(no subject)
Well, I got into another argument about religion on the internet. If anyone's interested, here's my thoughts on why using religion as an argument is not effective and gets people mad:
Basically, arguments extrapolating morality from religious doctrine require a belief in that doctrine. Everyone has different base assumptions or beliefs about the world, and I'd say most of the really nasty arguments people get into are not because they can't think logically, but because they have different assumptions about the world.
It's like in a high school trigonometry problem... if you're doing a problem and you see "Given: Line XY and line AB are parallel," you can use that to create a line of reasoning about angles or whatever. If someone else is doing another test that has almost the exact same problem but their sheet doesn't have that given rule, then they can't use your line of reasoning because it requires a starting place (namely, that the lines are parallel) that they can't be sure is true.
Basically, if I'm, say, christian and I want to convince someone that isn't christian of some opinion I have, I have to be able to show them a line of reasoning that's solid without even mentioning religion. Even if I believe the bible is literal true fact and base my morality around it, if the person I'm trying to convince doesn't believe in it then any bible-related arguments I have are useless. If they say "But what if the bible isn't true?" and I have nothing to respond with except "But it is!" then I will get nowhere. I have to show them that the bible may have led me to these beliefs, but they're valid even without it.
Even science has its underlying assumption: "It is possible to understand the world around us." But at least with the scientific method if you don't believe someone's conclusions (or findings) you can test them yourself. For instance, I personally have levitated things with sound waves. It sounds like magic, but it works and it totally awesome. That said, if I meet someone who believes that their senses can deceive them and that the world cannot be understood by mortals, I will be unable to use any sort of scientific facts (or possibly even logic) to convince them of anything.
Basically, arguments extrapolating morality from religious doctrine require a belief in that doctrine. Everyone has different base assumptions or beliefs about the world, and I'd say most of the really nasty arguments people get into are not because they can't think logically, but because they have different assumptions about the world.
It's like in a high school trigonometry problem... if you're doing a problem and you see "Given: Line XY and line AB are parallel," you can use that to create a line of reasoning about angles or whatever. If someone else is doing another test that has almost the exact same problem but their sheet doesn't have that given rule, then they can't use your line of reasoning because it requires a starting place (namely, that the lines are parallel) that they can't be sure is true.
Basically, if I'm, say, christian and I want to convince someone that isn't christian of some opinion I have, I have to be able to show them a line of reasoning that's solid without even mentioning religion. Even if I believe the bible is literal true fact and base my morality around it, if the person I'm trying to convince doesn't believe in it then any bible-related arguments I have are useless. If they say "But what if the bible isn't true?" and I have nothing to respond with except "But it is!" then I will get nowhere. I have to show them that the bible may have led me to these beliefs, but they're valid even without it.
Even science has its underlying assumption: "It is possible to understand the world around us." But at least with the scientific method if you don't believe someone's conclusions (or findings) you can test them yourself. For instance, I personally have levitated things with sound waves. It sounds like magic, but it works and it totally awesome. That said, if I meet someone who believes that their senses can deceive them and that the world cannot be understood by mortals, I will be unable to use any sort of scientific facts (or possibly even logic) to convince them of anything.