Your time would be better spent thinking about how what you've asked of me is absurd.
-
Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:- Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
- Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
- Access to private conversations with other members.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
How do you stop arguing with fundamentalists? Should you?
- Thread starter 1137
- Start date
oldbadger
Skanky Old Mongrel!
How do you stop arguing with fundamentalists? Should you?
Ha ha..... interesting thread!
Debating or discussing with any extremists can be heavy going, if not a total waste of time.
And 'Yes', it can be very draining and frustrating.
I've spent 18 months wandering around the more extreme forums, from atheist ones which hold rules such as 'any quotes from the bible don't count' (don't ya luv it?
) to extreme extreme christian sites where to even mention pro-abortion, question Paul's letters, support LGBTQIA issues, Female emancipation or that Black lives matter can bring down mass aggression, horrible insults and even site owners' threats!It did me a lot of good, reading the arguments and then reading that this questioning member was banned, or that one held in limbo (forgotten the term). One even got involved in a Court Case!
The members who attacked the extremist view and survived were the ones who posted short sharp questions or that were very humorous. So my suggestion is to read and watch how others manage extremism, whatever it is about.
But don't take any notice of my posts.......... I live by the minute, hour or day!
***Mod Post***
Please keep all forum rules in mind while posting, especially Rule 1.
Please keep all forum rules in mind while posting, especially Rule 1.
Akivah
Well-Known Member
You aren't unique in this regard. Almost everyone thinks they are right and each has used facts, reason, and logic to get to their opinion. Your problem is that you are letting yourself get stressed because people have different opinions from you. You need to realize that changes of opinion are pretty rare and usually don't occur based on internet postings. It isn't your responsibility to make everyone's opinion agree to yours.
The best you can do is present the reasons for your opinions, respond to counter-questions and have that be your stopping point. If you have as your stopping point either the need to get the last word or the need to convince someone to agree with your POV, then frustration can be the only result.
Reading responses in this thread, I'm not sure what the thread is about, so I'll just address OP.
With posting online, even in dialogue, I find it helpful to realize the audience is more than just the people present. So, if current audience appears to not be listening, do realize that some points you make may reach others who will come about it and not be caught up in the heat of the debate, where it is contention galore.
With current audience, sometimes the best you can hope for is planting a seed. Changing minds and being witness to that is too lofty a goal IMO. Planting seeds works both ways, meaning their points are unlikely to change your mind and they get to witness to you acknowledging that, but there may be a seed (perhaps teeny tiny) in something being said to you that given the level of contention is likely to be actively resisted. But might be something you think about not just days later, but perhaps years later and are then more open to discussing it. Again, I see that going both ways.
The need to be right in an argument is, I think, the purpose of debate. There are nuances though about an argument that are interesting to play with and perhaps helpful to being less frustrated. Like 15 years ago, in most debates I had, I routinely got the last word, as if that had to happen from my perspective. Now I somewhat make it a point to not have that happen. Might not erase all frustration that arose during heated debate, but is a nuance type item that helps in showing I can let it go.
General helpful advice for dealing with frustration is to realize: a) mine (or yours) is not a better way, just another way (of understanding things), b) no one is expressing things wrong given their model of the world. Perhaps both are saying same thing, but the latter is why I think it helpful to realize you are unlikely to change minds and witness to that. People (really everyone) have a lot of previous thinking and years of thinking that way before they arrive at present argument, so it's unlikely they significantly budge from that position. About the only times I witness to that (even in my own self) is if the person starting the discussion is earnest seeker rather than person eager for debate. You can tell that from the getgo, and the earlier you can tell you are in earnest debate the better the general advice and nuance stuff makes sense, IMO.
Finally, I don't know if letting it go is right, and see that as personal decision. People claim during heated debate that 'this is a waste of time,' but to me, that can be said about all things (or most things). It's really a matter of how present you are in the moment and looking out for yourself foremost, but hopefully being courteous and respectful. That latter part is hard in heated debate, but not impossible and may take some practice, which goes back to playing with nuances.
I also do not accept creationism, atheism or materialism so I grasp your pain. I think we have to use our own judgement on when to quit discussing with people and just move on. It is natural to get a little worked up but if you can't move on and shake it off fairly quickly then you are taking it too seriously. You may feel sometimes like it is banging your head against a wall, but remember, although no one concedes in a debate, you are subconsciously causing fissures in their belief system that may someday lead to a change in your debate partner's worldview (and improving his life).
Those are my tips and thoughts.
The thread topic is about your alleged evidence that materialism is false. And that we are too stubborn to see it.
So, where is your evidence? You mean things like Lucy and property dualism?
Ciao
- viole
Like I said I'll be writing up a final little compilation, but here I'm just interested in how to leave people to their beliefs.
Akivah
Well-Known Member
Stop posting.
I have asked why it's absurd several times, including this thread, but you can't even begin to show why so...
Rick O'Shez
Irishman bouncing off walls
Any subconscious fissures in YOUR belief system, or is it just one way?
The only way to change a person is to get that person to like and trust you. Benjamin Franklin would borrow something from his enemies, return it and thank them graciously. It worked very well for him.
We can't hate the idea's of the people we like and trust, we can disagree with them but have to be open because we like the person. Which is why when people get aggressive they will never win. A hammer to the head knocks the person out and when they wake they usually have a headache. The only thing they learn is to say away from the hammer wielder.
My belief system is 'I believe what is most reasonable to believe considering all the evidence and argumentation' and that evolves continuously. But to be honest, I can find nothing to fissure my basic beliefs but I consider everything I hear. If I think the other side has a good point, I will absorb that point.
"I'm gonna be super rude to you and pretend you ignoring me is all your fault." I like it!
Guy Threepwood
Mighty Pirate
As an atheist I used to argue passionately with 'theists', in person, and get very frustrated. My mind was eventually changed, but nobody who ever debated me ever knew it- so sometimes people do listen, and what we say can make a difference. It's just unlikely that it will be acknowledged.
If anything helped open my mind to their point of view, it was that they remained so patient and respectful to me, in contrast to my attitude! So I try to do the same, but it's easier said than done!
This is pretty much what it seemed like you did to me here http://www.religiousforums.com/threads/rejections-of-materialism.190127/page-7#post-4871451 . It was the first and only post I made in one of your MANY threads being dismissive and accusatory of materialist/physicalist viewpoint, and you dismissed it out of hand in a, imo, pretty rude way. I've had lots of debates with non-materialists including @George-ananda but I think we (or hope we) have a mutual understanding that when we debate we're merely sharing why an argument does or doesn't convince us. Our objective is not to change the other person's mind nor to 'win.'
Guy Threepwood
Mighty Pirate
The big bang, quantum mechanics, plate tectonics were once 'stupid and irrational'
while anyone who doubted Piltdown man, canals on Mars, or global cooling were 'deniers of science!'
Young Earth creationism is not my position, but when large numbers of people believe in something that seems stupid and irrational to us, it's usually a red flag that we are missing something.
I don't think either fundametalist Darwinists or YE creationists are stupid and irrational. I agree with Ben Carson, that God could have made a 14 billion yr old universe appear 6000 years ago.. he's God.
I'd say that the only truly stupid and irrational position, is to believe something is true purely 'cos the 'experts' say so'
yes, and He could have made people believe that and live under the delusion of being right. HE is God.
Ciao
- viole
Apologies for that! You popped into the middle of a very heated thread there, and I certainly was dismissive.
I agree that I need to change my view to simply "why X does or does not convince me."
You have changed your perspective over time, yes. It would have been more helpful if you answered the introspective questions I posed instead of reply like this, though. I made the observation that you seem to be one of those personality types that needs to be right and want to have things all figured out. It sounds like from your perspective, you tell yourself that you care about the truth, and it isn't about you needing to be right or have your personal dogmas. Or is it? I don't know. That's why I'm asking. Maybe you don't know the answer? Or don't want to answer?
You asked us, though, how to work with folks who are set in their ways. What I'm trying to get us to think about here is why you feel the need to upset their ways instead of leave them to it while you do your thing. No matter what you do, there will always be people who are different from you, whether it's how they look or how they think. It's about choosing your battles, because they are battles that cannot be won. Is it worth the level of anger and frustration you are experiencing to crusade against materialists? Is it worth that time and energy you could be putting into other things?
Think about it. Try to turn off the defensive reaction you had to my last post (or at least that's what this reply sounds like to me) and think about it. Come up with answers you find satisfactory. I don't care what those answers are - the point is to help yourself work through this for your own sake, not for ours.