Stupid people practice "idealism."
During the 1960's, Al Capp published the L'il Abner comic strip. Blatantly anti-American, Capp began moving to the right as new tales of Communist atrocities came in. He was speaking at a college where a female student accused him of groping her.
Questioned by the police, Capp easily proved that he had been at a reception that included the college president at the time of the alleged incident. Police then arrested the student for filing a false report. She openly admitted that she had made it up, stating that someone had to do something to stop Capp. And letters to the editor came pouring in, defending her, because she had lied for a "good" reason. And that was my introduction to idealism.
Idealism: The doctrine that my belief is so important that any sin I commit to spread that belief is good.
Stupid people believe that the stronger a statement is, the truer it is.
A statement has a certain amount of strength. If the statement is shouted, it becomes stronger. If the statement is accompanied by pounding the table, yelling, and threats, it becomes stronger still.
But it does not become truer.
When I taught Christian school, we had stupid parents who would believe their children if the child cried, shrieked, screamed, etc., while lying. While these performances did make the student's statements stronger, they did not make the statements any truer.
But my favorite instance involved an adult. A deacon named Mike was quietly talking to a church trouble-maker in a hallway. I happened to pass the other end of the hall, saw them talking calmly, and went on. Later, she went to the deacons, accusing Mike of shouting insults at her during the conversation. To her surprise, Mike told the deacons that I had seen the conversation.
Called before the deacons, I explained that I had seen them both talking calmly. At this point, she pushed her chair back from the table and howled at the ceiling. The deacons went into shock. Having taught school for some time, I remained calm, waited until she was done howling, and continued calmly.
Stupid people believe that the stronger a statement is, the truer it is. But that is not true.
Stupid People Believe the Eyewitness Testimony of People who Didn't See What Happened...
...and Liars Know This
One of the most effective lying techniques I saw as a teacher was to gather as many eyewitnesses as possible. It was usually the same group of students, who had often been in other classrooms at the time of the incident. But it also included the same group of enraged parents who had not been in the classroom at the time.
Remember that stupid people believe that the stronger a statement is, the truer it is. By assembling a pile of eyewitnesses, a liar made his case stronger--not truer, but stronger.
And people who knew that the eyewitnesses had not seen what had happened accepted their testimony.
Stupid People Love a Mob
Weak-minded people love to join a fight without understanding what is happening. Enraged parents could often recruit allies who were stupid enough to believe their accusations. The weak-minded people found themselves being believed, even though they themselves did not understand what they were saying. They try to convert people to the enraged person's side, without realizing that most people are intelligent enough to stay out of the conflict.
Side track: Does anybody remember Dan Taylor, on another forum, insisting that the principal of the Southern Baptist school where Dan was teaching was involved with immorality with a minor?
On May 18, the principal was arrested:
http://corinthtoday.com/2016/05/18/man-w...ords-show/
An interesting part of Dan's story concerns his discussion with school staff after Dan went to the authorities. The meeting included death threats, beating threats, and several people shouting accusations. With no one except the principal as an eyewitness, the enraged group unanimously agreed that Dan was wrong. This made the principal's statements very strong. But not necessarily true.
Okay, getting back to where we started: How to argue with stupid people.
A few years back, I was posting on a Christian forum when a group of Calvinists united to attack and seize the Baptist thread. A Calvinist became moderator and would routinely accept any complaints Calvinists made against people who insulted them back.
I learned an important lesson: you must stay calm when attacked on a forum. And I learned a second, surprising lesson--some people will go mad with rage if you do stay calm.
One fellow went berserk because I would not answer him. His accusations became steadily more hysterical, while I kept showing from Scripture the errors of Calvin's pagan philosophies, and ignored him. Posters wrote in that I was deliberately provoking him, although I didn't say anything to him.
The Calvinists won because the moderator kept banning people who insulted back at the Calvinists, and the formerly-successful thread now belongs to them.
But I walked off with some valuable knowledge: calmness is absolutely necessary when arguing with stupid people.
I am not a calm person, so here are some things that will help me stay calm:
1) Accept responsibility for your actions. I have seen people go into a rage on Christian forums, and then explain that that it wasn't really them. Then who was it? Later, they would go into a rage again, explaining that it was the fault of the person who got them angry. Baloney!
2) Do not fight with people whom God blesses. Jesus explained that if you bear fruit, His Father would purge you so you would bear more fruit. It is not your responsibility to "straighten him out."
Decades ago, I learned a very valuable lesson from John R. Rice books. Rice cited the passage stating that when Israel laid siege to a city, they were not to destroy the fruit-bearing trees. We are not to destroy Christians who bear fruit, even if they are not on our side.
3) Do not respect a person who does not bear fruit. Of course they use insults, accusations, and name-calling on you. And by the way, a stupid person will never admit that you won.
4) If you honestly believe that you should respond with insults, walk away. Later, you will change your mind.
Decades ago, the pastor of a Baptist church started Fighting Fundamentalist Forums as a site mostly dedicated to HAC. A hurricane later destroyed his uninsured church (Your opinion is as good as mine) and FFF has gone through several rebirths and owners ever since.
At one time, FFF had literally thousands of hits per day and was one of the most popular, if not the most popular, Christian sites on the web.
With a blend of lies, truths, insults, explanations, hate, help, gossip, and useful information, speculation, and inside information, FFF steadily showed that HAC is FAR more corrupted by sin than its alumni ever realized.
Jim Vineyard had so many church problems in Oklahoma over the site's disclosure of his sins that he had staff members post under phony names defending him. FBCH had so many problems that Jack Schaap had to blast the site from the pulpit on various occasions.
And scorners devastated the site. A small number of posters would rip into people who disagreed with them, steadily driving the site down until only a couple dozen regular posters remained.
Whenever someone would stand up to a scorner, they would pile onto the guy, ripping the daylights out of him. The people objecting would then give up.
And I wondered: What would happen if someone stood up to the scorners and didn't back down?
Thanks for the history of the various FFFs. The site run by FSSL is still a HAC dominated site, it seems. That's where most of the activity occurs. FSSL and Ransom keep trying to prop up the fighting forum by posting new threads in there, but that has all but died.
As I posted there a number of times, I don't get the fascination with HAC, but that's probably because I'm not a HACker.