2018-02-28, 06:47 PM
It is practically impossible to exclude emotion - depending on how you define emotion - from a debate. Debates are about being right and I would maintain that everyone has some level of emotional investment in wanting to be right. The trouble comes when people refuse to concede that they could be wrong. We see that typically when debates degenerate into endless striving to have the last word; by then it is more about ego than truth.
I fully admit to becoming emotional about some of the subjects we discuss here but that doesn't mean that I can't be rational. When it comes to evidence of survival, for example, I am driven by fear - certainly a powerful emotion - but, as I've pointed out in the past, I am also fearful about being wrong so I am very careful to assess the evidence for flaws, as any skeptic would do. The most fervent hope for anyone who has a fear of death is to find evidence that is as close to being conclusive as possible. I don't do faith which is why religion lost its appeal for me early in my life.
So my point is that one is not disqualified from a debate for being emotional, one is disqualified for refusing to consider alternatives. Whenever I read skeptical opinions I am stuck by the almost universal tendency for skeptics to lay claim to rationality as something they alone possess. Proponents such as we have here are characterised as being irrational wishful thinkers and any worldview that challenges materialism or accepts any kind of spirituality is automatically defined as irrational. That is, by my own assessment, a reason for disqualification because it refuses to consider an alternative.
I fully admit to becoming emotional about some of the subjects we discuss here but that doesn't mean that I can't be rational. When it comes to evidence of survival, for example, I am driven by fear - certainly a powerful emotion - but, as I've pointed out in the past, I am also fearful about being wrong so I am very careful to assess the evidence for flaws, as any skeptic would do. The most fervent hope for anyone who has a fear of death is to find evidence that is as close to being conclusive as possible. I don't do faith which is why religion lost its appeal for me early in my life.
So my point is that one is not disqualified from a debate for being emotional, one is disqualified for refusing to consider alternatives. Whenever I read skeptical opinions I am stuck by the almost universal tendency for skeptics to lay claim to rationality as something they alone possess. Proponents such as we have here are characterised as being irrational wishful thinkers and any worldview that challenges materialism or accepts any kind of spirituality is automatically defined as irrational. That is, by my own assessment, a reason for disqualification because it refuses to consider an alternative.