It’s not how he’s conducted the discussions. See the OP and the use of the word, for example, ‘must’ then also ‘objective’.
Calling Serendipper’s position crazy does not, to my mind down with what Betrand Russell says. It is the kind of speech utterly ruling out the position someone disagrees with.
An example of a response to an arguement of mine…
In response to you - who actually writes in the spirit of what Bertrand Russell said and get punished for it …
But I fear at best pointing this out will only get at they style. IOW Prismatic certainly could have posted more politely in response to arguments he disagreed with. But that is only one part of the problem. He determines what is objective, often with an appeal to an authority. Other people do not determine what is objective. One post I made with a variety of arguments he referred to as shallow - which seems very confused to me - because, it seems, I did not appeal to authorities. Which kind of misses the point of my criticism which was in part the relation of a non-theist, non-Christian to authorities, but also is part of a continual framing other people’s arguments as not appealing to authorities enough, with summations of his own positions as objective.
Fine, he doesn’t understand how idiosyncratic his ideas about objectivity are, nor does he address certain issues that are raised.
But the entire attitude is fundamentally that he is objective and would notice an argument that challenged his in some way. We have pointed out that this latter claim seems not to be the case. This has not affected him at all.
I would rather not create a more polite version of Prismatic, because the kinds of impolitenesses above actually serve as strong clues that this is someone who knows he is right in precisely the way Betrand Russell is saying is not a good idea.
One extra irony is that my position is that I don’t think I can determine who is a Christian objectively so I decide to accept other people’s self assessment. IOW I think my position is more in line with the implicit humility in BR’s idea. I am saying that since I cannot determine, given the epistemological limitations I have, I will tend to accept other people’s self-assessments. You, Fanman, also seem more flexible and have a practical and not fixed position. Serendipper was much certain, I think, as Prismatic, not that this makes his position crazy, but we approached the issue from positions that were more cautious about what one can know around this issue, especially as non-Christians. The details of that criticism – him not being Christian - never seem to be understood by Prismatic, but to find now this Bertrand Russell quote presented to you as somehow reflecting his approach is actually galling.
But also funny.