think you did well. I think your friends had weak rebuttals compared to your solid argument. Keep it up. God bless you on your journey in faith you warrior of the truth, for Christs church. Don’t stop in your defense. Never relent with evangelization or apologetics but do so with reverence and gentleness. 👍
 
PeterJohn said:
Zertech you make me proud to be a catholic. If you ever need advice on defense of our faith please don’t hesitate to message me personally. I do the same thing you do. Defend catholisim on facebook amidst controversy. I also do this in the real world but people seem to just get mad at me in person. I think you did well. I think your friends had weak rebuttals compared to your solid argument. Keep it up. God bless you on your journey in faith you warrior of the truth, for Christs church. Don’t stop in your defense. Never relent with evangelization or apologetics but do so with reverence and gentleness. 👍
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Wow, thank you. I needed that. Ive been encountering alot of anti religious and anti catholic stuff lately. Its become pretty much a daily routine to be participating in these debates, and it is so stressful. Im constantly questioning myself and wondering if i represented Catholocism and God in a truthful caring manner. So it is good to hear from someone that im communicating in a good way. I do debate with people face to face aswell, and usually i find them a bit more subdued. Its harder to be nasty when you gotta attack the person face to face, however usually people are less rational face to face. They start off subdued, but the more you challenge their points, and the more they realize their logic is not defending their understandings, the more angry they get.

As for those who are hating on statistics, i think your mis-guided.
Statistics are incredibly important to ensuring one’s view of reality is indeed valid. What we all need to do is educate ourselves about how to anylize and properly understand statistics.
 
Good on you for defending our faith zertech! However, I’d like to add a few suggestions for next time.

First of all, if you’re going to have debates on facebook (and PLEASE try to avoid them, because most people on FB are fairly lacking in both theological knowledge and general knowledge (depending on the people you know of course)), do so in messages. That way, not only do you not clog up a picture with comments, but you keep the debate a bit more civil (if what they say isn’t going to be seen by anyone else, they might be less inclined to be polarized to “look tough” for everyone else and more inclined to be rational in the debate).

Secondly, your first response could have been a bit better. The first commenter essentially posted a red herring and you countered it by using another red herring, at least, that’s what it appeared to do. You could have responded by pressing her by what she meant. You might have also said something along the lines of “A truth is no less truthful if everyone does the opposite of it. Peace is desirable. This is truthful, yes? Yet, throughout human history we have gone to war countless times. Does that make peace any less desirable or truthful?” Now, that might refute her original claim, and then you could go on to explain the figures in the graph, to stay more to the point.

Thirdly, and one of the other posters suggested it, you could go completely objective and say that “It doesn’t matter if 100% of Catholic women use contraception, the CHURCH itself is being asked to provide it”. This, it seems, gets to the heart of the argument. You can use a parallel and say “What if 100% of Jews ate pork? Would it still be ok to force Jewish delis and schools to serve pork? No, of course not, because regardless of whether the belief is followed by people or not, it is still wrong to force an organization (especially a religious one) to provide a service which they believe is immoral”.

Finally, when the commenter inevitably brings up the argument of “Well, contraception is a right!”, then just follow what this man says: patheos.com/blogs/badcatholic/2012/02/is-contraception-a-right.html . That pretty much sums up the counter argument.

Anyway, good luck!
 
Your right, i probably could have started off with a better tone. Usually i would, although Danielle has a history of being rather…disagreeable when it comes to these types of things so i guess i got defensive when i shouldn’t have.
 
First rule of apologetics, Sean. Don’t let anyone get away with a statement with no proof. I see hypocricy mentioned several times.

Ask them: What hypocrisy? Make them be specific.

Begin the tear down of their incorrect belief system that way. Make sure you help guide them to the right way of thinking.
 
DavidFilmer said:
I think your focus is wrong. You’re debating statistics. Who cares? Go ahead and stipulate (for the sake of discussion) that 100% of Catholic women - each and every one of them - uses artificial birth control, regardless of age. Then ask how that is relevant to the discussion?

It’s not. These women are not the ones being required to provide contraception. The CHURCH is being required. Maybe no Catholic woman would have any moral objection (according to our stipulation), but the Church (as has been pointed out MANY times) is not run by women. It is run by the Holy Spirit through the Magesterium.

If Catholic women want to disregard the teachings of the Magesterium, that’s their business. But don’t expect the *Church *to pay for it.
Click to expand...
Exactly. This is the one and only argument. You should not move on to a second argument until the other party agrees on this.
 
CatholicTrekkie said:
You can use a parallel and say “What if 100% of Jews ate pork? Would it still be ok to force Jewish delis and schools to serve pork? No, of course not, because regardless of whether the belief is followed by people or not, it is still wrong to force an organization (especially a religious one) to provide a service which they believe is immoral”.
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That’s a great follow-up. But to drive the point even further, how about forcing Jewish delis to give pork away for free, at their expense?
 
Hey, folks. These figures are basically true, but they are also very misleading. I recently published a full reassessment of the 98% number in a study on my blog. You can find it here:

” – The James J. Heaney InstituteCountering Conventional Wisdom

A quick summary of my findings is here:

jamesjheaney.com/decivitate/2012/02/24/the-james-j-heaney-institute-presents-a-new-study-of-religion-and-contraceptive-use/

Partial extract:
Among all practicing Catholic women ages 15-44, almost exactly half are living in accordance with Church teaching on sexuality, chastity, and marriage, while the other half (49.9%) are using methods of artificial birth control.
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Since the male and female 15-44 cohorts combined represent 45% of the American population, we can further estimate, ceteris paribus, that about 77% of the people in the Catholic pews every Sunday are living (or trying to live) in accordance with Church teaching on human sexuality.
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14% of practicing Catholics age 17 or older have never used any method of artificial birth control. (17 is the average age of first sexual intercourse for American women, according to the Guttmacher Institute.) The corresponding figure for non-religious women 17 or older is half that, at 7%.
Click to expand...
You may find some of these figures useful.
 
yellow8yellowM said:
Exactly. This is the one and only argument. You should not move on to a second argument until the other party agrees on this.
Click to expand...
I agree. This gets to the heart of the matter and “spears the elephant in the room”. Using this argument, the whole justification for the HHS mandate falls apart (not that there was any correct justification to begin with). I’d go with that.
 
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