This is something I wrote on another board, pasted here for preservation and/or discussion (and for future reference).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Okay, I'm going to explain to you, through analogy, why theists always feel that intellectuals are always taking the "high ground":
<analogy>
Imagine that you enter a room and among the folks there, there is a fellow who says that he loves chess. In fact, he claims that although he has played many masters, he has never lost a game. Since you enjoy the game, you decide that it would be fun to play him. If you win, the game will have been fun, and if you lose, you will certainly benefit because you consider every loss is a learning experience. You ask him to play, and he agrees. Everyone in the room is buzzing now, because although no one in the room really knows how to play the game, they are familiar with terms like "checkmate", and they know intuitively that the person with the most stuff on the board is probably winning. They all gather around to watch.
You make your first move, and he counters. You notice he refers to pawns as "pieces", but you figure that's no big deal. It's odd for a strong player to refer to pawns as pieces, but you decide it really isn't relevant. Who cares what he calls them, right? Also, he starts by moving his outside pawns - also strange for a strong player. But hey, maybe he knows something you don't know, right? After all, the game is far from decided, and his position is far from being lost at this point.
The first real snag comes when you try to castle and he looks you deadpan in the eyes with an incredulous smirk and says "Come on now, you can't just make moves up as you go along!" Astounded, you show him your USCF card and tell him that, as a tournament player, you can assure him it's a legal move. He begrudgingly allows it, and then, not one to be shown up, he castles too, except he passes his King through an attacked square. You point out to him that this isn't legal, and now he's convinced that you're just making the rules up as you go along. He declares to the room "Oh, okay. You wanna play that way!", looks around the room shaking his head with a condescending frown and shake of his head, and everyone around him giggles.
You tell him once again that you are not making up the rules. The rules are set by an official organization and are freely available for anyone to read. In fact, you go so far as to hand him a copy of the rulebook and tell him what page the rules to castling are on. He tosses the book aside and declares he knows the rules.
Pretty soon you have a winning position, and your opponent - completely unfazed by what is going on with the game - jumps his queen around like a knight. You stand up and say "Hold on - you can't do that!". Your opponent, with a straight face, says "You just did the very same thing 7 moves ago!" Now you're getting annoyed. You tell him "Look, I did no such thing. I've been playing for years. I'm a competitive tournament player, and I would never do such a thing. And if I ever did, you should've pointed it out right away." Your opponent, undeterred, says "Well, you did, and this is where I'm moving my queen!"
You show him that you have been writing the moves down and challange him to show you where you made an illegal move. Your opponent waves your notes off and tells you he doesn't have time for that, that we shouldn't be worrying about such trivialities, and that you should just quit complaining and play the game.
Your position is still winning, but not so much as it was a minute ago. You decide to once again allow this breach, because you are convinced you will beat him anyway. He's clearly not a strong player, so you can actually deal with moving the occasional illegal move.
Eventually, you put him in a forced-mate position that requires a queen sacrifice. You declare mate-in-three, and your opponent scoffs and looks around the room at everyone, shaking his head at the prospect that he could possibly lose. He even spins his finger around his ear and winks at people, in a gesture that indicates that his opponent is a nut. After two moves, he sees the danger that you had already told him about, and with his final move, promotes his pawn to a King. Now he has two Kings on the board, so if you mate one, he still has the other.
You have had enough. You stand up and say "This is ridiculous. It's clear you do not know how this game is played. I understand you're using chess pieces, but what you're playing is not chess. If you don't know how the game is played, that fine, but I'm not going to play you!"
Your opponent stands up and says "Oh, quit whining! Everyone here can see you were losing this game, and now you want to quit because I took your queen from you, and everyone knows the queen is the most important piece on the board. It's obvious you lost. Why don't you just admit it? After all, look at all the pieces I have (pointing at the pawns)! I still have my queen, too, and you don�t. So you lose. Ha!"
Now you're just completely agitated, and you decide not to pull punches. "You have no clue how the game of chess is played. I haven't lost, and I'm not resigning my position. I simply WON'T play you any more because not only are you a lousy player, you don't even know the rules!"
You opponent smugly looks around and says "See that everyone? This guy thinks he's so much better than all of us because he's a tournament player and blah blah blah. So he knows a few rules. I know them too, and I don't need some book to tell me what they are. My way of playing is just as good as his! This guy is a SNOB because he thinks that HIS rules are BETTER than MINE! Well, let me tell you, my rules are JUST as valid as his, and if he won't play anymore, it's because he knows he can't win. He got his butt handed to him, and decided to quit when he lost his queen. He would obviously rather belittle me than play a cool, calm game of chess."
</analogy>
It's very frustrating to play someone who NOT ONLY doesn't know the rules but REFUSES to look them up, and then declares that his way of doing things is every bit as valid as yours. Theists do exactly that, especially some on this board. They claim that their "logic" is just as good as anyone elses, when in reality, it isn't logic at all. But of course, if you try to educate them, and even point them in the right direction where they can learn what the "rules" are, they see no need to put the effort out. In their minds, any group of words is just as valid as any other group. No need to learn the rules of logic or reason! We can all just make any moves we want.
And then they get SO offended when you finally throw your hands up and say "Look, you have NO IDEA how this game is played." They call you a snob and accuse you of taking the intellectual high-ground and whatnot.
In the game of chess, you can't just move any piece anywhere you want and still call it "chess". In debate, you cannot just spout any old series of connected words and call it "reason" or "logic". When you DO that, you LOSE the respect of your opponent. Is it any wonder that advocates of reason don't respect theists who not only don't KNOW the rules of logic and reason, but don't even CARE to learn what they are?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
