Quotes About Debate

These are two different belief systems. There is no reason in the world that the religious have to explain their faith on a scientific basis. It makes no sense. What is needed between science and religion is not a debate but a conversation, each one saying: you're here to stay, and I'm here to stay, so let's find out how our relationship can be of greatest benefit to this world.

Everyone knows of the talking artists. Throughout all of the known history of the world they have gathered in rooms and talked. They talk of art and are passionately,almost feverishly, in earnest about it. They think it matters much more than it does.

We are not interested in dialogue for the sake of dialogue.

We literally lawyered our heads off. Morning, noon, and night all we heard was lawyer, lawyer, lawyer.

Argue the point not the person.

Questions of absolute good and evil are much better not opened to public debate these days, when so few people are sure of their absolutes

If the feminine issue is so absurd, is because the male's arrogance made it "a discussion

The itch of disputing will prove the scab of churches.

I love disagreements. I love the democratic process. If I'm in a room where everybody agrees, I start to nod off.

The discussion of fur is childish.

The Socratic manner is not a game at which two can play. Please answer my question, to the best of your ability.

Their remarks and responses were like a Ping-Pong game with each volley clearing the net and flying back to the opposition. The sense of what they were saying became lost, and only the exercise remained. The exchange was conducted with the certainty of a measured hoedown and had the jerkiness of Monday's wash snapping in the wind—now cracking east, then west, with only the intent to whip the dampness out of the cloth.

Your assignment,' he bellowed at Kelly, 'was to make a persuasive argument. Demanding to know whether detractors of your position are on crack is not arguing persuasively.

Even I didn't think she sounded very convincing, and I am very easily convinced by almost anything. For instance, in convocations where we are forced to listen to the debate team, I almost always agree with whichever team is talking at the moment, no matter what they're saying.

Astoundingly, truth, evidence and reason had become right-wing concepts.

I'm so bad with people I can't even win an argument with myself.

To this day I believe that feminist debate about love and sexuality ended precisely because straight women did not want to face the reality that it was highly unlikely in patriarchal society that a majority of men would whole-heartedly embrace women's right to say no in the bedroom.

The best way to respond to distracting personal attacks is to practice bringing the conversation back to the issue at hand. Never fall into the trap of engaging in personal attacks while letting the topic of conversation slip into the background. Doing so allows your opponent to escape the need to explain her position.

we must guard against a tendency to require monolithic thought as imposed by political correctness.

H]e was damned if he was going to water down his arguments simply to satisfy the preference of the mob for dogma and ignorance.

Toby was rendered momentarily speechless. Was the minister out of his mind? Was this man seriously suggesting that political debate should return to the days of actual discussion of the issues? Was he literally raving tonto?

And we tend to adopt the attitudes and prejudices of the groups we're in. In short, at some point in life, perhaps as early as grade school, we find ourselves "taking a side" in the racial debate. We become aware that the differences matter.

Here's what's really bad about those shows: They reduce every issue or event to a debate. And this approach spills out of the TV studios and into our lives. We become all about "taking a side" and arguing it fiercely. We then look for facts to fit our assumptions. And we learn to distrust everything that doesn't fit our version of reality. And all of this simply divides us.

Here's what's really bad about those shows: They reduce every issue or event to a debate. And this approach spills out of the TV studios and into our lives. We become all about "taking a side" and arguing it fiercely. We then look for facts to fit our assumptions. And we learn to distrust everything that doesn't fit our version of reality.