Quotes About Debate

I don't think, contrary to fashionable opinion, that genes play the only role, and I feel acute boredom whenever I hear another round of the current debate between Gay Pride advocates and Fundamentalists about whether homosexuality (or heterosexuality, if you think about it) results from genes (alone) or "choice" (alone.) That particular either/or seems even dumber to me than most Aristotelian dualisms.

A liberal is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel.

Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I've tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire.

Arguing whether or not God exists is like fleas arguing whether or not the dog exists. Arguing over the correct name of God is like fleas arguing over the name of the dog. And arguing over whose notion of God is correct is like fleas arguing over who owns the dog.

I can win an argument on any topic, against any opponent. People know this, and steer clear of me at parties. Often, as a sign of their great respect, they don't even invite me. —DAVE BARRY

Winning all those banquet debates had apparently caused Galileo to think that argument was how things were settled in the world. Unfortunately this is never how it happens.

Bistami watched his fellow scholars around the fire in the evenings, intent on a point of doctrine, or the questionable isnad of a hadith, and what that meant, arguing with exaggerated punctilio and little debater's jokes and flourishes, while a pot of thick hot coffee was poured with solemn attention into little glazed clay cups, all eyes gleaming with firelight and pleasure in the argument; and he thought, these are the Muslims who make Islam good.

Indeed, if ever you are asked to choose between fixists and mobilists, as the two sides were called during the plate-tectonics controversy—or between the stabilists and the dynamicists in the current Sirius debate—always choose the dynamicists. History is on your side.

People only invoke history to ballast their arguments in the present." "Maybe

The only part of an argument that really matters is what we think of the people arguing. X claims a, Y claims b. They make arguments to support their claims, with any number of points. But when their listeners remember the discussion, what matters is simply that X believes a and Y believes b. People then form their judgement on what they think of X and Y.

here's the genuine thoughtfulness and deep consideration for sake of truth and meaningful understanding. There's the recognition that if there were simple answers, we'd have already implemented simple solutions – and that not being the case, people have to work hard to discover the best - imperfect but with iteration ever-less flawed - courses of action and forget the pedantic and simple-minded debate points that so often mar discussions that should lead to progress.

lawmakers are often lawyers themselves, notoriously bereft of ideas.

The only part of an argument that really matters is what we think of the people arguing. X claims a, Y claims b. They make arguments to support their claims, with any number of points. But when their listeners remember the discussion, what matters is simply that X believes a and Y believes b. People then form their judgment on what they think of X and Y.

SF's NO GOOD! They bellow 'til we're deaf But =this= is good Well, then, it's not SF!

It is a poor mind that is never in conflict.

Once a ruler becomes religious, it becomes impossible for you to debate with him. Once someone rules in the name of religion, your lives become hell.

Here's the thing about people who believe in god... They're idiots.

Religion is the retarded stepchild of philosophy.

Creationist critics often charge that evolution cannot be tested, and therefore cannot be viewed as a properly scientific subject at all. This claim is rhetorical nonsense.

Anything that we scientists can do to weaken the hold of religion, should be done and may, in fact, in the end, be our greatest contribution to civilization.

Those who believe that politics and religion do not mix, understand neither.

The price of freedom of religion or of speech or of the press is that we must put up with, and even pay for, a good deal of rubbish.

Faith is an evil precisely because it requires no justification and brooks no argument.

Prejudice, not being founded on reason, cannot be removed by argument.