How do you stop arguing with fundamentalists? Should you?

[Revoltingest]

I remember being a kid first stumbling upon yahoo answers, and slap fighting with the creationists and all that. I used to let myself get stressed over it, frustrated that people just don't listen, etc. Then I just kind of gave up, not even sure what happened. Now I find myself in the same position with atheism and materialism. Sometimes no matter how much logic and evidence you shove in someone's face they still simply won't listen. Again I find myself angry and frustrated, and I want to know how to just let it go.

But then, is letting it go right? Sure you can't change the mind of a fundamentalist denying reason and evidence, but does that mean you just accept it? What about onlookers? What about a simple responsibility to challenge fundamentalism?

Any tips or thoughts?

I haven't read the other posts, so my advice might be redundant.....
1) Accept that there is fundamental disagreement, & that this likely won't change.
2) Strive for discussion instead of argument or debate.
3) If they're threatened by a view, seek to assuage that fear (eg, most heathens support religious freedom).
4) Exploring differences should be fun, & not cause stress or animus.
5) Recognize that with some people, discussion would be unproductive, & is best avoided.

Of course, the above advice is specifically for you.
It doesn't work for me.
My approach is to carefully listen to the argument of another,
& then pronounce it to be utterly wrong. Issue is settled.

 

[1137]

M'kay. Hold a thought for me, then. Hold an idea. Right there, in your hand. Take a picture and post it. I'll write you a check if you can.

And no, holding a blueprint is not holding an idea, it's holding a physical piece of paper with stuff drawn on it.

New tech is being made that can measure brain activity and supposedly reproduce the images in real time. Are we in agreement that this still would not be valid?

 

[Quintessence]

New tech is being made that can measure brain activity and supposedly reproduce the images in real time. Are we in agreement that this still would not be valid?

Depends on what we mean by "valid." In essence, I would say the findings of the sciences are absolutely valid, but I think we need to keep in mind a couple of things: (1) the sciences are not the only valid way of knowing, and (2) all ways of knowing, including the sciences, have certain limitations. Sciences rest on empirical observations - things that can be measured and have mass/energy to them - so one limitation is that it is inherently biased towards materialism. It can't draw conclusions that fall outside of that limitation, and if it did, it would be pseudoscience, not science. There are other ways of thinking and knowing besides the sciences that don't have that bias towards materialism. I find those ways of thinking and knowing just as valid. And, more importantly, just as fascinating and interesting! I like good stories.

 

[jonathan180iq]

M'kay. Hold a thought for me, then. Hold an idea. Right there, in your hand. Take a picture and post it. I'll write you a check if you can.

And no, holding a blueprint is not holding an idea, it's holding a physical piece of paper with stuff drawn on it.

Yes. You are correct. You cannot hold intangible things in your tangible hand.
Congratulations! You guys have one aspect of this whole conversation just absolutely nailed down.

Now, your turn.

What is a thought without the physical, material brain and all of it's physical and material mechanisms? What is any intangible thing without a physical and material precursor?
Can you explain that?
Can you posit an explanation for how the mind can exist without there first being a physical brain? Can you explain how a complex brain can arise without being preceded in development and lineage by a more primitive brain? Can you explain how the primitive brain came to be without the material that it is comprised of first existing in separate parts?

If you cannot separate the existence of this thing that we call the mind from the physical and material necessity of it's root, then this whole argument is completely superfluous.

 

[Quintessence]

Now, your turn.

Not really interested in arguing about this, sorry. Haven't started yet, not going to now. Haven't even said a word about my favorite story about "what's the underlying substance(s) of reality." Then again, nobody has asked either.

In honesty, if any human actually thinks they know The Answer™ to any of these deep metaphysical questions, that's just... LOL. Sorry. Just... LOL. Humans need to quit taking themselves oh so seriously, I think.

So mostly, I am quite content to sit back and watch you guys tell your stories.

 

[jonathan180iq]

Not really interested in arguing about this, sorry. Haven't started yet, not going to now. Haven't even said a word about my favorite story about "what's the underlying substance(s) of reality." Then again, nobody has asked either.

In honesty, if any human actually thinks they know The Answer™ to any of these deep metaphysical questions, that's just... LOL. Sorry. Just... LOL. Humans need to quit taking themselves oh so seriously, I think.

So mostly, I am quite content to sit back and watch you guys tell your stories.

That's kind of true of this whole forum, though, isn't it?

Also, and with all due respect, not having an answer to those questions is kind of what I expected. That's why this OP and all of it's offshoots are so ridiculous.

 

[1137]

This thread defeats the purpose of why I even posted it. I'm moving past this squabbling like I moved past debating creationists, ancient alien theorists, etc.

 

[Quintessence]

That's kind of true of this whole forum, though, isn't it?

Also, and with all due respect, not having an answer to those questions is kind of what I expected. That's why this OP and all of it's offshoots are so ridiculous.

Choosing not to answer doesn't mean that one lacks them.

As I said, I really do find it LOL worthy that any human thinks they know what is going on with this stuff. It's good to know what one's worldview is and how to articulate that to others when it's important, yeah. It's good to know how that worldview influences how you approach the world and relate to it. Beyond that? I don't see the point of arguing. Discussing? Yeah, sure. Arguing? Eh. I used to be more argumentative as a person, but I stopped seeing the value in that a while ago, so not so much now. More picky about where I get argumentative. When it comes to arguing about questions that are fundamentally philosophical and opinion-land? Meh. Feels a bit silly for me to do that. So yeah... I really don't care if you want to be... whatever it is your position is on this stuff. Cool beans.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

Materialism is a type of monism, meaning that only one substance exists period, end of story. In reverse kinds of monism, for example, the material world is understood as not real, an illusion. But if something that is not matter exists, monism cannot be correct because now more than one substance exists, even if it arises from matter.

These various philosophical positions represent different explanations for what we experience.

Materialism is the view that everything, including thoughts and feelings, can be explained as deriving from physical phenomena. With this model thoughts and feelings are understood as deriving from electro-chemical activity in the brain, so mind is dependent on the body and not a separate entity.

Personally I don't have a strong preference, sometimes materialism seems adequate, sometimes dualism makes more sense. I don't find idealism very convincing though.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I'll pay my entire salary to see that. It'd be witnessing a genuinely supernatural miracle to see someone physically hold something that is entirely non-physical.

In case it wasn't obvious from my post, my point was that since I *can't* hold wind in my hand - despite wind being uncontroversially, definitively physical and material - the fact that I can't hold a thought in my hand isn't a rational reason to dismiss thoughts as "immaterial".

 

[VioletVortex]

I used to do that with my Yahoo account.

Creationists are fairly caught up in what they believe in, they are puppets of the bible, and they make that their one function in life. While they are missing out on the other, more important aspects of life, they are not going to change their beliefs based on something a Satanist says, so arguing with them is pretty futile. Arguing with people can be a blast sometimes, though.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

"I won't address any of your points directly, then I'll **** about how you don't make them". There's been plenty of threads for you to address my fully explained position, but you refuse to.

Baloney.

An actual argument would be one where you start with a set of premises and give sequence of logical steps that ends with something like "therefore, materialism is false." You've dobe nothing like this.

now you're straight admitting non material things like values and subjective experience do exist! Materialism really has become a new Christianity, even when people see the gaps they just keep hanging on and screaming against it. Address my points or leave me the **** alone, unfortunately I can't ignore you and mods can't get in trouble for trolling.

If you think that things like subjective experience and values are incompatible with a materialist worldview, then you're arguing against a parody of materialism, not actual materialism.

Shame that in your "years of study" of this, you never bothered to find out what materialism actually is.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

This thread defeats the purpose of why I even posted it. I'm moving past this squabbling like I moved past debating creationists, ancient alien theorists, etc.

I think it illustrates your point well. You just failed to recognize that in this case, you're the one who's the fundamentalist.

Edit: nobody - including people with truly wacky ideas - thinks that their own beliefs are irrational. Hopefully, you can take from this experience a better understanding of the fundamentalist mindset, because you fit it to a T on the issue of materialism: you reject materialism in a similar way to how a creationist rejects evolution.

 

[1137]

Baloney.

An actual argument would be one where you start with a set of premises and give sequence of logical steps that ends with something like "therefore, materialism is false." You've dobe nothing like this.

Lol like this?

http://www.religiousforums.com/threads/rejections-of-materialism.190127/

If you think that things like subjective experience and values are incompatible with a materialist worldview, then you're arguing against a parody of materialism, not actual materialism.

Shame that in your "years of study" of this, you never bothered to find out what materialism actually is.

I'm not wasting time debating this anymore, but I am curious how materialism, a form of monism where only matter exists, can accept non material things like subjective experience? Or, if subjective experience is considered material, why can we not get direct, physical access to subjective thoughts?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Lol like this?

http://www.religiousforums.com/threads/rejections-of-materialism.190127/

Like that, but rational and with no logical leaps in the argument.

BTW: when I pointed out some of the problems with that before, you said it wasn't an argument you were making. Have you changed your mind?

I'm not wasting time debating this anymore, but I am curious how materialism, a form of monism where only matter exists, can accept non material things like subjective experience?

Why on Earth would you assume that thoughts are immaterial?

Or, if subjective experience is considered material, why can we not get direct, physical access to subjective thoughts?

Because brains are complex and poorly understood, maybe? Why would you expect thi to be a necessary implication of thoughts being material? Do you think that we have direct, physical access to all material things?

 

[1137]

Like that, but rational and with no logical leaps in the argument.

BTW: when I pointed out some of the problems with that before, you said it wasn't an argument you were making. Have you changed your mind?


Why on Earth would you assume that thoughts are immaterial?


Because brains are complex and poorly understood, maybe? Why would you expect thi to be a necessary implication of thoughts being material? Do you think that we have direct, physical access to all material things?

Actually yes, we can directly learn information about the material world, science relies on it. Bug anyways, thanks for at least answering!

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Actually yes, we can directly learn information about the material world relies on it.

Sure, we can learn about the material world by observing it, but there's nothing in materialism that implies that every fact is practically observable.

Science also relies on the fact that there are things about the material world that we don't yet know.

I still have no idea why you assume that we should know right now - with our current level of understanding and technology - everything there is to be learned about how the brain works if materialism is correct.

To go with the parallel of fundamentalism again, your line of questions reminds me of ones that I've seen from creationists ("if you don't have the whole hominid lineage figured out, how can you say that humans evolved?").

 

[1137]

Sure, we can learn about the material world by observing it, but there's nothing in materialism that implies that every fact is practically observable.

Science also relies on the fact that there are things about the material world that we don't yet know.

I still have no idea why you assume that we should know right now - with our current level of understanding and technology - everything there is to be learned about how the brain works if materialism is correct.

To go with the parallel of fundamentalism again, your line of questions reminds me of ones that I've seen from creationists ("if you don't have the whole hominid lineage figured out, how can you say that humans evolved?").

Look, I've provided my reasoning plenty of times already, far more that you've presented anything on this topic. Your closing statement is simply hilarious because materialism is what assumes reductionism before answering basic questions of both logic and evidence, I stead hoping we will one day answer the question and presupposing it will be in line with reductionism. If not making a leap beyond what we obviously observe to be true, based on positions on logically incoherent grounds, and instead relying simply on the evidence we have CURRENTLY is somehow fundamentalism, then sure, I'll happily take the title. I guess we just have different interpretations of the word.

Feel free to take the last word, and may you one day Xeper!

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Look, I've provided my reasoning plenty of times already, far more that you've presented anything on this topic.

None of these conversations have been quid-pro-quo arrangements. Your arguments stand or fall on their own merits. Me pointing out the problems with your arguments doesn't oblige me to post an argument of my own.

Your closing statement is simply hilarious because materialism is what assumes reductionism before answering basic questions of both logic and evidence,

No, it doesn't. It assumes a semantic convention: that which is shown to exist - whether new, strange, or behaving in a way completely unlike other material things - I'll label "material".

Rejection of materialism, OTOH, assumes two key things:

- there exists some invisible realm where real things exist, and the things in this realm are undetectable to us but affect the material things we see around us.

- it is completely invalid to use the label "material" to describe this magical realm of the things in it.

I stead hoping we will one day answer the question and presupposing it will be in line with reductionism.

Again: there's no reductionism. Materialists don't try to shoehorn new knowledge into some existing paradigm; when new knowledge conflicts with the paradigm, the paradigm changes to adapt.

If not making a leap beyond what we obviously observe to be true, based on positions on logically incoherent grounds, and instead relying simply on the evidence we have CURRENTLY is somehow fundamentalism, then sure, I'll happily take the title. I guess we just have different interpretations of the word.

If you only did that, you would be on the fence about materialism. Instead, you actually reject it - this needs a boatload of unjustified assumptions.

 

[Deathbydefault]

Any tips or thoughts?

Unless it's at odds with your morals or a subject that really bugs you, just tactfully extract yourself from the discussions.
If it's a waste of time, and you know it's a waste of time, stop wasting your time.

People will figure themselves out, the only obligation you have to others is the one you assign yourself.