Hmm, if you’re a “selfish seeker of truth”, debates don’t seem like a very good source of truth. Even reading debates feels often shallow and pointless to me, compared to reading books.
Maybe the reason is that the best parts of something are rarely the most disputed parts. For example, in Christianity there’s a lot of good stuff like “don’t judge lest ye be judged”, but debates are more focused on stuff like “haha, magic sky fairy”.
in Christianity there’s a lot of good stuff like “don’t judge lest ye be judged”
Is that really “good stuff”??
… ok, I don’t actually want to start a debate about Christian morality here in this comment section, but I do want to note something else: you say that “the best parts of something are rarely the most disputed parts”—but might it not also (or instead? or separately?) be true that… hm… maybe something like, “the most disputed parts are not the parts that it might be most fruitful to dispute”? Like, it’s pretty obvious that it would be a colossal waste of our time if we decided to have yet another discussion about “haha magic sky fairy”, but discussing the “don’t judge” thing seems like it might well yield some insights that we (i.e., either or both of you and me, and/or some of any other participants) might not have had yet…
Hmm, if you’re a “selfish seeker of truth”, debates don’t seem like a very good source of truth. Even reading debates feels often shallow and pointless to me, compared to reading books.
Maybe the reason is that the best parts of something are rarely the most disputed parts. For example, in Christianity there’s a lot of good stuff like “don’t judge lest ye be judged”, but debates are more focused on stuff like “haha, magic sky fairy”.
Is that really “good stuff”??
… ok, I don’t actually want to start a debate about Christian morality here in this comment section, but I do want to note something else: you say that “the best parts of something are rarely the most disputed parts”—but might it not also (or instead? or separately?) be true that… hm… maybe something like, “the most disputed parts are not the parts that it might be most fruitful to dispute”? Like, it’s pretty obvious that it would be a colossal waste of our time if we decided to have yet another discussion about “haha magic sky fairy”, but discussing the “don’t judge” thing seems like it might well yield some insights that we (i.e., either or both of you and me, and/or some of any other participants) might not have had yet…