Appeal: misrepresentation
From Jay Dyer vs Mike Lowry Urantia Debate: Christianity vs Urantianism.
- #19781:48:32upheld Jay Dyer psogos: misrepresentation (+1)
The council upheld the call: Jay Dyer gave away 1 point.
“… and it left the church. Right? So there's some blackout for you.”
Diogenes: Mike had said the church erred in emphasis, not that the Spirit left it, and he flatly denied the attributed view ("The church never lost the spirit").- Aristotle uphold: On the record: Jay has held throughout that any departure from Orthodox continuity amounts to a "blackout" or discontinuity in the historic church, and here applies that framing to Mike by asserting Mike thinks the Holy Spirit "left the church" after Pentecost; but Mike's own stated position, both before and explicitly afterward ("The church never lost the spirit... the spirit was fostering them through those [errors]"), is that doctrine drifted while the Spirit remained, which the transcript shows is a different and denied claim. Jay attributes to Mike a specific claim ("it left the church") that Mike never made and that Mike explicitly rejects moments later in the same exchange, which is precisely what misrepresentation requires: a stated attribution the transcript shows the opponent did not hold.
- Socrates overturn: Read blind, found "explicit argument". Jay states the premises plainly: Christ promised the Spirit would lead the church into all truth, yet Mike's position requires that this same church later fell into (what Mike calls) the Pauline error of the atonement doctrine; the conclusion he draws is that Mike's view therefore commits him to a "blackout" period where the Spirit's guidance failed, contrary to the promise. This is a structured inference from a stated premise to a named consequence, not mere mockery.
- Plato uphold: On the record: Jay has held throughout his recurring "blackout point" theory that any rival view which locates church error at some point implies total apostasy from that point; here he states this inference as Mike's own claim ("you think that it did... it left the church") rather than as his own argued inference, and Mike's actual, denied position is narrower. Jay states as Mike's view that the Holy Spirit "left the church" at some point after Pentecost, but Mike's consistent position — both immediately in reply ("the church is the body of believers, but not believers in your doctrine") and later explicitly ("The church never lost the spirit... the spirit was fostering them through those [times]") — is that the church retained the Spirit while drifting into a specific doctrinal error (Paul's atonement teaching), not that the Spirit departed. The transcript shows Mike directly denying the attributed claim rather than holding it.
- Thesmothetes uphold: By the rule: do not complete the argument for the speaker. Socrates would credit Jay with an "explicit argument" — granting Mike's stated view (Spirit remained, doctrine drifted) and deriving "it left the church" as its entailment — but the transcript shows no such derivation: Jay simply declares "you think that it did... and it left the church. Right?" as a flat attribution, never walking from Mike's actual premise (fostered-through-error) to that conclusion. That missing link is one the judge would have to supply, which the rule forbids; without it, the line is exactly what it looks like on its face, an attributed belief the transcript shows Mike does not hold and immediately denies ("No"; later, "The church never lost the spirit... the spirit was fostering them through those errors"). Aristotle and Plato have it right: this is misrepresentation, not argument.
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