Quotes about argument
page 14

“It is amazing how many people think that they can answer an argument by attributing bad motives to those who disagree with them. Using this kind of reasoning, you can believe or not believe anything about anything, without having to bother to deal with facts or logic.”

Thomas Sowell (1930) American economist, social theorist, political philosopher and author

Random Thoughts https://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/2004/12/06/random-thoughts-n996213, Townhall, December 2004. 2000s

Bad luck, People, Motivation, Thinking

“There is no doubt that the contrast is patent between what we call, with too gross a classification, the developed and the undeveloped countries. … Why is there this difference, this divergence, this bifurcation? … it is not due to any difference in intellectual capacity, human ability or insight. It is an absurd notion that the European is intellectually superior to vast millions of the human race in Asia and elsewhere. The subtlety, the insight, the power of reflection and of argument to be found in India and elsewhere are equal to anything which is within our conception or grasp. As for character and human ability, it would be ludicrous, and a confession of total and boorish ignorance, to say that it is difference in those respects which accounts for these differences of experience. In case I be misunderstood, may I say at once that I do not believe that the IQ method of analysing the human race produces useful results for this purpose. I doubt whether many of the characteristics which we regard as typically and transcendentally European are purely intellectual. I think they have in them very much of the moral and very much of the social.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1980/jun/16/international-development-brandt-report#S5CV0986P0_19800616_HOC_323 in the House of Commons (16 June 1980) on the Brandt Report 1980s

Thinking, Country

“Your code is shit.. your argument is shit.”

Linus Torvalds (1969) Finnish-American software engineer and hacker

In reply to: Ingo Molnar: ""Re: announce new tree: fix all build warnings, on all configs"", 2008-10-20, Torvalds, Linus, 2017-04-25 http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0810.2/1735.html, In reply to: Andrew Morton: "Re: upcoming kerneloops.org item: get_page_from_freelist", 2009-6-24, Torvalds, Linus, 2017-04-25 http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0906.3/00429.html, 2000s, 2009

“This argument is not about sexual practices or particular lifestyles. It hinges on whether gay and lesbian Americans are entitled to the same enjoyment as their fellow citizens of the freedom to make choices about how to live their lives without suffering discrimination in consequence.”

Michael Nava (1954) American writer

Source: Non-fiction, Created equal: Why gay rights matter to America (1994), p.154

Making love, Freedom, Suffering

“The images of Saddam Hussein endlessly repeated on our screens before the war (Saddam firing a rifle into the air) made him into some kind of Iraqi Charlton Heston — the president not only of Iraq, but also of the Iraqi Rifle Association. The true interest of these images, however, is that they remind us how the ideological struggle is fought out not only at the level of arguments but also at the level of images: which image will hegemonize a field, and function as the paradigmatic embodiment of an idea, a regime, a problem.”

Saddam Hussein (1937–2006) Iraqi politician and President

Slavoj Žižek, Iraq: The Borrowed Kettle, p. 2. ISBN 1844675408.

War, Idea, Problem

“Freedom brings responsibility and often guilt. It may indeed provide a deeper satisfaction and a richer life, but the evaluation of such rewards is a distressingly subjective process. Perhaps no argument in favor of liberty can satisfy the intellect; perhaps the best we can hope for is a shared emotional conviction.”

Poul Anderson (1926–2001) American science fiction and fantasy writer

Patrick L. McGuire, Her Strong Enchantments Failing (p. 95)
Short fiction, The Book of Poul Anderson (1975)

Life, Hope, Freedom

“The electorate voted to leave the EU, and therefore we leave. What is more, the number of people who voted to do so was higher than the number of votes cast for any government in our history. To me and many of my former colleagues in government who preferred to remain, the argument was over.”

William Hague (1961) British politician

World leaders asked how UK would 'get round' Brexit, says Hague https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-40785322 BBC News (1 August 2017) 2000, 2017

People, History

“Once we have left and we have control, there is a political argument about what levels of immigration we should have… that is really going to be a challenge and an issue for the competence of the Home Office. It is not so much a question of Brexit. It is Brexit which makes it possible, it is then administrative efficiency that will make it happen.”

Jacob Rees-Mogg (1969) British politician

No role for EU court after Brexit says Rees-Mogg https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-40788668 BBC News (1 August 2017) 2017

Making love, Home, Question

“Not the least among the arguments whose consideration should dispose us to welcome among us the peoples of all countries, nationalities and colors, is the fact that all races and varieties of men are improvable. This is the grand distinguishing attribute of humanity, and separates man from all other animals. If it could be shown that any particular race of men are literally incapable of improvement, we might hesitate to welcome them here. But no such men are anywhere to be found, and if they were, it is not likely that they would ever trouble us with their presence.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

The fact that the Chinese and other nations desire to come and do come is a proof of their capacity for improvement and of their fitness to come.
1860s, Our Composite Nationality (1869)

Men, People, Color, Animals

“An academic debate on any subject should concentrate on the pros and cons of the arguments presented by the two (or more) opposing sides in the debate; it should be conducted in an open and sincere atmosphere; and the natural desire (not academically wrong in itself) to win the debate should not be allowed to overpower the academic desire to arrive at the truth… And an academic debate cannot be won by the simple expedient of name-calling and label-sticking, and consequent disqualification of the opposing side from even taking part in the debate.”

Shrikant Talageri (1958) Indian author

The Rigveda: A Historical Analysis (2000), Chapter 9 : Michael Witzel - An Examination of Western Vedic Scholarship

Truth, Nature, Parting, Sincerity

“Sergent’s last thrust represents the unkindest cut in this whole smear campaign. It is not we who have avoided debate. It is these Western scholars who have chosen to conduct a spit-and-run campaign from a safe distance, while restricting their criticism of our theory (elaborated by us in our earlier book) to name-calling and label-sticking rather than to demolition of our arguments.”

Shrikant Talageri (1958) Indian author

The Rigveda: A Historical Analysis (2000), Chapter 9 : Michael Witzel - An Examination of Western Vedic Scholarship

Books

“But the same argument cannot hold for a post-Rigvedic movement from the northwest into the rest of India: it is clear that a full-fledged literary tradition had certainly started with the Rigveda at least; and any post-Rigvedic movements should be reflected in the later texts.”

Shrikant Talageri (1958) Indian author

The Rigveda: A Historical Analysis (2000), Chapter 8 : Misinterpretations of Rigvedic History

“The logic of arguments from :en:Naturalness (physics) resembles the attempt to. predict the plot of a long-running TV series. If the hero -- here, naturalness --is in a pickle, certainly he will survive, so something must happen to turn around a situation that looks bleak.”

Sabine Hossenfelder (1976) German theoretical physicist

Lost in Math, Chapter 4, p. 78, 2018 hardcover ed.
Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray (2018)

Nature

“The argument, in essence, is that protected speech may be banned as a means to ban unprotected speech. This analysis turns the First Amendment upside down. The Government may not suppress lawful speech as the means to suppress unlawful speech. Protected speech does not become unprotected merely because it resembles the latter. The Constitution requires the reverse.”

Anthony Kennedy (1936) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, 535 U.S. 234 (2002) (Opinion of the Court).

Law

“Spinoza is a highly systematic thinker, but still I do not think I can offer a single key for all things Spinozistic. Personally, one thing which got me excited about Spinoza is his philosophical boldness, i. e., his willingness to pursue philosophical exploration as far as he can, making very little concessions to commonly accepted beliefs and norms. In terms of content, I take his attempt to conceive of God, nature, and ethics in a manner that is free from anthropomorphism and anthropocentric illusions as one of the deepest elements of his philosophical thinking. A closely related issue is his advocacy of actual infinity (an issue that has been mostly neglected in recent literature). Finally, the very attempt to do philosophy systematically (rather than rely on fragmented and disassociated intuitions) and transparently (laying bare the logical structure of his arguments) commands my respect, indeed admiration.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

Yitzhak Y. Melamed, Spinoza's Metaphysics and His Relationship to Hegel and the German Idealists, an interview by Richard Marshall (3:AM Magazine, 30 December 2017) https://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/spinozas-metaphysics-relationship-hegel-german-idealists/ M - R

God, Making love, Literature, Nature

“Douglas accepted Dred Scott, and in Dred Scott, the Chief Justice had said that the right to own slaves is expressly affirmed in the Constitution. And Lincoln said in the debates that it was implied but not expressly affirmed. The argument against any restriction on slavery was that any right expressly affirmed in the Constitution takes precedent over any law or regulation in any jurisdiction whatever.”

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

Remember, the supremacy clause in Article VI of the Constitution says that this Constitution, and the laws and treaties made in pursuance thereof, are the supreme law of land—anything in any law or a constitution of any state to the contrary not withstanding.
2000s, The Real Abraham Lincoln: A Debate (2002), The Lincoln-Douglas Debates

Justice, Law

“Vivekananda often asserted that only in becoming a ṛṣi does one understand the scripture properly. His argument appears to be that as products and records of direct perception, these texts were not written for the intellect, or for understanding through a process of rational inquiry and analysis. They become meaningful only when one has lifted oneself to the same heights of perception.”

Anantanand Rambachan (1951) Hindu studies scholar

Source: The Nature and Authority of Scripture (1995), p. 23

Understanding, Appearance

“For twelve months now, since I first began the practice of law, since I became an attorney, a man who speak for others, a counselor at law who has the power to address the court, that’s right, a big man, a mature person who helps others in distress—for approximately 365 days time has been nothing but a never-ending experience that meets me in the morning just like it left me off the night before. No longer am I the clear-headed mathematician of my college years. I used to have the answers; and if I didn’t, I could always turn to the back of the book or ask Professor Blackburn at Wednesday morning’s advanced algebra class. For a year now, my only conscious concern has been the pain in my stomach, the arguments of Dr. Serbin, and the schedules of the television shows. I know them all by heart. I can quote every single fucking show on Channels 2, 4, 5, 7, and, you won’t believe it, even on the educational station, Channel 9. I am the world’s only living T. V. Guide, that’s really what I am. And they want me to counsel them!”

Oscar Zeta Acosta book Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo

Source: Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo (1972), p. 24.

Pain, Books, World, Education

“Why is it that Johnny Spaghetti Stain in fucking Georgia can knock a woman up, legally be married to her, and then beat the shit out of her, but these two intelligent, sophisticated writers who have been together for 20 years can’t get married? It’s infuriating and idiotic. I’m incredibly passionate about my support for the gay community and what they’re dealing with at this current point in time. I have arguments with people where I get red in the face, screaming at the top of my lungs.”

Seth MacFarlane (1973) American animator, actor, singer and television producer

Read Oscar Host Seth MacFarlane's One and Only Gay Interview (From 2008) http://www.advocate.com/arts-entertainment/television/2008/01/25/read-oscar-host-seth-macfarlanes-one-and-only-gay-interview, The Advocate, 25 January 2008.

People, Intelligence, Communication, Support

“In a word, metaphysical naturalism is absurd. Notice that my argument is not that it is unappealing. Rather, it is that metaphysical naturalism flies in the face of reason and experience and is therefore untenable.”

William Lane Craig (1949) American Christian apologist and evangelist

Nature

“Paradoxically, some of the sources of disbelief are to be found amongst the arguments of believers.”

Jonathan Miller (1934–2019) British theatre director (born 1934)

… Theologians often formulated the most dangerously skeptical arguments in their efforts to test the impregnability of their own faith, and in doing so, they unknowingly furnished atheists with ready-made weapons.
Episode one: "Shadows of Doubt".
Atheism: A Rough History of Disbelief (2004)

“Most of these handpicked leaders were lawyers, and a few were physicians or educators; most had earned doctoral degrees. Among the more exotic specimens were Otto Ohlendorf, a handsome but argumentative young economist who had fallen into disfavor with Himmler.”

Otto Ohlendorf (1907–1951) German general

Richard Rhodes, 2003.

Education

“This jackass of a president ought to proclaim pride month for decency, abstinence and chastity, not for the most abominable sins known to mankind — in the estimation of God Almighty, that is. Obama will bring down the curses of God upon the whole creation. Remember, you ignorant Americans, you Obama-worshippers around the world, we warned you. He raises a false argument ordering that nobody discriminate against fags. Listen up, you Bible-ignorant moron! It is neither wrongful nor sinful to discriminate against sin!”

Fred Phelps (1929–2014) American pastor and activist

2000s, Fag-Lover Obama (2009)

God, World, Falseness

“AL GORE: And even though it has gone through this exhaustive 20-year peer review process with the 3,000 best scientists in the world unanimously endorsing it, every national academy of sciences in a developed country on this planet endorsing it, still, based on some radio talk show host or some odd orthogonal argument…”

Al Gore (1948) 45th Vice President of the United States

Quotes from Interviews

World, Science, Country

“I am a believer in liberty. That is my religion — to give to every other human being every right that I claim for myself, and I grant to every other human being, not the right — because it is his right — but instead of granting I declare that it is his right, to attack every doctrine that I maintain, to answer every argument that I may urge — in other words, he must have absolute freedom of speech.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

The trial of Charles B. Reynolds for blasphemy (1887)

Religion, Freedom

“I think even if they were paid an hourly wage, it’d be quite an improvement from what they get. And you know, I understand the arguments about they’re getting their education paid for, they’re this that and the other, but there are people on academic scholarships that don’t have to deal with any extra rigors. They get their education paid for. And they don’t have to deal with eight hours a day of football, and you know, if you mess up your knee you’ve got to deal with two hours of rehab everyday. So that’s 10 hours of your day gone, and there’s only 24 in a day. So, if they just gave him an hourly wage, even if they gave him 10 bucks, 12 bucks an hour, that’d be a vast improvement over what they got now.”

Richard Sherman (American football) (1988) American football player

About college players' wages.
The NFL Would Not Have Banned A Donald Sterling For Life (May 7, 2014)

People, Education, Understanding, Thinking

“It seems to be a fact of life that human beings cannot continue to do wrong without eventually reaching out for some thin rationalization to clothe the obvious wrong in the beautiful garments of righteousness. The philosopher-psychologist William James used to talk a great deal about the stream of consciousness. He says that the very interesting and unique thing about human nature is that man had the capacity temporarily to block the stream of consciousness and place anything in it that he wants to, and so we often end up justifying the rightness of the wrong. This is exactly what happened during the days of slavery. Even the Bible and religion were misused to crystallize the patterns of the status quo. And so it was argued from pulpits across the nation that the Negro was inferior by nature, because of Noah’s curse upon the children of Ham. The apostle Paul’s dictum became a watchword: Servants, be obedient to your master. And then one brother had probably studied the logic of the great philosopher Aristotle. You know Aristotle did a great deal to bring into being what we know as formal logic, and he talked about the syllogism, which had a major premise and a minor premise and a conclusion. And so this brother could put his argument in the framework of an Aristotelian syllogism. He could say, All men are made in the image of God. This was the major premise; then came the minor premise: God, as everybody knows, is not a Negro. Therefore, the Negro is not a man. This was the type of reasoning that prevailed.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, Address to Cornell College (1962)

Life, Men, God, Children

“Never say, and never take seriously anyone who says, "I cannot believe that so-and-so could have evolved by gradual selection". I have dubbed this kind of fallacy "the Argument from Personal Incredulity."”

Richard Dawkins book River Out of Eden

Time and again, it has proven the prelude to an intellectual banana-skin experience.
River out of Eden (1995)

Personality

“We seek the support of all political groups and protection of the government, which is also our government, in our struggle. For too many years we have been treated like the lowest of the low. Our wages and working conditions have been determined from above, because irresponsible legislators who could have helped us, have supported the rancher's argument that the plight of the Farm Worker was a "special case."”

Cesar Chavez (1927–1993) American farm worker, labor leader, and civil rights activist

They saw the obvious effects of an unjust system, starvation wages, contractors, day hauls, forced migration, sickness, illiteracy, camps and sub-human living conditions, and acted as if they were irremediable causes. The farm worker has been abandoned to his own fate — without representation, without power — subject to mercy and caprice of the rancher. We are tired of words, of betrayals, of indifference. To the politicians we say that the years are gone when the farm worker said nothing and did nothing to help himself. From this movement shall spring leaders who shall understand us, lead us, be faithful to us, and we shall elect them to represent us. We shall be heard.
The Plan of Delano (1965)

Support, Help

“The fist in the face, that is the only argument capitalism understands, and Bolshevism has used the fist, hard, very hard but certainly justified.”

Ture Nerman (1886–1969) Swedish socialist

Folkets Dagblad - Politiken (5 May 1919)

Understanding

“While not a panacea, candidly recognizing the absence of any good logical arguments for God’s existence, giving up on divine allies and advocates as well as taskmasters and tormentors, and prizing a humane, reasonable, and brave outlook just might help move this world a bit closer to a heaven on earth.”

John Allen Paulos (1945) American mathematician

Part 3 “Four Psycho-Mathematical Arguments”, Chapter 6 “Atheists, Agnostics, and “Brights”” (p. 149)
Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (2008)

God, World, Help

“You would think that the obvious irreligious objection would come to almost anyone’s mind when reading a religious tome or holy book. What if you don’t believe the holy book’s presuppositions and narrative claims and simply ask for independent argument or evidence for God’s existence? What if you’re not persuaded by the argument that God exists because His assertion that He exists and discussion of His various exploits appear in this book about Him that believers say He inspired?”

John Allen Paulos (1945) American mathematician

Part 2 “Four Subjective Arguments”, Chapter 2 “The Argument from Prophecy (and the Bible Codes)” (p. 63)
Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (2008)

God, Books, Thinking, Appearance

“And chiefly Thou O Spirit, that dost prefer
Before all Temples th' upright heart and pure,
Instruct me, for Thou know'st; Thou from the first
Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread
Dove-like satst brooding on the vast Abyss
And mad'st it pregnant: What in me is dark
Illumine, what is low raise and support;
That to the highth of this great Argument
I may assert th' Eternal Providence,
And justifie the wayes of God to men.”

John Milton book Paradise Lost

i.17-26
Paradise Lost (1667)

Men, God, Support, Heart

“The several unexamined assumptions in the argument remained unexamined.”

Daniel Abraham (1969) speculative fiction writer from the United States

The Churn (2014)

“As humans, we reflexively reject arguments that contradict what we would like to be true.”

Greg Craven American teacher and writer

Source: What's the Worst That Could Happen?: A Rational Response to the Climate Change Debate (2009), Chapter 3 "Our Glitchy Brains" (p. 74)

“The problem was, although I was as certain as I could be that I was right, I could offer nothing to bolster my arguments.”

Alastair Reynolds book House of Suns

Introduction to Part 2 (p. 100)
House of Suns (2008)

Problem

“It seems, moreover, that my argument has some relevance to choices we must make even now. There are some species of large predatory animals, such as the Siberian tiger, that are currently on the verge of extinction. If we do nothing to preserve it, the Siberian tiger as a species may soon become extinct. The number of extant Siberian tigers has been low for a considerable period. Any ecological disruption occasioned by their dwindling numbers has largely already occurred or is already occurring. If their number in the wild declines from several hundred to zero, the impact of their disappearance on the ecology of the region will be almost negligible. Suppose, however, that we could repopulate their former wide-ranging habitat with as many Siberian tigers as there were during the period in which they flourished in their greatest numbers, and that that population could be sustained indefinitely. That would mean that herbivorous animals in the extensive repopulated area would again, and for the indefinite future, live in fear and that an incalculable number would die in terror and agony while being devoured by a tiger. In a case such as this, we may actually face the kind of dilemma I called attention to in my article, in which there is a conflict between the value of preserving existing species and the value of preventing suffering and early death for an enormously large number of animals.”

Jeff McMahan (philosopher) (1954) American philosopher

" Predators: A Response https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/28/predators-a-response/", The New York Times, 28 Sept. 2010

Death, Fear, Making love, Suffering

“Sixth is the argument from purpose:
# According to Dr. Rosenberg, if naturalism is true then I do not plan to do anything.
# But, I planned to come to tonight’s debate. That is why I am here. From which it follows:
# Therefore, naturalism is not true.”

William Lane Craig (1949) American Christian apologist and evangelist

Nature

“Fifth is the argument from freedom:
# According to Dr. Rosenberg, if naturalism is true then I do not do anything freely. Everything is determined.
# But, I can freely agree or disagree with premise (1). From which it follows:
# Therefore, naturalism is not true.”

William Lane Craig (1949) American Christian apologist and evangelist

Nature, Freedom

“Third is the argument from truth:
# According to Dr. Rosenberg, if naturalism is true then there are no true sentences. That is because they are all meaningless.
# But, premise (1) is true. That is what the naturalist believes and asserts.
# Therefore, naturalism is not true.”

William Lane Craig (1949) American Christian apologist and evangelist

Truth, Nature

“Second is the argument from meaning:
# According to Dr. Rosenberg, if naturalism is true then no sentence has any meaning. And he says that all the sentences in his own book are in fact meaningless.
# But, premise (1) has meaning. We all understood it.
# Therefore, naturalism is not true.”

William Lane Craig (1949) American Christian apologist and evangelist

Books, Nature

“When it comes to showing Christianity to be true we're dealing with somebody else, and therefore we need to give them arguments and evidence to show them that what I know to be true is true. And then the role of the Holy Spirit will be to use those arguments and evidence as I lovingly present them to draw that person to himself. So, in knowing Christianity to be true the Holy Spirit is primary and argument and evidence is secondary, but in showing Christianity to be true argument and evidence is primary and it is the Holy Spirit is secondary as using those as means by which he draws a person to himself.”

William Lane Craig (1949) American Christian apologist and evangelist

Drawing, Personality

“I think that the fundamental way in which we know Christianity is true is through the inner witness of the Holy Spirit. I do not think that arguments and evidence are necessary in order for faith to be rational, or for you to know that God exists and has revealed himself in Christ. So I would say that the fundamental way we know Christianity is true is through the witness of the Holy Spirit and reason and argument then can confirm the Spirit's witness. The person who has good apologetic arguments passes, in a sense, a double warrant for his faith. He has the warrant provided by the Holy Spirit, and then he has the double warrant provided by argument and evidence. But should he lack the argument and evidence he can still be warranted just on the basis of the Holy Spirit. That's knowing Christianity to be true.”

William Lane Craig (1949) American Christian apologist and evangelist

God, Faith, Way, Thinking

“Finally, the argument from personal existence - this is perhaps the coup de grace against naturalism:
# According to Dr. Rosenberg, if naturalism is true then I do not exist. He says there are no selves, there are no persons, no first-person perspectives.
# But, I do exist! I know this as certainly as I know anything. From which it follows:
# Therefore, naturalism is not true.”

William Lane Craig (1949) American Christian apologist and evangelist

Nature, Personality

“Seventh is the argument from enduring:
# According to Dr. Rosenberg, if naturalism is true then I do not endure for two moments of time.
# But, I have been sitting here for more than a minute. If you think that you are the same person who walked into the room tonight then you should agree that:
# Therefore, naturalism is not true.”

William Lane Craig (1949) American Christian apologist and evangelist

Nature, Thinking, Time, Personality

“Fourth is the argument from moral praise and blame:
# According to Dr. Rosenberg, if naturalism is true then I am not morally praiseworthy or blameworthy for any of my actions because, as I said, on his view objective moral values and duties do not exist.
# But, I am morally praiseworthy and blameworthy for at least some of my actions. If you think that you have ever done something truly wrong or truly good then you should conclude:
# Therefore, naturalism is not true.”

William Lane Craig (1949) American Christian apologist and evangelist

Nature, Thinking

“First is the argument from intentionality:
# According to Dr. Rosenberg, if naturalism is true then I cannot think about anything. That is because there are no intentional states.
# But I am thinking about naturalism. From which it follows,
# Therefore, naturalism is not true.
So, if you think that you ever think about anything you should conclude that naturalism is false.”

William Lane Craig (1949) American Christian apologist and evangelist

Nature, Thinking, Falseness

“What can we say about metaphysical naturalism? Again, I want to make two points.
# My arguments for the existence of God show that metaphysical naturalism is not true. There is a personal, transcendent reality beyond the physical universe.
# Secondly, I think that metaphysical naturalism is so contrary to reason and experience as to be absurd.
In the following arguments, the first premise in every case is taken from [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Rosenberg Dr. Rosenberg]’s own book.”

William Lane Craig (1949) American Christian apologist and evangelist

God, Books, Making love, Nature

“If any one here can find a single wrong argument and can refute it, I will let him cut off my head.”

Xuanzang (602–664) Chinese Buddhists monk, scholar, traveler, and translator

Quoted in Durant, Will (1963). Our Oriental heritage. New York: Simon & Schuster.

“It is quite true that, to the best of my judgment, the argumentation which applies to brutes holds equally good of men; and, therefore, that all states of consciousness in us, as in them, are immediately caused by molecular changes of the brain-substance. It seems to me that in men, as in brutes, there is no proof that any state of consciousness is the cause of change in the motion of the matter of the organism. If these positions are well based, it follows that our mental conditions are simply the symbols in consciousness of the changes which takes place automatically in the organism; and that, to take an extreme illustration, the feeling we call volition is not the cause of a voluntary act, but the symbol of that state of the brain which is the immediate cause of that act.”

Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895) English biologist and comparative anatomist

1870s, On the Hypothesis that Animals are Automata, and Its History (1874)

Men, Feeling, Change

“Unfortunately, scholars tend to cite a colleague's mere hypothesis as an argument of authority. So many certainties in this field are merely someone’s casual opinion quoted over and over again.”

Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer

2000s, Asterisk in bharopiyasthan: Minor writings on the Aryan invasion debate (2007)

Quotes

“Let me put on record here that in my 9 years of close involvement in this debate, I have seen time and again that it is the invasionist school which, when it did not refuse the debate, has spoiled the debate by replacing argument with mud-slinging.”

Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer

2000s, Asterisk in bharopiyasthan: Minor writings on the Aryan invasion debate (2007)

School, Time

“The chief lesson to be learnt from it is the futility of all argumentation that precedes understanding. We cannot profitably attack any opinion until we have discovered what it expresses as well as what it states.”

I. A. Richards (1893–1979) English literary critic and rhetorician

[Richards, I. A., Principles of Literary Criticism, 1924]
Principles of Literary Criticism

Understanding

“Some, in their discourse, desire rather commendation of wit, in being able to hold all arguments, than of judgment, in discerning what is true; as if it were a praise, to know what might be said, and not, what should be thought.”

Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, and author

The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. Verulam Viscount St. Albans (1625), Of Discourse

“The continuation of diachrony in perceptions of life and death spreads across a form of antinatalism essentially co-opted from a kind of Western fetishism of Buddhism, namely efilism. Coming etymologically from the reverse of 'life', efilism claims it is better never to have been. Efilist philosophers such as David Benatar hinge their arguments on basic binaries of pleasure and pain which roughly correlate to good and bad and extend to a vindication of life and death. Efilism has a vague correspondence with utilitarianism but emphasizes the suffering of life over utilitarianism's greater good. Both are absolute in their perception of the capacity to evaluate which is which, making both dependent on economic measure of value as an either/or, and to an extent both on (anthropocentric) determinism. Efilism's redeeming feature is that it promotes antinatalism, and often veganism, in its aspirations to a reduction in suffering, and this attitude promises potentials for opening the world through the cessation of the human.”

Patricia MacCormack Australian Scholar

Embracing Death, pp. 152-153
The Ahuman Manifesto: Activism for the End of the Anthropocene (2020)

Life, Death, Pain, Bad luck

“Resistance is folly or heroism—a virtue or a vice—in most cases, according to the probabilities there are of its being successful. The perils of change are so great the promise of the most hopeful theories is so often deceptive, that it is frequently the wiser part to uphold the existing state of things, if it can be done, even though, in point of argument, it should be utterly indefensible.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) British politician

'Parliamentary Reform', Quarterly Review, 117, 1865, p. 550

Hope, Change, Success, Parting

“We are going to Geneva determined, by persuasion, by arguments, by appeals to what has been written, appeals to measures already taken, appeals to history, appeals to common sense, to get the nations of the world to join in and reduce this enormous, disgraceful burden of armaments which we are now bearing from one end of the world to the other.”

Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) British statesman; prime minister of the United Kingdom

Source: Speech in the Royal Albert Hall, London, in support of the aims of the Disarmament Conference in Geneva (11 July 1931), quoted in The Times (13 July 1931), p. 14

World, History, Sense

“When I started to encounter Marxism at 16, the elementary truths of the surplus value theory and more than anything else, the logical argument that he produced that labour was the source of all wealth, gave me a political and intellectual justification for what I believed in a way that nothing else did.”

Neil Kinnock (1942) British politician

Shadow Secretary of State for Education and Science Source: Interview with Sam Aaronovitch for Marxism Today (June 1983) http://banmarchive.org.uk/collections/mt/pdf/83_06_06.pdf

Truth, Way, Wealth

“But I will not... trouble you with what I have largely discoursed in the Sceptical Chymist, to call in question the grounds on which Chymists assert, that all mixt bodies are compounded of Salt, Sulphur, and Mercury. For it may suffice me now to tell you that, whatsoever they may be able to obtain from other bodies, it does not appear by Experience, which is the grand, if not the onely, Argument they rely on, that all mixt bodies that have Qualities consist of their tria prima, since they have not been able, that we know, truly, and without new Compositions, to resolve into those three, either Gold, or Silver, or Crystal, or Venetian Talck, or some other bodies, that I elsewhere name; & yet these bodies are endowed with divers Qualities, as the two former with Fusibleness and Malleability, and all of them with Weight and Fixity; so that in these and the like bodies, whence Chymisats have not made it yet appear, that their Salt, Sulphur and Mercury, can be truly and adequately separated, 'twill scarce be other than precarious to derive the malleableness, colour, and other Qualities of such bodies from those Principles.”

Robert Boyle (1627–1691) English natural philosopher, chemist, physicist, and inventor

Of the Imperfection of The Chymist's Doctrine of Qualities (1675)

Question, Appearance

“Now, one of the great facts which underlie the whole possibility of a Path of Human Perfecting, that I must take for granted throughout the lectures — for to deal with it as a matter for argument would lead us far away from our subject — one of the fundamental facts in Nature, is the fact of reincarnation. That means the gradual growth of man through many lives, through many experiences of the physical world, of the intermediate world, and also of the world called heaven. Evolution would be too short to enable a man to grow from imperfection to perfection, unless he had many opportunities, a long, long road to lead him upward.”

Annie Besant (1847–1933) British socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator

Source: Initiation, The Perfecting of Man (1923)

World, Nature, Perfection

“What are presented as the best arguments against anarchism are inevitably a description of the status quo.”

Michael Malice (1976) American writer

Tweeted on June 20, 2020 https://twitter.com/michaelmalice/status/1274452143886553091, repeated subsequently.

“Gerry had once said to her in the middle of an argument that he didn't believe in souls but if, just perchance, they did exist, hers would be like a razor. She had been made that way by the Catholic Church, he said. Inflexible, narrow, capable of doing terrible damage by her adherence to rules and systems. But she totally objected. She told him that if she was a good person at all, it had come from her religion. If she had any sense of justice and fairness, any concept of equality, then it had come from the Church.”

Bernard MacLaverty book Midwinter Break

Ch 11 - p.217
Novels, Midwinter Break (2017)

Religion, Justice, Way, Soul

“It is the universal hope of rising in the social scale which is the key to much of the superiority that is visible in this country. It accounts for the orderly self-respect which is the great characteristic of the masses in the United States. ... All this tends to the argument that the political condition of a people is very much dependent on its economical fate.”

Richard Cobden (1804–1865) English manufacturer and Radical and Liberal statesman

Letter to John Bright during his visit to the United States (1858), quoted in John Morley, The Life of Richard Cobden [1879] (1905), p. 688
1850s

Fate, People, Hope, Universe

“One of the effects, among others, of modern science has been that of mortally wounding religion by posing in concrete terms problems which esoterism alone can resolve and which remain unresolved because esoterism is not heeded and is heeded less now than ever. Faced by these new problems, religion is disarmed, and it borrows clumsily and gropingly the arguments of the enemy, and this obliges it to falsify its own perspective imperceptibly and disavow itself more and more; its doctrine is certainly not affected, but false opinions borrowed from its repudiators corrode it insidiously "from within", as witnessed by modernist exegesis, the demagogic leveling of the liturgy, Teilhardian Darwinism or the "sacred art" of surrealist and "abstract" persuasion.”

Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) Swiss philosopher

[2006, Light on the Ancient Worlds, World Wisdom, 27, 978-0-941532-72-3]
Miscellaneous, Religion

Religion, Art, Problem, Science

“The only thing that is certain now is that we must focus all our energies solely on racial survival and allow no peripheral issues like argument over past institutions to divide our energies.”

David Lane (white nationalist) (1938–2007) American white supremacist, convicted felon

An Interview by Focus Fourteen with David lane
Focus Fourteen

Past

“The reason why there are hardly ever completely knock-down arguments, except between very like minded philosophers, is that philosophers, unlike chemists or geologists, are licensed to question everything, including methodology.”

J. J. C. Smart (1920–2012) Australian philosopher and academic

Ockhamist Comments on Strawson, in Anthony Freeman (ed.), Consciousness and its Place in Nature: Does Physicalism Entail Panpsychism?, Exteter, 2006, pp. 158-159
Other quotes

Question

“The secret irony pervading these arguments [on objections to the goodness of God] is that they would never have occurred to consciences that had not in some profound way been shaped by the moral universe of a Christian culture.”

David Bentley Hart (1965) American theologian

Source: The Doors of the Sea (2005), Chapter 1, Section 2, location 144

God, Secret, Way, Universe

“Jastrow and a few other astronomers have tried to find God in the universe by reading the big bang as the cosmological equivalent of Genesis. I confess that I have found it hard to take this argument seriously.”

Stephen Jay Gould book An Urchin in the Storm

Source: An Urchin in the Storm (1987) "The Perils of Hope", p. 212

God, Universe, Reading

“If you live in a small country which is geographically at the crossroads, then your policy should be maintain peace and stability, either by not having arguments with anyone, which is impossible, or having arguments with everyone equally.”

Aleksandar Vučić (1970) President of Serbia

Source: "Serbia's Vucic plays down hopes for quick political deal with Kosovo" in Reuters https://www.reuters.com/article/us-serbia-kosovo-usa-interview/serbias-vucic-plays-down-hopes-for-quick-political-deal-with-kosovo-idUSKCN26D1VQ (22 September 2020)

Peace, Country

“[P]rivate spirits are too giddy to rest upon Scripture, and too heady and shallow to be acquainted with demonstrative arguments.”

William Laud (1573–1645) Archbishop of Canterbury

Source: A Relation of the Conference betweene William Lawd...and Mr. Fisher the Jesuite (1639), quoted in The Works of the Most Reverend Father in God, William Laud, sometime Lord Archbishop of Canterbury. Volume II: Conference with Fisher (1849), p. 272