Appeal: ad hominem
From Jay Dyer vs Mike Lowry Urantia Debate: Christianity vs Urantianism.
- #13681:42:34overturned Mike Lowry psogos: ad hominem (+1)
The council overturned the call, so no points were given away.
“Okay, well, that tells us what we need to know about Jay Dyer.”
Diogenes: Faced with the charge that his closing statement was a non sequitur resting on subjective feeling, Mike answers with a remark about Jay's character for the audience instead of the objection.Herodotus (no): This is Mike Lowry's only recorded debate on this site (against Jay Dyer, aired in multiple parts as the James Fox Higgins/Champions of the Light 'Jay Dyer vs Mike Urantia' series), so there is no prior history of Lowry engaging in a pattern of ad hominem attacks — this is a single minor remark, not a repeated tactic. By contrast, Jay Dyer himself carries the far heavier pattern here (17 upheld ad hominem faults across 24 debates), and in this very exchange Jay had just dismissed Mike's entire closing statement as worthless ('non sequitur... based on subjective feeling... doesn't get us anything') immediately before Mike's retort — so the remark reads as a single frustrated reaction to a dismissive moment rather than evidence of a personal-attack pattern by Lowry. Sources: https://jaysanalysis.com/debate-jay-dyer-vs-mike-urantia-parts-1-2-james-fox-higgins-show/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rteaOuSQL4M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rt046FDE6CM
- Aristotle overturn: On the record: Mike's declared and consistently held thesis throughout the debate is that personal spiritual effect on the individual, not objective argument, is what religion is really for; here, right after Jay dismisses his closing as worthless, this line is immediately followed by Mike restating that very thesis in contrast to Jay ("I think that's just sort of like the valley between us is that you don't care about that. And I do"), so the remark is not standing in for an answer but is woven into a continuing point. The line fails the substitution test for ad hominem (it is attached to, not instead of, Mike's continued substantive point about caring versus not caring about personal effect) and fails the aim test (it invites further contrast and conversation rather than closing the question), so under the Euthyphro-style exemption this reads as rhetoric wrapped around an argument already being made, not a jab standing in for one.
- Socrates overturn: Read blind, found nothing worth calling. The sarcastic preface ("that was fantastic... that ending was amazing") is rhetoric, but it is not a substitute for an answer: Mike immediately follows it with the substantive point he had just been building at 101:16 — that the disagreement is not about logic but about differing priorities, "you don't care about that, and I do" — restating his standing thesis that personal spiritual effect, not formal argument, is what religion is for. Like a barb wrapped around a real point, it scores nothing on either ledger.
- Plato overturn: On the record: Mike has held since the opening monologue that personal/inward connection with God is primary and doctrine or objective argument secondary, and the called line — read with its own immediate follow-up — restates that value-contrast rather than substituting an insult for a missing answer. The line is vague standing alone, but Mike immediately unpacks it into a substantive point about the debate's central fault-line ("the valley between us is that you don't care about that. And I do") — a restatement of his framework, held since the opening, that personal spiritual connection rather than objective argument is what matters, contrasted with Jay's stated priority of objective standards. That is a jab attached to an actual characterization of the disagreement, not mockery substituting for one, and it is reasonably grounded in what Jay has himself repeatedly emphasized throughout (dismissing subjective/experiential appeals as worthless).
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