Jay Dyer Thread
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He disfavors an even debate stage. Most of his "debates" are with him moderating or controlling the discord call. It doesn't take a genius to defeat your opponent with those advantages.
I personally tend to not like Jays delivery that much either...at least the older stuff. Most of what he's says is something I agree with...but the messaging is hard to get behind.
I can't deny that he is a good showman. As far as his content; if you're familiar with Greg Bahnsen then Dyer's presuppositionalism won't come across as anything new, he was a student at Bahnsen University after all. His anti-protestant content comes straight out of Catholic Answers, also nothing new if you've been interested in apologetics for the past 30 years. There are individuals who I wouldn't mind seeing him debating.
Jay's Paul Washer impression is spot on. As someone who's introduction to Christianity was through the resurgence of Calvinism on youtube circa 2009, watching him parody some of those celebrity preachers who were so popular at the time- Washer, Driscoll, Piper- was a cathartic experience. I respect some of those men but they're a little eccentric and ripe for parody. I thought Washer had a good message of repentance but he came off so prissy and melodramatic.
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I'm a big fan of Dyer but frankly his 'formal' debates are his worst content, usually it ends up with both parties yelling over each other trying to 'score points' and 'win', neither wanting to answer each other's questions directly. His 'podcast' type videos & streams are way better.
I enjoy his open forum streams a lot for how they expose me to the thought processes of non-Orthodox callers, usually I'm not very impressed by them but I've learned a lot of interesting talking points to research afterward, and also learned a lot about the Roman Church. It's also inspiring to see how many people calling in are Ortho-curious. And his geopolitical/new world order stuff is on point albeit he shies from Israel as a topic, possibly due to his association with Infowars not sure. His level of apologetics is good for a casual like me, albeit I still haven't heard him really nail down Orthodox-TAG in a purely constructive way. He seems to use it more as a critique of other worldviews (which I do find to be a strong use case for the argument).
He can be brusque but honestly he is a lot more patient than I would be in his shoes with some of these callers.
I enjoy his open forum streams a lot for how they expose me to the thought processes of non-Orthodox callers, usually I'm not very impressed by them but I've learned a lot of interesting talking points to research afterward, and also learned a lot about the Roman Church. It's also inspiring to see how many people calling in are Ortho-curious. And his geopolitical/new world order stuff is on point albeit he shies from Israel as a topic, possibly due to his association with Infowars not sure. His level of apologetics is good for a casual like me, albeit I still haven't heard him really nail down Orthodox-TAG in a purely constructive way. He seems to use it more as a critique of other worldviews (which I do find to be a strong use case for the argument).
He can be brusque but honestly he is a lot more patient than I would be in his shoes with some of these callers.
Well yes that would be true for his "open" debates, I agree there. But not true for his formal debates. I listened to his debate with Bryson Gray and I was disappointed in the content, because they both talked over each other and from the get go, both side's points weren't going anywhere, just the same points over again, because Jay believed what he said was enough to display the truth, and Bryson believed what he said was enough to display the truth. The watcher can decide for his own self. To be honest, not many debates happen on stages anymore. Jay has done many debates where the moderator applies rules in an unbiased manner, even non-Orthodox moderators.
His streams with "Snek" and "David Erhan" helped me to look deeper into latin/catholic theology a few years ago.
I've followed / supported Jay and bought his books for almost 15 years now. He shadow banned me from commenting on his channel a while ago which I assume is because I asked him in live chat why he has no children yet (when preaching for us to have children). He's a flaky character but with a wealth of knowledge and overal he's a net positive.
We should be charitable here. I believe his wife is unable to conceive. I've judged quite a few couples in my time and then found out much later that actually they suffered many miscarriages or one of the spouses is infertile.
Dyer can be entertaining but he definitely has a lot to learn. He can also be excessively wordy. His debates are trivial.
Fun fact: I joined his discord and got banned in 30 minutes. I asked a simple question about the Filoque, and people started accusing me of defending the Filoque even though I never said such a thing. Suddenly a mod named Chase demanded that I debate him or else he would ban me. I spoke with him in discord and about 30-50 people joined in to listen. I told him I wasn't trying to debate anyone but he wouldn't have it, and then said I needed to apologize before trying to act like a teacher. I tried to tell him I wasn't teaching and before I could finish the sentence got the ban
Poor confused souls. They also misinterpret cannon law completely, so they are left with the case of knowing the law but not the spirit.
Fun fact: I joined his discord and got banned in 30 minutes. I asked a simple question about the Filoque, and people started accusing me of defending the Filoque even though I never said such a thing. Suddenly a mod named Chase demanded that I debate him or else he would ban me. I spoke with him in discord and about 30-50 people joined in to listen. I told him I wasn't trying to debate anyone but he wouldn't have it, and then said I needed to apologize before trying to act like a teacher. I tried to tell him I wasn't teaching and before I could finish the sentence got the ban
Poor confused souls. They also misinterpret cannon law completely, so they are left with the case of knowing the law but not the spirit.
Yeah there are a lot more Orthodox apologists who know deeper theology than Jay. To give him credit, his expertise is philosophy and geopolitics.Dyer can be entertaining but he definitely has a lot to learn. He can also be excessively wordy. His debates are trivial.
Fun fact: I joined his discord and got banned in 30 minutes. I asked a simple question about the Filoque, and people started accusing me of defending the Filoque even though I never said such a thing. Suddenly a mod named Chase demanded that I debate him or else he would ban me. I spoke with him in discord and about 30-50 people joined in to listen. I told him I wasn't trying to debate anyone but he wouldn't have it, and then said I needed to apologize before trying to act like a teacher. I tried to tell him I wasn't teaching and before I could finish the sentence got the ban
Poor confused souls. They also misinterpret cannon law completely, so they are left with the case of knowing the law but not the spirit.
Tbh Dyercord is a mess that not even Dyer wanted to deal with and the last time that I was on there almost a year ago (I left), he gave ownership to David Erhan. There are a lot of mods who disagree with Chase and I don't know why he's given so much power. Perhaps David just doesn't want to deal with backlash he'd get from a sizeable portion of the server if he demoted him. I have no idea what weakness could cause Chase to behave this way, probably wasn't malicious, sometimes people really get twisted. Yeah we gotta love em and not speak negatively for the sake of speaking negatively, but at the time being, behavior like this gives a lot of non-Orthodox an impression of what an "orthobro" looks like.
He is an “intellectual’s debater” and can be very wordy.
I liked his debate with “Boglord Martel” on paganism.
I liked his debate with “Boglord Martel” on paganism.
He challenged me to a debate. I accepted. He canceled.Dyer can be entertaining but he definitely has a lot to learn. He can also be excessively wordy. His debates are trivial.
Fun fact: I joined his discord and got banned in 30 minutes. I asked a simple question about the Filoque, and people started accusing me of defending the Filoque even though I never said such a thing. Suddenly a mod named Chase demanded that I debate him or else he would ban me. I spoke with him in discord and about 30-50 people joined in to listen. I told him I wasn't trying to debate anyone but he wouldn't have it, and then said I needed to apologize before trying to act like a teacher. I tried to tell him I wasn't teaching and before I could finish the sentence got the ban
Poor confused souls. They also misinterpret cannon law completely, so they are left with the case of knowing the law but not the spirit.
"Debate me, bro"
Anyone in particular you'd recommend listening to?
Yes we should be careful. I thought about that on the "pets as kids" thread. That many people that treat pets as kids may just not be able to conceive. But then I wonder, wouldn't next best option be to adopt humans?
I had a talk with an ortho guy in my church that is on the extreme end of "pets as kids". Him and his wife treat their dogs better than most people treat their actual kids.
He mentioned his reason for not having kids is that he doesn't want to bring them up in this crazy world. He says times are different now. End times. Wouldn't be fair to concieve new life.
Not my business. I don't argue with him. I'm not the priest and I'm not God. I don't know what the answer is.
I wonder if Jay might have similar reasons. Just don't want to bring kids into this mad world. And I wonder further if a priest would actually recommend this to anyone?
As some others said, many times there are different reasons in reality, like not being able to conceive, or fear to be a become a bad parent, fear no being able to to fulfill the task properly.
Part is also that we grew up learning to criticize our own parents, instead of honoring them. (at least I learned that)
Many people shove their inabilities in life to their childhood as the self help industry taught us.
I did that as well. Until I grew a bit older and humble and could see how hard it is and how limited my own abilities are.
Jay is a powerful force in official debates, and he helped me become Orthodox, but because I'm weird I like deeper theology. Jay makes good philosophical arguments too. His friend David Erhan is great, I like Orthodox Shahada, I like ALL of Father John Whiteford's streams and he's a great debater too, very calm and extremely knowledgeable beyond many priests in his area. I like orthodox.net's youtube channel, I like Seraphim Hamilton, I like Ubi Petrus for his extremely great videos on the Romish church's history, I've also mentioned Snek though he doesn't speak much on any platform and he moreso specializes in the errors of the Franks from 8th century until, well, now. I like substack channels as well, Hieromonk Gabriel from Holy Cross Monastery WV, The Reversion by Anthony of Westgate, The Abbey of Misrule, @IGNISDIVINE (he's great on the toll house doctrine and saints) even World War Now touches on theology, and of course, Jay Dyer's substack is good as well. I also recommend Momcilo Nevesky for viewing politics from an Orthodox perspective.
I remember him commenting on a few videos that they are indeed trying to have kids and leaving it up to God.
He has had so many debates with Protestants over the years ranging from 2 to 4 hours. Literally every major topic of difference has been covered.
I'll pray for that to happen as we need more people like Jay and his beautiful wife in this world.
