Whenever I go to an atheist forum, I see a lot of good sense in atheist arguments contrary to religion. But I often see a lot of unexamined positions, unquestioned assumptions, and inferior reasoning from atheists in the areas of the forum where "other" topics are acceptable for discussion.
I've recently been examining racist arguments without taking the attitude that there just must be something factually incorrect about them. I've noticed a few things about them.
First, racists often rely far more extensively on empirically derived facts than their opponents do. That is, racists don't "just make it up" and then rantingly insist upon their narrative. Instead, they do quite a bit of research before they write.
Second, racists are usually more fair in their conclusions and in their presentations than they are usually credited for being.
Third, the opponents of racism, whom I'll call "egalitarians," are usually the ones who sound as if they were defending some sort of preconceived quasi-religious orthodoxy. Strip away their pejoratives, or ignore them, and judge the racist viewpoint in the light of its own merits, and racism seems at times to be rather convincing.
Has anyone here ever actually followed a racist vs. egalitarian debate closely? Especially one in which neither side held the privilege of writing rules of permitted speech conveniently in its own favor and then using their censorship/banning powers as means of seeming to win.
I've recently been examining racist arguments without taking the attitude that there just must be something factually incorrect about them. I've noticed a few things about them.
First, racists often rely far more extensively on empirically derived facts than their opponents do. That is, racists don't "just make it up" and then rantingly insist upon their narrative. Instead, they do quite a bit of research before they write.
Second, racists are usually more fair in their conclusions and in their presentations than they are usually credited for being.
Third, the opponents of racism, whom I'll call "egalitarians," are usually the ones who sound as if they were defending some sort of preconceived quasi-religious orthodoxy. Strip away their pejoratives, or ignore them, and judge the racist viewpoint in the light of its own merits, and racism seems at times to be rather convincing.
Has anyone here ever actually followed a racist vs. egalitarian debate closely? Especially one in which neither side held the privilege of writing rules of permitted speech conveniently in its own favor and then using their censorship/banning powers as means of seeming to win.
