I would not attempt to fight what Trump is doing by trying to convince his
followers that he is, what he obviously is. The people who are true believers
will just dig in their heels. And anyway, Trump is a symptom, sort of the end
result, of processes that have been going on for a long time. So the way to
fight back is to organize people of good will around all of the issues that are
important to them, and also to fight legal battles in the courts. And there are
huge numbers of people who are very unhappy about what is happening, but aren't
motivated to take action so they are the people who need to be reached. Some of
the folks who voted for Trump can certainly be reached because their reasons
for voting for him are the same reasons that people voted for Sanders or for
the Green Party or for the various Socialist candidates. Those people didn't
vote for him because they are racist or sexist of Capitalists. They thought he
would help working people.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Roger Loran Bailey ;
(Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Sunday, July 23, 2017 2:57 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx; Carl Jarvis <carjar82@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Pascal's Wager Again
It didn't really occur to me that it was an attempt to convert. For one thing,
if a person has renounced the use of logic and utterly rejects it then you may
as well forget about using logic to convince that person of anything. To me it
was simply a well articulated explanation of why Pascal's wager is completely
invalid. I have used the same arguments myself and have done so on this list
even if I was not directly refuting Pascal's wager in particular. I have not
necessarily used the same words though and I liked the way it was explained.
Personally, though, I would add that in addition to having a really difficult
time choosing a religion to bet on there are also an infinity of things that
can be made up out of nothing and to each one can be attached dire consequences
for not believing them, so how does one choose one irrationality out of an
infinity of irrationalities to bet on?
Not withstanding all of that, though, let us take a look at other ideas or
things that one can be emotionally attached to. There are a lot of people who
are emotionally attached to Donald Trump and hang onto his every word. Many of
them renounce the use of logic in defending him and it will offend them deeply
if anyone criticizes him. Because they have renounced the validity of logic it
is very unlikely that they can be converted. So does that mean that we should
never criticize him at all?
Should we never try to inform one of his supporters because it might cause
distress for that person? Whether an evil comes in the form of Donald Trump or
in the form of a religion must we give up on fighting evil because there are
some people who are emotionally attached to that evil and hold their beliefs in
that evil very dear?
On 7/23/2017 1:53 PM, Carl Jarvis wrote:
In part, I agree with Miriam. At first I thought I was listening to a
couple of Robots, and there would be some funny ending. But the links
that follow are more interesting to me.
Still, nothing I heard would be discussions I'd use in trying to
"convert" others to Agnosticism. Everything that was said could force
the other person to dig in deeper. Of course that never stops me from
getting a bit over the top from time to time, but at least I know at
the outset that I am simply venting, not converting.
Carl Jarvis
On 7/22/17, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
So the problem with this little dialogue is that it is represented as
a rational discussion in which the young woman uses logic to
convince the young man of how irrational and, well, basically stupid
he is, to be a believing Christian. Aside from some of that stuff
regarding how much money he donates and that it may very well be used
for something other than he's been told, which is an unproved
allegation because it does depend on the church he attends, this idea
that people will respond to logical arguments regarding religion is
clearly incorrect. Religion fulfills emotional needs for many people.
Logical discussion doesn't make those needs disappear.
Sometimes, challenging religious beliefs causes people to cling to
them even more strongly because they feel so threatened by the
arguments against their beliefs. And again, why the need to convince
people not to believe what they clearly do believe and what is such
an important part of their lives? I've noticed that some of the
people who feel most strongly negative about religion, are the people
who were once very religious themselves. It reminds me of former
members of the Communist Party who became strongly anti-Communist
during the 1950's. And there's a blind guy who's on several lists and
whose political opinions are extremely right wing. He told me that he was
once a left wing Democrat and he worked on the McGovern campaign.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Roger ;
Loran Bailey (Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Saturday, July 22, 2017 9:38 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx; Roger Loran Bailey (Redacted
sender
rogerbailey81 for DMARC) <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Pascal's Wager Again
It worked this time. At least it worked for me. I think I may see the
problem. The first time I listened to the whole presentation before
deciding to share it and by the time I copied the URL it had moved on
to something else and apparently it was the URL to that something else that
I copied.
This time I found the recording again in my browser's history feature
and it started out with what I wanted to share and I immediately copied that
URL.
When I tested it it worked. Now, if any of you try this and it does
not give you two synthetic voices discussing Pascal's wager after
they have dinner let me know and I will know that I am still doing something
wrong.
On 7/22/2017 9:29 PM, Roger Loran Bailey (Redacted sender
rogerbailey81 for
DMARC) wrote:
Okay, I'm going to try that link to the discussion on Pascal's wager
again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMk2kHZUrAc
