Many years ago, so the story goes, Newton was bopped on the head by a falling apple and immediately came up with several Laws of Physics. Years later, Einstein was bopped in the head with Time and came up with the Law of Relativity. On the Internet forum I participate in, I have been verbally bopped enough times to unearth the Laws Of E-Debate which are just as foundational to any Laws of Thermodynamics and probably just as provable. Maybe on your jaunts through message forums and online debates you will find these Laws coming to the fore.

Now what you may find is that these Laws might have some proper applicability in some scenarios—yet you may also realize that sometimes, they’re just embarrassing refusals to engage the opposing position properly.

Benford’s Law of Controversy:
From the 1980 Novel Timescape, this Law states that Passion is inversely proportional to the amount of real information…. So the less one (or more) knows about any specific subject the more likely it is for there to be a strong amount of passion regarding that subject.

Controversy (c) = Passion (k) / Real Information (i)

(c) = (k)/(i)

• Example:Of course five billion angels dance on the head of a pin! You would be a fool to think otherwise when you consider the nature of angels! It’s AWESOME!!
• Example: God must first be Holy over Loving—to say otherwise is to commit an abject heresy of the first order!
• Example: Don’t be a fool, Thanos is easily better than Anti-Monitor; look at his outfit!

The Law of Inverted Pliability:
Take any position and locate a person who is adamantly against the position (even if they don’t know why). This person will be repelled by the stated position and will remain rigid (non-pliable) against it. Now take any position, no matter how ridiculous and put it on the other side of the person. The individual will bend over backwards to embrace any position, except the stated position before them. This Law is related to Benford’s Law of Controversy in that passion is affected but it takes the datum of the stated position as the motivator towards any other position or variable.

Pliability (yes)= Passion(k) (Random Position(x)) in opposition to (Stated Position(p))

(yes) = (k)(x) > (p)

• Example: Resurrection from the dead? I think it makes more sense that Jesus had a twin brother separated at birth.
• Example: I would rather have a pedophile lead our local church than think there’s different roles for men or women
• Example: Of course the Universe isn’t created. It makes more sense to think that the Universe always existed or that it came from Nothing than believe an Intelligent Designer was involved.

The Law of Inverted Counter-Respective Reciprocity:
Often seen in conjunction with the Law of Inverted Pliability is this interesting phenomenon which occurs in the unique situation where the individual (against the stated position) finds someone who agrees with him or her…perhaps at a more intelligent level. The individual in question sees that the other individual is also in direct opposition to the stated proposition and as such they congratulate the astuteness, clear-headedness and cogent thinking of that individual. The more abhorrent the stated position the more the praise between the parties who are countering the position. This has sometimes (in war) been summed up with the phrase “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”. It can be further explained by saying “and my friend is pretty darned smart, good looking and incisive because of this.”

(yes) + (new individual) = [(k)(x) > (p)

• Example: Oh I agree! The fact, dear sister, that you said that against such traditional thinking as the one stated in this thread illustrates how beautiful, God fearing, wondrous and a token example of a True Christian you are. I pray and applaud you: God bless you and keep you!
• Example:You, dear friend, are totally right and obviously well learned on this subject. I pray that these brutes around us will realize your intelligence, your brilliance and finally turn from their pithy ignorance.

The Law of Temporal Deniability

An individual personally comes to an opinion and holds it for an hour. Offer a second opinion to that same individual and he or she is more likely to combat the second opinion because it is in opposition to his or her own previously achieved opinion. The second opinion winds up being a personal attack because of this. The reaction against the second opinion is harsher the longer the first opinion has been held. Now here is where the Law is fully employed. Take the individual and have him hold an opinion out of random callousness (be it because he or she doesn’t have time to formulate an opinion in said area or it hasn’t been important enough to deal with an opinion in said area) and take a second opinion which has been arrived at with time and focus. The first adherent, based on Time, will deny the second for any various reasons except for the reasons of the second opinion.

(opinion-b)(time-t) > (opinion-y)[(time-t)/(number-n)]

(b)(t) > (y)(t/n)

• Example: Open Theism has never been taught in the church for 1800 years therefore it can’t be right.
• Example: You do know that what you’re doing is being thrown about by the very waves of liberalism, scholasticism and the enlightenment period?

The Law of Pharisaical Insurability: This Law (developed by Char, Harry, Kevin and Rey ScottN ) is a modification of Godwin’s Law (where the longer a thread goes the closer it comes to invoking Hitler). Within Christian circles reducto ad pharisaum is usually one of the strongest fallacies to lay against the opponents attack, but this Law doesn’t focus on the fallacy but on the mathematics of the likelihood of the fallacy appearing. Therefore this Law states that the longer a thread goes whereby the Law of Temporal Deniability is tangentially related the higher the probability of a comparison involving the Pharisees approaches one.

• Example: You do know that the Pharisees were the ones who were attacked by Jesus for focusing so heavily on the letter over love…
• Example: Jesus preached love you know; it was the hardline conservatives that killed him.

The Law of the Internet-Troll: This law states that upon tangential mention of any controversy the higher the likelihood that e-Trolls will appear. Now Trolls should be noted as being controversial, irrelevant, disruptive, but sometimes very intelligent in their phraseology. This is tangentially related to the other two Laws which are a subset of this one:

1. The Law of Anti-Xism Supporter X being whatever doctrine that the Supporter does not hold to. So if the topic is one that tangentially touches on The Trinity or Dispensationalism or Calvinism, this will generate a Supporter who will automatically attack.
2. The Law of E-Calvinist Acolytes Hyper-Calvinists are usually defined as Any Individual More Calvinistic Than Me but this Law is not looking at Hyper-Calvinists, per se. This Law points out the likelihood of E-Calvinists (who are sometimes hyper but are almost always trying to get people to convert to Calvinism) appearing in any thread that touches on various topics (but specifically those that deal with depravity, election, atonement, grace, faith, ultimate salvation, sovereignty of God, responsibility of men and anything dealing with Luther or Calvin or Arminus). E-Calvinist Acolytes can be noted by their reference to James White, their reliance on Spurgeon quotes, an RSS Reader that links to both Tim Challies and the Pyromaniacs , abject hatred of anything that smells Arminian and the penchant to invoke the solas or the Westminster Confession at whim (with hotlinks to Monergism.com)

• Example: “Isn’t it amazing that God created the world?”

  “Yes, in 6 days and no more.” or “Yes, in billions of years and littered with death.”

• Example: “Man, what a glorious day!”

  “No! Soli Deo Gloria! What do you, oh worthless Pot, know about Glory?”

The Law of the Overbearing Opinion or The Law of the Obnoxious Opposer: The Law would state web-kindness is inversely proportional to the surety of opinion by the e-debating parties. In other words, the more sure of something is an e-debater the less kind would that e-debater be against people who hold an opposing position.

• Example: This IS my body. You are either blind or deaf or unregenerate but in all cases you’re wrong.