The Argument Against Arguments

[fschmidt]

Many excellent arguments about religion and politics were made during the Reformation and the Enlightenment. What made these arguments possible was the 1000 years of harsh natural selection in medieval Europe which gradually killed off the lower end of society through starvation, disease, and capital punishment. This eugenic force lifted intelligence to the point that a significant percentage of the population could actually understand coherent arguments. And this is what made good arguments worth writing.

Sadly this is no longer the situation. Modern culture is both dysgenic and anti-intellectual. It makes people stupid both through genetic decline and through an education system designed to dumb down the population. The result is that presenting a good argument to the general population makes as much sense as presenting it to farm animals. And this is my argument against arguments, at least arguments aimed at a general audience.

What are the practical implications of this? Don't argue politics or religion with the general population because they will be too stupid to understand what you are saying. Don't attempt to reform a religion, Christianity and Islam in particular. The best you can do is to associate with some religion that isn't too bad and try to prevent it from decaying. But if you try to improve it, you will just be met with hostility.

The only way to improve things is to raise intelligence. There is simply no other way. Once intelligence is raised, hopefully in a few centuries, then there will be opportunity to improve religion and politics. But we won't be alive then. So the only thing worthwhile for us to do is to work on some means of improving intelligence. This is what my Arkian project is about. So become Arkian or suggest an alternative approach to raising intelligence.

[Pixel--Dude]

Many excellent arguments about religion and politics were made during the Reformation and the Enlightenment. What made these arguments possible was the 1000 years of harsh natural selection in medieval Europe which gradually killed off the lower end of society through starvation, disease, and capital punishment. This eugenic force lifted intelligence to the point that a significant percentage of the population could actually understand coherent arguments. And this is what made good arguments worth writing.

Sadly this is no longer the situation. Modern culture is both dysgenic and anti-intellectual. It makes people stupid both through genetic decline and through an education system designed to dumb down the population. The result is that presenting a good argument to the general population makes as much sense as presenting it to farm animals. And this is my argument against arguments, at least arguments aimed at a general audience.

What are the practical implications of this? Don't argue politics or religion with the general population because they will be too stupid to understand what you are saying. Don't attempt to reform a religion, Christianity and Islam in particular. The best you can do is to associate with some religion that isn't too bad and try to prevent it from decaying. But if you try to improve it, you will just be met with hostility.

The only way to improve things is to raise intelligence. There is simply no other way. Once intelligence is raised, hopefully in a few centuries, then there will be opportunity to improve religion and politics. But we won't be alive then. So the only thing worthwhile for us to do is to work on some means of improving intelligence. This is what my Arkian project is about. So become Arkian or suggest an alternative approach to raising intelligence.

Reading your discussion with @WilliamSmith reminded me of this thread. Your argument against arguments. Which, if I'm honest, appears to be a bit of a cop out when it comes to debating the value of religion and/or its relation to intelligence. I mean, come on man! Your argument is to say to people that they're too stupid to understand your points?

I think debate is important. Especially when it comes to religion and the dissemination of values and moralistic behaviours which these religions promote. I think religion promotes a lot of dogmatic edicts, most of which are totally redundant and have no moral basis whatsoever.

In my opinion if someone cannot analyse their own belief system with a critical mind then they are not intelligent at all. I've said before that curiosity is a characteristic of intelligence. To question things and to investigate other possibilities is intelligent. To blindly accept whatever religion that resonates the most isn't intelligent at all. In fact, it's pretty dumb. There's no empirical reason to accept Christianity anymore than there is to accept the materialistic atheistic paradigm.

Organised religion has always been a cancer on this planet. Atheism is the same. Just a nihilistic religion of anti-religion. Atheists also have the ignorant argument against arguments mentality "don't defend your viewpoint through debate because people are top stupid to understand."

[fschmidt]

Reading your discussion with @WilliamSmith reminded me of this thread. Your argument against arguments. Which, if I'm honest, appears to be a bit of a cop out when it comes to debating the value of religion and/or its relation to intelligence. I mean, come on man! Your argument is to say to people that they're too stupid to understand your points?

I think debate is important. Especially when it comes to religion and the dissemination of values and moralistic behaviours which these religions promote. I think religion promotes a lot of dogmatic edicts, most of which are totally redundant and have no moral basis whatsoever.

In my opinion if someone cannot analyse their own belief system with a critical mind then they are not intelligent at all. I've said before that curiosity is a characteristic of intelligence. To question things and to investigate other possibilities is intelligent. To blindly accept whatever religion that resonates the most isn't intelligent at all. In fact, it's pretty dumb. There's no empirical reason to accept Christianity anymore than there is to accept the materialistic atheistic paradigm.

Organised religion has always been a cancer on this planet. Atheism is the same. Just a nihilistic religion of anti-religion. Atheists also have the ignorant argument against arguments mentality "don't defend your viewpoint through debate because people are top stupid to understand."

Would you debate with a dog? How about with an autistic retard? Where exactly do you draw the line on who you would debate with?

My Arkian writing is aimed at a religious audience because this is the only audience that I feel is worth writing for. If anyone in this forum shows themselves to be a non-moron, then I would be willing to write for them too. Specifically if @WilliamSmith has a coherent response to my Arkian writing, then I would be willing to write a defense of organized religion generally and monotheism specifically.

[Pixel--Dude]

Reading your discussion with @WilliamSmith reminded me of this thread. Your argument against arguments. Which, if I'm honest, appears to be a bit of a cop out when it comes to debating the value of religion and/or its relation to intelligence. I mean, come on man! Your argument is to say to people that they're too stupid to understand your points?

I think debate is important. Especially when it comes to religion and the dissemination of values and moralistic behaviours which these religions promote. I think religion promotes a lot of dogmatic edicts, most of which are totally redundant and have no moral basis whatsoever.

In my opinion if someone cannot analyse their own belief system with a critical mind then they are not intelligent at all. I've said before that curiosity is a characteristic of intelligence. To question things and to investigate other possibilities is intelligent. To blindly accept whatever religion that resonates the most isn't intelligent at all. In fact, it's pretty dumb. There's no empirical reason to accept Christianity anymore than there is to accept the materialistic atheistic paradigm.

Organised religion has always been a cancer on this planet. Atheism is the same. Just a nihilistic religion of anti-religion. Atheists also have the ignorant argument against arguments mentality "don't defend your viewpoint through debate because people are top stupid to understand."

Would you debate with a dog? How about with an autistic retard? Where exactly do you draw the line on who you would debate with?

My Arkian writing is aimed at a religious audience because this is the only audience that I feel is worth writing for. If anyone in this forum shows themselves to be a non-moron, then I would be willing to write for them too. Specifically if @WilliamSmith has a coherent response to my Arkian writing, then I would be willing to write a defense of organized religion generally and monotheism specifically.

Maybe debating with a dog would be better than debating with some people. They may be dogs, but at least they're not dog-matic

On a serious note. I enjoy debating with anyone who is reasonable enough and civil enough to hold discourse. For example I have differing views from someone like MrMan, but I've enjoyed some of my debates with him. But the bottom line here is that you think everyone on the forum other than you is a moron and you refuse to have any kind of debate with anyone? Then why are you here?

I will see what WilliamSmith thinks of your Arkian writing and share some opinions on what he thinks. But as for myself, I don't see why I should bother showing any interest in any of your work at all. If someone is unable to coherently defend their own point of view without calling everyone a moron then they probably don't have anything interesting to say anyway, right?

[WilliamSmith]

I will see what WilliamSmith thinks of your Arkian writing and share some opinions on what he thinks. But as for myself, I don't see why I should bother showing any interest in any of your work at all.

It'll take me awhile because @fschmidt wrote a lot of interesting stuff himself + linked to some extremely interesting works such as "Sex and Culture" by Unwin, so there was a lot more to his arguments than I'd realized.

If someone is unable to coherently defend their own point of view without calling everyone a moron then they probably don't have anything interesting to say anyway, right?

That was what I originally thought, but in between various posts telling us we were all "complete morons" who "deserve to be executed/slaughtered" and repeatedly stating that all his own positions were supposedly "obvious," I saw him post a few more thoughtful insights (e.g. in the jewish IQ debate thread), so I actually decided to read the Arkian page and then found it intellectually stimulating... Anyway, I already apologized for calling him names and misjudging him earlier (even if I don't agree with all his foundational assumptions and arguments), so perhaps we'll all get to the discussion someday.