Why are dumb ideas so popular ?

[shunyadragon]

Shunyadragon,
Now you are just ranting. My tone? Give me a break. Science? You are wrong. You post some great posts, that wasn't one of them.

Call it what you may, but your rant against the diversity of views and readings presented in many college classes as being 'the rejection of truth and embracing the grotesque' is over the top as far as tone, yes your tone.

This hints of censorship in the academic world, and yes this is the trend of many demands made by Christians concerning the academic world.

[socratic_mudd]

They are popular because people reject truth. Jesus said he was truth. If you are going to reject truth, then anything can be true. My creative writing teacher loves this idea, I could tell by the stories she picked for us to read. The less sense it made, the better, and if it had no ending, that was just icing on the cake. I think it is the rejection of truth and the embracing of the grotesque.

If I understand your argument, then it might be re-stated as follows: Rejecting the Truth has the negative consequence of being left truth-less, or as we commonly understand it: ignorant at a minimum, and actually embracing that which is known to be without truth value, at the extreme.
Thus, the profs are actually adding insult to injury by celebrating their ignorance, i.e"Embracing the grotesque."

I think I have to agree with you. And, is it just me or have people as of late, started reasoning with their emotions?" I fear what Jeremiah reported might still be the case:
"Be appalled, O heavens, at this, And shudder, be very desolate," declares the LORD. "For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, The fountain of living waters, To hew for themselves cisterns, Broken cisterns That can hold no water.

[djdavo]

I think it mostly stems from people thinking that their idea is privledged and special. That they have secret knowledge that is immune to criticism.

Jason

i think you're really onto something here. it seems many,many people think they know better than the 'average joe'. the average joe being anyone that disagrees with them. think about a debate with a far leftist (if you're on the right). (*or switch this to radical fundamentalist if you're on the left)
they can't fathom that 2 good people can disagree on important ideas. they think the person who disagrees with them is not only wrong, but evil. and if s/he is evil (not simply wrong), there is no need to justify their reasoning. (see al gore......heh)

[carl s]

An SRI which dominated college philosophy in the 60's and 70's was logical positivsm. The short version was " There are only 2 types of meaningful propositions or statments, those that could, at least im principle, be verified by sense experience, and analytic statements(true by definition or logic such as in math)". when the fact that there own propositions were neither verifiable or analytic, the positivists came back that self referential statements are outside of logic(at least according to Bertrand Russell). This tactic allowed Positivism to stagger on for a few more years. It was put to rest when it was pointed that posivism's claim was obviously meaningful, making it false. The premier english positivist, A.J. Ayer finally commented that "L.P. was a good idea, too unfortunately it was wrong" Carl S

[yeshua121]

to honest i think people make these claims to get attention not mention all the streotypes made about christians on that list you posted . but i think mostly cause they dont see themselves as fallible liek everything they say is true not mention they think it will
win them something in the end

[yeshua121]

speaking of these memes i get this one alot

You were never an atheist no sane mind would believe in god

all time fav :)

[DiogenicalJihad]

Speaking of dumb ideas and self-defeating claims, I just started a new thread on the self-contradictory nature of the the doctrines of the trinity and the hypostatic nature of Christ. You should check it out and see if you can solve the following problems:

1+1+1=?
and...
100% + 100% = ?

Good Luck!

[shunyadragon]

An SRI which dominated college philosophy in the 60's and 70's was logical positivsm. The short version was " There are only 2 types of meaningful propositions or statments, those that could, at least im principle, be verified by sense experience, and analytic statements(true by definition or logic such as in math)". when the fact that there own propositions were neither verifiable or analytic, the positivists came back that self referential statements are outside of logic(at least according to Bertrand Russell). This tactic allowed Positivism to stagger on for a few more years. It was put to rest when it was pointed that posivism's claim was obviously meaningful, making it false. The premier english positivist, A.J. Ayer finally commented that "L.P. was a good idea, too unfortunately it was wrong" Carl S

Positivism was extreme, but not totally wrong. Arguments where the premises are to some degree founded in sense experience (objective information) are superior to those where the premises are dreamed up to justify one's own belief.

[SatanTheAlien]

My favorite:

"God is unknowable"

The reply naturally follows: How do you know that?

If we are dealing with the typical idea of God, then the answer is simple. God is unknowable, and I know that because God is infinite, and I can never grasp infinite because I am finite. I guess it really depends on what was meant by unknowlable.

If it means, you can't know if God exists, then I think that is self evident. You can only know your perceptions of things, which perceptions include your judgment/interpretation. So you can only know that you are a thinking thing as those things directly related to you being a thinking thing. That means you can know you feel emotions. You can know that 2+2=4 because you as a thinking thing made up the constructs, and the meanings, and so the answer is deductively true.

I don't think you can know anything else.

[SatanTheAlien]

Shunyadragon,
Where do you get that Christians demand you agree with them? This thread is about self-refuting claims and why they are popular, I gave my opinion and did not demand that anyone agee with me. Also self-refuting claims are not some brand of a religion, they are self-refuting. My opinion is that they are popular because people reject truth. On the side, Jesus claimed to be truth. Think about that, that's a huge statement. And you don't have to agree with me or Jesus. Later.

I think it's because people think they have the truth, or like Jesus, they think they are the truth. This is why they believe self refuting claims. They hold too tightly to their beliefs.

[Rushing Jaws]

Here is a good article about these types of statements: http://www.christian-thinktank.com/stult2.html

They are popular because people like to think about paradoxes.

My favorite: "The first positive integer that cannot be specified in less than fifteen words."

## Is a sentence fragment

Paul uses the Liar's Paradox in Titus 1:

10 For there are many rebellious people, mere talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision group.

11 They must be silenced, because they are ruining whole households by teaching things they ought not to teach— and that for the sake of dishonest gain.

12 Even one of their own prophets has said, Cretans are always liars, evil brutes, lazy gluttons.

13 This testimony is true. Therefore, rebuke them sharply, so that they will be sound in the faith

14 and will pay no attention to Jewish myths or to the commands of those who reject the truth.

Is Paul lying, quoting a liar, or what ?

[Milan]

The statement "There is no objective truth", is another common example of an SRI claim becasue itself is an objective truth claim....These are fairly uncontroversial examples of things that are ultimately SRI...

Anti-realists do not assert this as an objective truth. I think you're impregnating the sentence with your realist presuppositions.

[FarEastBird]

Speaking of dumb ideas and self-defeating claims, I just started a new thread on the self-contradictory nature of the the doctrines of the trinity and the hypostatic nature of Christ. You should check it out and see if you can solve the following problems:

1+1+1=?
and...
100% + 100% = ?

Good Luck!

God is "outside" of numbers.

You can't count on the Trinitarian God.

[Naatee]

The statement "There is no objective truth", is another common example of an SRI claim becasue itself is an objective truth claim.

I disagree. This is only a semantic argument. When someone makes this statement they intend for it to be interpreted as "there is no objective truth except for this statement."

"Your only a christian because you were raised in the west !", apart from being a textbook genetic fallacy, the underlying idea is claiming that relgious conviction is a product of upbringing and not evidence, but how exactly does this let any religious idea even (usually the proponent of such a claim is an atheist of some stripe) escape this critique ?

This isn't an SRI but it definitely is a genetic fallacy. Regardless, the fact is that when someone is born in a certain location, this person will most likely adopt their surrounding religious customs, and yes, this does pertain to all religions not just Christianity (as you mentioned).

Anyway, I think you get the idea. Marxist and Feminist theories seem to suffer from similar problems, as does post-modern ideas and so on.

This is just clear bias. Can you provide some examples?

But why is such sloppy thinking so popular ? 5 minutes reflection teases most of these ideas out. Yet they seem to persist. Even among people that should be smart enough to tease such ideas out.

Each of the ideas suffers from thinking that it is immune to its own reasoning and so occupies some sort of privledged position. Might this explain there popularity ? Some sort of Gnosticism essentially, by which the proponents of these ideas have "secret knowledge" denied to the rest of humanity ?

You simply dismiss many elaborate philosophical concepts as merely "sloppy thinking" then go on to accuse the believers of these concepts to be intellectual elitists?!