Good Discussion
Good discussion is based more on the character of the
participants rather than on their logical and/or rhetorical abilities.
To say
what you mean, be honest about what you know and not quit when
discouraged are
the primary demands of good dialog. Learning is a process that requires
humility, patience and careful attention.
Lack of critical thinking would be my primary
complaint in
dialog. The prevailing belief that all beliefs are equally valid and
true is
false. Simple logic confirms this. When you have two truth propositions
that
are diametrically opposed to one another, either one is true or the
other or
both are false, but certainly both are not true, at least at the same
time and
in the same sense.
Certainly the moral demands aforementioned are
imperative,
but getting to the truth is important as well. If relativism is indeed
reality,
everything is a personal value judgment, and then there would be no
such thing
as truth only belief. Your truth as you define it in the dialog is no
more
valid than my truth as I define it in my side of the dialog. So what’s
the
point of dialog then when there is no truth to get at?
The fact remains that we live in a world chock
full of
mutually agreed upon propositions; gravity is real, murder is evil,
charity is
good. In other words, there certain things that are universally
recognized as
being true, dialog is one process (among many) to examine truth claims
for
their validity. The question is this, are our senses truth gathering
tools or
not? Or do our minds define reality as we see fit and our senses
project into
the world what we wish to 'see'?
Personally, I don’t mind getting snapped at in a dialog, as long as the person is genuinely interested in the conversation and is using reason. What I hate is having my time wasted by an iterant skeptic just taking pot shots at the conversation and not offering his or her case for why I should believe their position is true. In other words, getting at the truth is a struggle and I am not afraid of getting roughed up; I can take a punch. So please don’t be offended if I let you have it. Believe me, I truly care about people, we all are tremendously intrinsically valuable and precious, and about truth. As I’ve said before, the older I get the more I figure out that I don’t know much. But I do know that I have a proper foundation for building knowledge. I welcome all of you to try and change my mind, don’t give up; I’m challenging you. So let’s put our emotions aside as best we can and get reasonable with each other. I promise to do my best to be open and honest as I look forward to interacting with you all.