I am not a creationist as the term is usually understood. I believe that the earth is billions of years old and the universe even older. I do believe that God is the creator, but that’s a completely different thing. I’ve written in defense of evolution and made arguments that are based on evolution.
The question of one versus two species of African elephants isn’t about settling an arcane DNA argument; it’s about life or death for these majestic, extraordinary creatures.
I’ve heard the argument that unemployment benefits somehow act as a disincentive to the long-term unemployed when it comes to looking for work, but the opposite is true. Unemployment Insurance serves as a powerful incentive for people to keep searching for jobs, rather than drop out of the labor force altogether.
When I write for ‘n+1,’ I begin by doing a lot of reading, to try to convince myself I’m not stupid. Then I scribble down a paragraph here, a paragraph there, when a notion strikes. Then I see if I can arrange those notions in a way that yields an argument.
Tolerance, openness to argument, openness to self-doubt, willingness to see other people’s points of view – these are very liberal and enlightened values that people are right to hold, but we can’t allow them to delude us to the point where we can’t recognise people who are needlessly perpetrating human misery.
We must not let ourselves be seen as rushing around the world looking for arguments… Nor should we let ourselves be seen as ignoring allies, disillusioning friends, thinking only of ourselves in the most narrow terms. That is not how we survived the 20th century. Nor will it serve in the 21st.
In my experience, yelling at people that they are wrong and disgusting rarely wins the argument, nor changes point of view.
If your first objective in the negotiation, instead of making your argument, is to hear the other side out, that’s the only way you can quiet the voice in the other guy’s mind. But most people don’t do that.
In Vegas, I got into a long argument with the man at the roulette wheel over what I considered to be an odd number.
Freddie was very much able to ride the neutral wave. We all respected his views because he was such a great songwriter. It was his idea that we share all the credits. It was decided all the songs would be attributed equally to Queen. That immediately got rid of the arguments. That was a fantastic, democratic notion.
Arguments that we will never stop all shootings by restricting access to such weapons fails to account for our strong and common desire at least to stop many of them – or any of them.
Those who say that the West and Islam are eternally irreconcilable have more in common with the Islam extremists than they might like to think, for it’s the very same argument of course advanced by Al-Qaida. And they do have it wrong. We need to work with mainstream Islam.
Any fact is better established by two or three good testimonies than by a thousand arguments.
Television is much more difficult because at every moment the network can force you to change things based on their belief about what would make it popular. You’re in a constant debate with a gun at your head, and the gun is cancellation. So it’s hard to win the arguments.
The truth is that killing innocent people is always wrong – and no argument or excuse, no matter how deeply believed, can ever make it right. No religion on earth condones the killing of innocent people; no faith tradition tolerates the random killing of our brothers and sisters on this earth.
Most of the time, you can beat a woman in an argument.
Men’s arguments often prove nothing but their wishes.
One of the arguments here at OLPC is, if 100 million kids could have an Asus running Windows, is that better with two million kids running the XO? And the answer is yes. We want kids connected and the largest possible number is the goal.
When a person has a gun, sometimes their mind clicks that this thing will win arguments and straighten people out.
For decades, the pro-life movement has focused on scientific evidence and ethical arguments.
A true intellectual is a man who, after reading a book and being convinced by its arguments, will shoot someone or, more likely, order someone shot.
I love to argue. I’ve always loved to argue. And I love to point out the weaknesses of the opposing arguments. It may well be that I’m something of a shin kicker. It may well be that I’m something of a contrarian.
My argument is that charity does indeed start at home, but it doesn’t stop there.
When Bill Clinton chose Al Gore in 1992 – from the same generational, ideological, and geographical background as his – it underscored his campaign’s central argument that this was a clash between the past and the future, that ‘Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow’ was indeed the campaign’s anthem.
I would never say don’t have an argument.
Evolution has long been the target of illogical arguments that use presumption.
The strong argument for Heaven as a place centers in and clusters about Jesus. The man Jesus, bearing a man’s form, the body He wore on earth, has a place assigned Him – a high place.
The argument that any income redistribution is tantamount to socialism, and that socialism has always been unAmerican, has helped legitimise keeping taxes on America’s very wealthy very low.
There are folks who we have a moral responsibility to help, who are going to cost the taxpayers lots of money in the future, so there’s a strong argument for us to help them with current cash.
It is a pet peeve of mine when people throw around arguments citing ‘Fair Use’ and yet fail to actually explain what a fair use argument actually is.
My argument has always been that this is not an anti-Bush film, it’s a pro-democracy film. And if Bush comes out on the wrong side of democracy, that’s his problem.
Logical reasoning is an argument which we have with ourselves and which reproduces internally the features of a real argument.
Any political agenda and organization which doesn’t begin with personal responsibility is just half the argument. It’s just not going to succeed.
To be considered presidential timber, there has to be a measure in the way you present your argument.
When blithe to argument I come, Though armed with facts, and merry, May Providence protect me from The fool as adversary, Whose mind to him a kingdom is Where reason lacks dominion, Who calls conviction prejudice And prejudice opinion.
I’ve always had an argument with my best friend that Spider-Man was way better than Batman. I was a massive fan growing up.
Whenever you can manoeuvre your characters into a situation where they both have a good argument to make, you’re on the right track.
I was told in many places of Osgar’s bravery and Goll’s strength and Conan’s bitter tongue, and the arguments of Oisin and Patrick. And I have often been given the story of Oisin’s journey to Tir-nan-Og, the Country of the Young, that is, as I am told, a fine place and everything that is good is in it.
I believe that the pursuit of truth and right ideas through honest debate and rigorous argument is a noble undertaking.
The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps, of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to doctrinaire and academic thinkers.
Pentagon dollars are essentially seen as a different kind of funding that doesn’t have to stand for itself and make an argument for itself in the house of Congress.
The Democrats need to be confident about making their argument… and making sure that everybody knows we care about them.
The mere assemblage of peace loving people to interchange convincing reasons for their common faith, mere exhortation and argument to the public in favor of peace in general fall short of the mark.
What has struck me about the political world, as opposed to the business world, is that rational discourse has become all but impossible. All too often, arguments are conducted not on the basis of facts but on the basis of emotion – and, honestly, it is no fun being abused in the pages of tabloid newspapers or online.
Politicians are expected to spend half their time talking to funders and to keep them happy. Given this context, it’s not hard to see how a bribery charge can feel like a technical argument instead of a moral one.
I don’t write about certain arguments I have with my wife. I’d get my head torn off if wrote about certain things.
I just hope that more people will ignore the fatalism of the argument that we are beyond repair. We are not beyond repair. We are never beyond repair.
The Left masks its distaste for the Bible’s condemnation of homosexuality in a straw man argument that Bible believers are violent bigots. They are not. Citing the Bible doesn’t make you a bigot against human beings – it makes you a bigot against sin, which is a good thing.
There have been no sects in the Christian world, however absurd, which have not endeavoured to support their opinions by arguments drawn from Scripture.
What can you do against the lunatic who is more intelligent than yourself, who gives your arguments a fair hearing and then simply persists in his lunacy?
Unfortunately, things are different in climate science because the arguments have become heavily politicised. To say that the dogmas are wrong has become politically incorrect.
