Appeal: self-contradiction
From Jay Dyer vs Mike Lowry Urantia Debate: Christianity vs Urantianism.
- #13781:51:25overturned Mike Lowry psogos: self-contradiction (+1)
The council overturned the call, so no points were given away.
“I don't even care.”
Diogenes: Mike insists he has "a lot in common" with the third to sixth century Christians, but when asked whether he knows what they actually held he says he does not care — the commonality claim cannot be maintained alongside indifference to its content.- Aristotle overturn: On the record: Mike's position in this stretch of the debate is that spiritual continuity, not doctrinal identity, is what he claims with historic Christians; "I don't even care" [about their detailed doctrine] is a restatement of that distinction, not a contradiction of the commonality he claims. Mike had just articulated, moments earlier in this same exchange, that continuity is spiritual rather than doctrinal ("You think that having the same spirit means believing all the same details" / "as errored as in their dogma and theology as they may have been... the spirit was fostering them"). "I don't even care" answers Jay's specific challenge about whether Mike has read the church fathers to verify doctrinal agreement — and Mike immediately clarifies "I have the spirit in common with them, and I know that," which is the same distinction, not a reversal of it. His commonality claim was never grounded in exhaustive doctrinal knowledge, so indifference to that knowledge does not contradict it.
- Socrates overturn: Read blind, found nothing worth calling. Taken alone, this is a terse but substantive answer consistent with Mike's stated framework throughout: commonality with the fathers rests for him on shared spirit-connection rather than agreement on doctrinal specifics he hasn't studied, so declining to "care" about reading them is a restatement of that position, not a new dodge or fallacy.
- Plato overturn: On the record: Mike has held since the opening (and reaffirmed moments earlier in this very exchange, "I have the spirit in common with them, and I know that... You were talking about the doctrines in common with them") that spiritual continuity, not doctrinal matching, is his standard of commonality with historical Christians; "I don't even care" responds to Jay's demand that he verify doctrinal alignment, which is exactly the axis Mike has already said he does not weight. This is not a contradiction but a restatement of a distinction Mike drew explicitly just before the quoted line: his "commonality" claim was about shared spirit, not shared doctrine, so declaring indifference to whether the specific doctrinal content of third-to-sixth-century Christians matches his own is consistent with, not contrary to, his standing framework.
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