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Liked it by the way.
My response: His brief comment brings up a complex issue. A Theist (by which I mean, someone who believes in God, whether Christian, Jew, Moslem, whatever) could well reply that relying on an expert is moved into an entirely different category when the expert cited is God, as God is infallible, or at least, a LOT smarter than any human expert.
The problem with this, from a debating point of view, is that some people do not believe in God. Before such a person will be convinced that he should do something because God says so, he would first have to be convinced that there really is a God to say anything. Similarly, even among people who do believe in God there is wide variation in belief of what he has, in fact, said. To take the most obvious example, Jews do not believe that the New Testament is really the word of God, and neither Jews nor Christians accept the Koran. Thus, while a quote from the New Testament may be very persuasive to a Christian, it would be largely irrelevant to a Jew.
In short, in any debate you must establish a common ground of agreement before you can go on to discuss your differences. I am a born-again Christian. When I am discussing issues with other born-again Christians, I rely heavily on the Bible to back up my arguments, because we are both coming into the discussion agreed that this is an authoritative source. I don't recall ever having presented an argument before a group that I knew to be predominantly Jewish, but if I ever do I might well rely on Tanak (Old Testament) quotes. But when I am speaking to an audience of mixed religion, I rarely use the Bible because many will not find this persuasive. (Actually, I could probably get away with using the Bible more than I do, as the vast majority of Americans respect the Bible a great deal, even if they do not concede it the level of authority that we born-again types do.)
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