Sat. 12/04/07 20:25 EDT
.post #124
[url=A Lesson in Debate and Convincing People]
Some random thoughts and opinions:
Before a message can be convincing, it must be agreed with.
Before it is agreed with, it must be understood.
Before it is understood, it must be understandable.
To determine if it is understandable, it must be carefully considered.
Before it is carefully considered, it must be listened to.
Before it is listened to, the listener must seek to gain or learn something by the listening, and believe that the messenger has something to offer.
Before he seeks to gain or learn, he must feel somewhat dissatisfied with his present state of awareness or understanding.
Edit: After I posted this, I realized that “convinced,” “agreed,” “understood,” “considered,” “listened to,” and “gain” are somewhat, if not entirely, subjective.
I think a significant source of disagreement during debate is language itself, specifically, certain words, such as “god” and “reality,” which aren’t (it seems to me) defined very well. Using such words can result in the appearance of a single discussion while in truth two separate discussions are taking place.
I can think of at least three ways in which a word can be poorly defined and hence cause problems:
- It has no definition;
- Its definition is unclear;
- It has too many definitions.
The above-mentioned problems can be somewhat reduced by attempting to establish mutually-agreeable definitions for such words.
Here is another problem: The very use of a word (such as “god” or “reality,” for example) implies the existence of some “thing” to which the word refers. This may not be case. Metaphors (sometimes) fall into this category, but when people forget the metaphorical nature of the word or expression and start using it literally, they fool themselves into thinking they are talking about something that actually exists, when it doesn’t.
For example, the word “god” might just be a metaphor for “the beauty and wonder of it all,” but forgetting this leads to using the word as though “god” is an actual concrete being or thing, and then finally believing it. I think this is similar to what is called “reification” (i.e. regarding an abstraction as a concrete).
If you have a “dirty mind,” do you need a good “brainwashing”? Should you use “psychic psoap”?
[url=A Lesson in Debate and Convincing People - #4 by Anarcho-libertarian]
And if being omniscient made the atheist God, then he would also be omnipotent, which means he could create a rock so heavy he couldn’t lift it…which would mean there was something he couldn’t do (i.e. lift the rock)…which would mean he wasn’t omnipotent.
Which only shows, I guess, that the assumption of God’s omnipotence leads to a system in which everything, even contradiction, is possible. So, with omnipotent God, everything is possible.
Even the possibility that omnipotent God can’t possibly exist.
So, the assumption of omnipotent God means that both atheist AND believer are correct! The believer, at least, should be happy, since the atheist’s denial of omnipotent God is as fully and legitimately a part of the believer’s system as the believer’s affirmation of omnipotent God. The fact that the believer believes himself to be “right” implies that the atheist is, or can also be, “right.”