I never paid much attention to his debates, but from what little snippets I’ve seen, along with the “Prove Me Wrong” schtick seems to indicate he already decided he was right and others were wrong.

There’s plenty of rhetoric and memes already, I’d like to avoid more rhetoric and memes, and I ask this question with genuine curiosity and earnest desire for learning and understanding.

  • FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au
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    13 hours ago

    Anyone thinking that his mind was going to be changed about his beliefs missed the entire point of what he did. He used the “change my mind” platform almost exclusively to point out the absurdities, the hypocrisy, and the “misinformation” about points that he was an expert on, and where his mind could not possibly be changed because the alternative to his point of view is factually wrong.

    When he spoke about abortion, he could never have his mind changed that is it “murder” because it is, unquestionably taking the life of a living thing intentionally. I am 10000% pro abortion, but I do not delude myself into thinking that it’s not the killing of an unborn baby. It is. Factually.

    What he did was expose the hoops people jump through to come to their beliefs on very specific things.

    If you took his premise as “he will surely change his mind about things that are fundamentally correct, even if you disagree with those fundamentals” then you completely misunderstand the premise. It was for him to try and change other people’s minds by making them try to change his mind and in doing so realise that what they have been brought up to believe is based on misinformation/lies/uninformed opinions.

    It’s like if I did a “change my mind” post and said “freedom of speech means hearing things you don’t want to hear without murdering the person saying them” and people came up and tried to argue with me that someone should be murdered for saying they hate all black people, my mind can’t be changed because I am fundamentally and unquestionably right.

    He was a very smart man, and he knew exactly what his limits were. Every single topic he brought to discussion was one he was passionate about, and almost too educated one. He could quote pretty much any part of any religious text off hand, laws, the constitition, etc. He would prepare meticulously and read every single piece of literature and study on the topics he was going to discuss so he knew what to argue. His entire career was talking to people about topics that he knew everything about.

    Lastly not every minute or discussion with every person he ever spoke to at his events is recorded or available for us to watch. His channel, like every single other channel in existence, only showed the bits that make them look the best - and that was when he made other people change their minds, or when it showed them losing their minds at people daring to have a different view. He’s not going to post a video of him being “wrong”.