i suck at debating

this afternoon i joined an LDS member, a priestess of light, an ethnic catholic, and an agnostic in a passionate discussion of mormonism. at one point in the conversation, the priestess of light tried to convince everyone that mormonism and catholicism were more closely related than protestantism and catholicism because both faiths claim apostolic succession. despite a bag of facts, i couldn't seem to sway the priestess. thus, it is no surprise that when the debate got more controversial--i was arguing that mormons are not christians--i failed again. it took a dozen hand scratched diagrams before i could even convince my crowd that protestants, catholics, and orthodoxers fell under the same religious umbrella.

my inability to argue effectively isn't a new discovery. i have always had trouble pulling rhetoric from my brain without first thinking, thinking, and thinking some more. however, until yesterday, i was functioning under the false belief that, thank God, i could at least hold my own in a written debate. and then i posted in the controversial subject section of the grammar forum. ooooh boy, was it a disaster.

[i'll finish the 3-part post next time--i first had to confess my inadequacy in these logic wars]

andrew david. "belikin, the belizean hometown brew & a possible explanation for my sucky debate skills?" san ignacio town, belize.

ps. i may have the priestess of light's title wrong. i think she's also a druid.

Andrew David 'Priest Cleaners' Concord, Mass. 2005

Perhaps I'm a bit of a rogue Protestant. For example, in the winter of 2004 I knew nothing of blogs. Well, nothing except that they played some vague role in the dissemination of political news. In any case, while my roommates lost fake money on online poker, I lurked at an online catholic apologetics discussion site (http://forums.catholic.com/). In fact, while there I contributed to a thread on inter-faith marriage and started a thread inquiring about the catholic perspective of protestants. I thought the responses were quite interesting: http://forums.catholic.com/search.php?searchid=1290293. Then, bursting with my new found knowledge, I invaded my family camp-out to play the devil's advocate for Catholic theology. Gosh, I'm even dating a 'fallen' catholic. Still, I find this picture particularly relevant, especially in light of the recent sex scandals and the clergy's occasionaly dark history. Yep, I really think that the Catholic priesthood may need some cleaning help.