(February 9, 2014 at 10:47 pm)leodeo Wrote: i always get destroyed in arguments, mostly i think cus my low self esteem, and because i get anxiety and have no idea what to say and just pretend to agree with people to end the argument.As rasetsu said, some of us just aren't good at that type of confrontation. Learn and adapt, or work to overcome. Or find a different approach. Instead of seeing it as a desire to win an argument or defend your beliefs, approach it as a way to understand what the other person believes.
Most importantly, think through your own beliefs and positions. DO you believe that there is an objective morality? Why or why not? If not, where does morality come from? Think of the objections and arguments used by people you've debated, and consider them seriously instead of simply trying to debunk them. See it as a learning experience and not just a chance to put a feather in your cap.
The better you understand why you believe what you believe, the easier it becomes to defend it. And when you discuss religion from a sincere desire to understand why people believe what they believe, the easier it becomes to make it difficult for them to defend it.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould
