We lose the moral debate
Why does libertarianism fail to capture public opinion ? Because we waste time arguing evidence instead of addressing the real root of belief - perceived moral superiority. You can argue evidence all you want but people will still find more things to argue against. Any position that wins the moral battle, on the other hand, is impervious to evidence.
I would invite everyone to listen to the great work of Stefan Molyneux at this podcast :
http://www.podfeed.net/category_item.asp?id=3476
I am in contact with him and will try to get him on the Hellbound Alleee show. I think his ideas are vital and must be heard.
8 comments:
Im listening to Stefan right now. He has great material in his podcasts. Im really enjoying it.
Ideas and arguments have no effect on most people. You have to tell them their beliefs when they are young and let them grow up with it with those nearest to them entertaining the same ideas. Doesn't mean that overall change can't happen, but it happens locally, as a sort of nearest-neighbor interaction (to borrow a term from computational physics). However, I do think that if people could free themselves from the mental stranglehold that is religion, they would begin to actively search out for new ideas and new codes of ethics in order to replace the ones that they perceive as losing.
And about the christians who post to this blog that have been giving you trouble, I think it's bad to discourage them from visiting the site. Sure, they don't respond to your arguments and simply quote scripture without even arguing for how that scripture relates to the current discussion, but they read what you say at least, and new ideas enter their head regardless of how seriously they take them at the time. But a small fraction of christians actually care about their ideas being correct from a logical standpoint, and these people need to have their views debated in order to shed light on their errors. They won't admit defeat to you, because in your mind you're an evil atheist, but when they are more level-headed later (maybe that will take years) they might think about it. I know it's frustrating to argue with them, but let someone else do it if it bothers you. Any atheist with a little sense could shoot down any of their arguments.
Well that's nice, but I'm not in the business of arguing with crazies, and I don't think any other of our writers is in that business either. Evangelism is very valuable, but we're not evangelists. (although Aaron does that a bit in his spare time)
I'm going to side with delta that it is a good thing when believers read the arguments and there is a possibility that a seed will be planted in their minds.
But what Francois is saying is very true about wasting time and lowering the level of discussion.
To me there are a few things that, if repeated should result in banning the offender's IP address:
Raising the same objections over and over again (in other words, they didn't read the response), not conceding a point in a discussion, and ad hominem attacks. People who do those things should be kicked off the blog.
I agree with both Delta and Blacksun. I am actually pleased when a Christian posts, even if its stupid stuff.
But I, of course, am a very social/interactive type. And Im also a total comments whore.
All right, fine, I'll let the Christians post and you guys can toy with them, as long as they don't get all uppity.
To be clear on this, my position is that religion has no place in the public square, and that we should not tolerate religious speech. On the other hand, we are their ideological opponents, and I suppose we can't really evade it. So I have to side with the both of you reluctantly.
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