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<\/a><\/div>\nI\u2019ve been in an extended commenting debate over at Debunking Christianity, after mentioning Loftus in my post yesterday talking about why a diversity of opinions isn\u2019t always a good thing<\/a>. \u00a0I have a weakness for pugilistic rhetoric, which may have muddied my message slightly, so I\u2019m reposting a comment I made there over here. \u00a0If you\u2019re interested, click here<\/a> to read through the thread.<\/p>\n A brief<\/strong>\u00a0quote from my interlocutor (click above to read the whole thread, so I don\u2019t do him a disservice by cherrypicking:<\/p>\n You said \u2026\u201dI think there are plenty of wrong, damaging ideologies under atheism\u2019s big tent, and not enough focus on trying to root them out\u201d<\/p>\n And you know what its quite possible i fully agree with you . But still who of us ? should be the one given the right to deem what is damaging or not damaging ? \u2026 Isnt this the very reason why atleast the \u201copinions\u201d should always be something thats allowed ? .<\/p>\n Thats always been the problem none of us is God \u2026.Yet faithful humans have tried claiming to be God , by writing what they did in holy books \u2026Banning right of opinion \u2026and making their thoughts , Gods thoughts \u2026.In effect this banned diversity of opinion ..And also banned hope of change<\/p>\n We shouldnt try to think of atheism as some miracle system that can be expected will always have all the \u201cright thoughts\u201d and always get \u201ceverything right\u201d and \u201cnever make mistakes\u201d .<\/p><\/blockquote>\n My comment\/clarification:<\/p>\n Gandolf, you keep using the word \u2018banned\u2019 which I did not use once in my post because that was not the kind of solution I was advocating. I am NOT talking about using force or the State\u2019s monopoly on force to suppress ideas I disagree with.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s my position:<\/p>\n When we see a wide range of (sometimes contradictory) ideas that are about a high-stakes, big consequences topic like morality and all claim to be derived using a set of common standards (skepticism, empiricism, etc), our reaction should not be \u201cWhat a healthy diversity of opinions!\u201d but \u201cUh oh.\u201d<\/p>\n Maybe there\u2019s something wrong with our ability to reason, or maybe someone\u2019s wrong about the facts on the ground, or maybe there isn\u2019t a contradiction, we just set up a false dichotomy with the way we were speaking (my guess on the source of our disagreement). Either way, I want us to see divergent views as part of a process that ends with a new paradigm, or a rejection, or a new synthesis. Just like it works in the scientific community.<\/p>\n To praise the diversity of opinions rather than the whole process and the goal of discerning truth is like praising the hypothesis generating stage of the scientific method. It\u2019s not a good in itself without a crucible for the ideas.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I hope this is a little clearer, but I welcome questions or comments.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been in an extended commenting debate over at Debunking Christianity, after mentioning Loftus in my post yesterday talking about why a diversity of opinions isn\u2019t always a good thing. \u00a0I have a weakness for pugilistic rhetoric, which may have muddied my message slightly, so I\u2019m reposting a comment I made there over here. \u00a0If […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[54],"class_list":["post-265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-atheism","tag-atheism-is-boring"],"yoast_head":"\n