Who? Me? :shocked!
That's a very interesting question. I think that the theological element of your question is fairly simple but the generality of the question is very difficult to answer with anything but examples.
A. Given that MOST things theological can not be known with certainty, anyone arguing with certainty from a position of uncertainty is being a bit '
childish/pig-headed'.
B. We see the '
childish/pig-headed' position here quite often. It usually occurs when someone makes a vague statement, such as, "
Every one know that the increasing average age of the population is causing a higher death rate". Then someone else provides evidence that average age is
not increasing AND evidence that the death rate is
not increasing - thus the original premise is totally destroyed.
All too often we see the person who made the original fallacious statement come back with one or more of these:
1. '
I can assure you that the death rate is increasing; I have the statistics'.
2. '
I can't publish the stats, they are confidential'.
3. They evade addressing the issue.
4. They make insulting remarks.
5. They veer rapidly off-topic.
6. They pick up on other points of argument and avoid the main issue.
7. They make other vague generalizations - often politically motivated.
8. They refuse to set out their logic on the spurious grounds that '
you wouldn't understand it'.
9. '
You're not born again therefore you can't hope to understand'.
10. '
You don't have the holy spirit so you can't understand'.
11. '
You are not a Christian so you can't understand'.
12. '
You are obviously an atheist/Muslim/communist/facist/etc so you can't understand'.
13. '
You have to abandon your rational approach in order to understand'.
14. '
There is no point in you reading The Bible, you have to be a Christian to understand it'. :gah
15. They often reveal their political leanings - as if that gave them some extra credibility.
I have had them
all aimed at me in the last year. All of them are indications of childishness/pig-headedness.
The problem is that none of us like to abandon long held beliefs. Creation v Evolution is the simplest example. It crops up quite often in 'General Talk' and people quite reasonably hold to their view. If you go over to the Science section you can see time and again, the arguments against evolution being thoroughly discredited. A nay-sayer may try to make an 'educated' statement which they think destroys the notion of evolution and then the proper scientists demonstrate with facts, why the nay-sayer's claim was completely wrong. Rather than admit his error, the nay-sayer then starts running down the list above to demonstrate his pig-headedness. :yes
