Surfdumb was a regular reading and commenter here for some time. I think he left because of the Professor’s frequent long comments (which is much less often the case these days) and because my sons are allowed to read here (which is a weird reason to avoid commenting, but whatever).
Like Cameron, Surfdumb was valued for his balanced takes on a host of issues, and has always been a bit of a peacemaker. Our interactions have been mostly peaceful. I’d like to think we earned each other’s mutual respect. Accordingly, I wanted to respond to one of his comments, so here we are.
The OP doesn’t mention the unity model, but it does seem like the unity model would not be equipped to address hypergamy discontent as well as the authority model is.
I don’t recall, but surely Derek sees women as sinners, so the discontent of wanting more would just be one specific one. However, it overlaps with trolling because I can only remember him railing against other sites and not against the woman-responsible decay we see. I guess his reply would be, those problems are due to the wrong model being instituted so he’s rightly focused on fixing other Christian men who are in error by liking authority…ever, even in a small measure, versus a pacifistic-suffering unity model.
The reason I don’t rail against the women—whether responsible for the decay or otherwise—is because the subject of my blog is not women. Discussing women’s faults is a distinctly feminine pursuit. To wit:
If one reads the whole Bible, you’ll find that it spends very little time talking about the proper behavior for women specifically. In general, the Bible talks about what men—or men and women collectively—should do. The Bible rarely singles out “female” behavior. It simply isn’t all that concerned about correcting women’s behavior.
…
If you, a man, find yourself reading Ephesians 5 and the first thing you are concerned about is the behavior of women, your response is decidedly unmasculine and feminine.
And neither am I.
This is an ancient view:
The modern Red Pill states that a husband should rule over his wife, exercising authority to correct her errors. But Chrysostom believed that husbands and wives should tend to their own marital duties and not worry about the deficiencies in their spouse.
…and…
Chrysostom wants the church to inform wives of their duties, not the role of husbands. Indeed, it is in this role that Chrysostom makes these claims. Husbands and wives should tend to their own duties.
It’s also a modern view:
Keyboard “fellowship” is a recipe for spiraling into years of singing the same song over and over, ranting, lamenting and never healing, ever learning without landing on big T Truth. Ironically, it is exactly what women have done; spent decades complaining about the realities (and some not so realistic perceptions) of womanhood. It’s now about 20 years since I was aware of masculinists doing likewise, so now we’re in the decades category. Hard pass, thanks.
It’s not about abstract models of reality, whether unity or authority. It’s the fact that I am a man and I don’t gossip like a woman:
This is an ideas blog. We discuss ideas here, whether it be hypergamy, or the eucharist, or forgiveness. Even the few times we have discussed specific women (here and here), the subjects and themes were ideas: history, feminism, and mythologizing processes and propaganda (i.e. truth vs fiction). The women highlighted were almost incidental.
But it’s not just women I avoid discussing. I’m not focused on fixing men either.
It is not the job of Christians to fix people. No husband can fix his wife, no wife can fix her husband. You can’t even fix yourself. Only God can transform a person.
I care about finding the truth or fiction of ideas and leading people towards redeeming work of Christ.
Consequently, Surfdumb and I do not agree on our approach:
Sharkly has written a description of the problem with Derek’s blog that I can agree with. However, I disagree with drawing the conclusion that his communication style is evidence he is an intentional troll, or unbeliever. He doesn’t adopt a child, be a computer guy, have 5 kids, and writes as long as he does because he is trying to troll. If he is, somebody ought to tell him how ineffective of a troll- process he has chosen.
Isn’t it more likely he is a high IQ guy who loves details but eschews big picture conjecture, like many others are comfortable with? I can write things that he can’t because he is so wedded to the idea of proof.
Then his arguing, with Dalrock, Sharkly, and Deti, ends up being these long multi-day back-and-forths that are overwhelming with accusations (I don’t recall any accusations from Deti towards Derek, I don’t think he has). And nothing is moved forward. Certainly not unity, which is a mark against the unity model he espouses.
The Christian culture I know already lived by the “hear no evil (women), see no evil (from women), speak no evil (of any women we know). I don’t see the growth in godliness from the deal-with-it model as being greater than the harm. A little bit of accountability, for sisters especially, and relief from heavy burdens of men in hard relationships, seems to have love and wisdom in it also.
NOTE: Accusations of being a liar qualify as accusations. Blatant and hostile misrepresentations of clearly expressed views do as well. I’ve already written about this, so the details are out there in the open for those who want to find it.
However, I challenge anyone to find even a single ad hominem accusation that I’ve made and reference it in the comments. I’ve seen a lot of accusations about me making accusations, but all are unsourced and unfounded. I have acted honorably, and if someone can show that I have not, I will issue a retraction and/or delete the offending content. If you have something to say to me, be a man and say it to me. Either try to solve the problem or cease empty and useless gossip.
Derek Ramsey wrote:
If you’d prefer to call it an axiom of belief or a tautological assertion instead of circular reasoning, I won’t quibble over semantics, as it is your belief that decides which of the three it is and I can’t read your mind. What you can’t do is call it a rational argument or debate. That ship has sailed.
Yet like a dog returning to its vomit, the fool returned to his folly and kept lying claiming that I had used “circular reasoning” by merely replying to his question with my belief that “The image of God is the foundation of why men have a divine right to rule”. The fact that the truth often can be stated in other “converse and inverse” ways which Derek claimed I had previously mentioned, in no wise makes my statement an example of circular reasoning. Derek then even further claimed that even a simple statement as simply put as “I believe X” is an example of circular reasoning.
Derek then claimed that because “circular reasoning” is often times lumped in with the “logical fallacies”, that the concepts I teach are based upon fallacies, making me a teacher of fallacies.
And the intractable fool supposedly arrived at that baseless libel solely by me merely answering his question with a single statement of my belief. Anyhow that stubborn liar has refused to repent of that lie against me, and the truth that I teach, since November of 2023.
I offered to take the matter before Derek’s own church elders (even though I know they don’t share my same belief) and Derek did not want to have any independent committee, not even his own church elders, rule as to whether he had stretched the definition of “circular reasoning” just to libel me with a self-contrived lie against my teaching.
Like with “the ProfessorLGBTQ” I’m beginning to suspect that part of Derek’s goal is just to waste the time of the advocates of God’s holy order of patriarchy, defending themselves against his stubborn lying.
And he’s wrong in what he says about Surfdumb too.
And Derek is a Manosphere troll. Not the kind of troll that lives under a bridge and fights billy goats, but the sort who engages with the rising Manosphere merely to detract from our anti-Feminist message and to defend his own simping, do-nothing pacifism, and his chosen role of marital tailship.
I ask for this…
…and this…
…is what you bring me?
Now, why would you say something so easily disproven?
You can’t call me a liar because you clearly made two statements of belief that collectively form a circular belief. No matter what you say, you can’t alter that fact of history. You can foam at the mouth all day long, but you still hold the belief A⇒B and B⇒A, regardless of when you made those statements of belief and whether or not they were each independently-made unidirectional statements. This is absolutely unambiguous, and calling me a liar for saying something that is unambiguous is so truly bizarre.
And, apparently, I was so intractable, that I offered to retract my statement (1) if you would clarify that your “circular” statement was actually irrational; or (2) if you had made a separate claim that entailed eliminating the circularity; or (3) if you would admit that your claim was actually axiomatic.
You referenced this third point above to make me look like a fool, but failed to disclose that you don’t prefer it.
For the record, let’s let the readers know that while you’ve responded to many of my comments over the years, you have never responded to the one that directly addressed this accusation, even though I’ve referenced it at least eight different times now. To wit:
His claim regarding the dominion of man and the image of God was part of a circular argument. He spent many comments claiming that I was a liar, servant of Satan, and worshiper of women for calling it circular reasoning, going so far as to go to other forums to complain and try to drum up mob support, rather than address the substance of my claims.
Why are you so uninterested in allowing me to defend myself against baseless accusations?
So, about that “baseless libel?” Baseless must be something without basis. Libel must be something that is false. This is neither.
This is a true statement.
You can read the abridged list here (and the supplement here)
As the link shows, I proved logically and deductively that you engaged in circular reasoning. I documented exactly what you said and why it clearly begged-the-question. I based my claim on your own words. You have had no response, but to repeat the same old repetitions and to deflect from the established facts.
Further, you were admittedly engaging in bad faith and had no intention of following the Matthew 18 protocol. Why don’t you tell the readers how you already had cast me out from fellowship when you tried to play kangaroo court with Christ’s commands regarding fellow brothers?
Lastly, the Dalrockian Manosphere’s conception of patriarchy is laughable and non-biblical. It deserves ridicule, not fake veneration as “God’s ONE Holy Patriarchy.” It is a weak, wimpy, feminine, non-historical version of “patriarchy” that you and others understand and promote. You waste your own time by defending it, and I’m doing you a favor by laughing at it.
What I said was, and remains, the truth. You have given me no reason at all to conclude otherwise.
I’m not going to further waste my time with trolls or those who can’t—or won’t—read. I have already responded to your falsehoods (here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here). In order to save time, the next time you mention this again, I’ll just link back to this comment.
You know what you need to do.
Show me where I am wrong. Don’t just say I am wrong because you don’t like it. Show it. Address my points. Show that you didn’t actually say the things I quoted you saying. Sure, you’ve denied engaging in circular reasoning time-and-again, but never denied saying the things that clearly show you actually engaging in circular reasoning, nor have you ever given me a reason to retract my statement. Moreover, I never based my claim on what you want it to be, I based my claim on what you actually said. So, show why what I said was wrong, why it doesn’t logically follow from the set of propositions that have been established based on your own words.
And if you can’t do that, admit you were wrong. Admit that you slandered me. Don’t, instead, try to shamelessly use it as yet another opportunity to proselytize and propagandize.
It looks like Derek has even written a script to change the link to my screenshot of our conversation.
He really doesn’t want people to find my website and the truth that I share there.
I’ve already explained the “what” and “why” to you. And I’ll remind you that if you find a way to circumvent this, against my clearly expressed instructions, my tolerance will end and you will no longer be welcome to comment under that username.
As per usual, your accusations of censorship are spurious and unfounded, so much so that any readers coming here will have no idea what you are talking about.