Oh, he was stating the obvious, riiiight. Like stating that the earth is flat-ish is stating the obvious. What is 'obvious' depends on the information that is available to you, and your degree of willingness to question your assumptions. As as long as you confuse 'apparent' with 'self evidently true', you are at a huge disadvantage when it come discovering flaws in your assumptions or your reasoning.



That a nice little logical construct you've echoed - but its flawed. It assumes a rare simplicity of mind, and an even more rare degree of self honesty. And like most cases of simple logic, it seems so infallible, so self evident.

I should have read this first, before responding to your other post. I would have had a better idea where you are coming from.

A favored cliche: The early bird may get the worm, but the early worm gets eaten.

Are you sure? If so, what would convince you otherwise?

I agree with him because not all opinions are choices.

I believe you missed my point. I have no problem with anyone else have opposing opinions or the fact that they believe their opinions are right, what I have a problem with is when they try to force their opinion on others. And often this opinion is expressed as a form of moral or ethical superiority.

What about when it is just because we hate something? I hate smoke but I love food. I loved when I lived in Louisiana and NY because both places it was illegal to smoke in restaurants or bars. I hate when I am in Japan and I am eating and someone comes in, sits next to me and starts smoking. I usually move if there is some where else to sit.

OK - so let's consider an example of opinion expressed as a form of moral or ethical superiority.

Would the following fit the bill:

>>>>> The solution to gay marriage is (picture of two hangmans ropes)

Is that what you're referring to? Or how about this:

>>>>> If you don't accept Jesus as Lord and Savior you will suffer
and perish.

OR how about this:

>>>>> How can anyone believe in the bible when it is litered with
contradictions?

Are any of those statements what you are talking about?????

Christianity has had it's way here in the States for too long I know that.

No.

I'll fix your examples for you.

1) "Gays shouldn't be allowed to marry, because homosexuality is wrong."

2) "Death to those who insult Islam"

3) "Teaching Christianity to children is child abuse"

I thought my OP was clear, that I was speaking of people forcing their morality onto others, because of some sense of superiority. Just expressing an opinion isn't an act of moral superiority, when it goes beyond expressing an opinion to dictating laws, that's what I'm talking about.

Prop 8 would seem to render your post nonsensical.

How do you mean?

Cute.

You know, sometimes people are just so sure of their wrong beliefs, take them so thoroughly for granted, that they see absolutely no value in spelling them out explicitly. Its like informing someone that there is air in the room - why say the obviously true? This makes it harder for them to discover the flaws in their beliefs and their opinions.

Might this play a role in your lack of explicitness?

Since I'm forced to read between the lines:

I take this as a rhetorical statement designed to 'expose' the 'fact' that the opinion I just expressed would require a 'better' opinion to convince me to abandon it.

Given your lack of explicit statement, I'm left assuming that you think this notion to be relevant to our conversion.

You made an appeal to 'the natural', which, in this context, I take to mean 'automatic' or 'inherent'. I strongly disagree with the idea that all opinions held by all people have the quality of "being chosen by that person because they think its the best", not whether some opinions have that quality.

So what do you gain (or, since I'm forced to interpret your words - hypothetically, what would you gain) by suggesting that one of my opinions has this quality?

And, in case I'm completely wrong in my interpretations, I'll take your questions at face value:



No.



A bottle of vodka.

Oh, man, it makes me so happy to see other people who realize this.

I would go further, and say:

Humans are irrational. Our minds are complex. Most of us don't truly know why we believe what we believe, but we excel at lying to ourselves about it. And for those of us who wish to perceive ourselves as rational, the self deception is often worse, and we are usually even better than the average person at retroactively rationalizing our beliefs.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought that IiS, Chaz, Sweet and I had knowingly gone on a bit of a tangent, and only indirectly related to your point.

yes, I was just teasing a little - a bad habit of mine. And, I do tend to agree with some reservation

the best way to explain my hesitance to just jump in wiht enthusiastic agreement, is best described by an old rock n roll song fom waaaaaaaaaay back in the day.

Do you remember the old Byrds tune, My Back Pages? "Fearing not I'd become my enemy in the instant that I preached"

I'm demonstrating the link between expressing a dumbass opinion and enacting laws.


I was trying to show you the flaw in your argument. I asked two completely reasonable, completely relevant questions: that does not make me some sort of arrogant bastard.


Well then we're on the same page. Because I'm not sure your opinion is right either. For someone who's not really sure, however, you seem to be willing to push it pretty hard.

I'm pretty sure of all my opinions, at least the ones that I'm prepared to defend, as you have done on this thread to your unsure opinion. That's not to say that I'm not open-minded. If some new information presents itself, I'll happily change that opinion, as I have done on many occasions. I actually enjoy it when someone tears down my opinions. Because it means that whatever replaces it is better.

In this culture, we seem very averse to the reality that some opinions are just BETTER than others. All opinions do not have the same weight. A well-researched, evidence-based opinion, is BETTER than a badly-researched, faith-based opinion. And you (not you, massagetrade, you as in "one in general") might not like that, but if you did not accept this at least in theory, you wouldn't be riding around in airplanes or taking antibiotics.

I am not even going that deep when I say not all opinions are choices. I don't like smoke. I think it smells and tastes bad. Those are my opinions but I don't chose how my body interprets the smell or taste of tabaco smoke. Maybe other peoples bodies do it differently and they like it.

Yes, actually I thought this was what you meant, I just provided the more extreme view.

As other posters have brought up, our opinions are not always our own. The most difficult opinion to debate is the opinion that has been adopted from another source.

We adopt opinions throughout our life for several reasons, the opinion supports a point of view (bias confirmation), the opinion is from a source we trust implicitly (parents, mentors, pastors, educators), and because we lack enough information, and/or the ability or motivation to gain sufficient information and contrast it with a critical self-analysis.

Many opinions formed in that way become the bases of our moral behavior; people act in accordance with the opinions they hold. Not necessarily a bad thing, certainly concepts like sharing and manners, and not bringing others to physical harm are good opinions to hold. They help create a civil society and make individuals a socially accepted part of a larger community.

Rigidly maintaining ‘adopted’ opinions that are not largely shared across cultural boundaries can create conflict between groups of people whose adopted opinions are dissimilar. These conflicts tend to be emotionally charged because there is little more than an emotional attachment which formed the basis of the opinion to begin with. What’s at stake in conflicts surrounding adopted opinion is ego.

Opinions that are a result of in depth analysis of information, experiences, and critical self-reflection tend to be less about ego and more about a rational thought process. They also tend to be more easily defended and open to change or modification with the introduction of rationally presented new information. That is not generally the case with opinions held on an emotional basis only.

Basing a code of ethics, which drives moral behavior, on little more than emotion is the reason for >”people forcing their morality onto others, because of some sense of superiority.”<
That sense of superiority is Ego.

At least in the USA, there is little reason for such behavior because people have the freedom to formulate an individual code of ethics and act in moral accordance with that opinion, as long at those actions do not infringe on that same freedom or any equal civil rights of others.

So sometimes the greatest conflict occurs when rigidly help emotional opinion closes the door to rationally presented new information and the only way to protect the emotional opinion is to attempt to gain some semblance of superiority over the ‘other’.

It’s a kind of group mentality similar to what happens when a group of otherwise non-abusive people ‘go along’ with a bully, overtake a victim and subsequently take turns beating the victim, only to blame the faults of the victim for their behavior toward him. The ego must be protected otherwise we are left to face our own short-comings.

Well then we're on the same page. Because I'm not sure your opinion is right either. For someone who's not really sure, however, you seem to be willing to push it pretty hard.

This is semantic; I'm never sure of anything, but its often clear to me that I've thought something through more thoroughly, or paid more careful attention to evidence, that the people I'm in communication with. Surety is usually meaningless as a measure of the value of an opinion, as our measuring systems for surety have such diverse scalings and calibrations amongst different people.



To each their own.



The question of whether there exist any opinions that are better than other opinions is, to me, completely different from the question of whether most people's opinions are actually the best opinions in their view.

I am emphatic agreement with you re: the quoted paragraph above; in fact, my position on both topics arises from the same problem: humans are very prone to irrationality and self deception.

that makes no sense and has little if any logical connection to what I said. The qualitative isn't being evaluated in what I said- simply the discrete - opinion - right or wrong - nonissue - opinion is mine- me like - I can do that

there - gave it to ya basic english