Location Taken: Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
Time Taken: July 2012
I happened across a conversation between an atheist and a religious person today, talking back and forth on the subject of good and God. The atheist argued that God didn’t exist, and good was a social construct. The religious person, of course, did not agree. They were both very solid in their beliefs, and I neither came in when the conversation started nor stayed until they finished. If they ever finish, that is, as they were debating one of the Unanswerable Questions of our era.
One was shaky but ardent. She put forth interesting statements that were consistent and thought-provoking. However, she wasn’t the strongest when it came to persuasive language, often only able to give a rebuttal rather than a full counter-argument. The other one was a marvelous speech-giver, but exceedingly sanctimonious. He could employ every trick of rhetoric in the book, but his argument kept shifting. He clearly looked down on the person he was talking to, thinking her a deluded fool.
…You know, you could probably give yourself a small test on which side of the argument you already fall on by which you think would be the sanctimonious one, the atheist or the religious.
If you’re wondering, it was the atheist. He was quite fond of subtle insults, over-generalizations, and arguing against the straw man he had constructed in his head rather than the person he was talking to. It was the fairly standard argument of the shallow atheist, that God is an illusion, or perhaps indifferent at best, and that there was no reason for the speech-giver to choose good over taking full advantage of the pleasures of life. He had a marvelous use of persuasive language though, full of confidence and quick of wit. He’d make a very successful politician.
The religious lady, on the other hand, was trying to get him to see why being good has value, and why, even if you’re of the opinion God doesn’t exist, the belief itself has meaning. But there was little she could say that got past the armor of superiority the other wore. Instead, she pulled out analogies and metaphors to try to explain the unexplainable, mostly as rebuttals to his bombastic statements. She used the example that money is a social construct, that all it is in reality is pieces of paper. It’s our beliefs that give it value, make it able to provide food and shelter and all the other necessities of life. And that working for the sake of money was no more logical than working for the sake of a deity.
At which point the sanctimonious one completely missed the point and claimed that if you don’t have money, you don’t eat. Which, as the lady pointed out, is not true. You can farm, you can fish, you can grow your own food and build your own houses and create a marvelous life without ever touching money. She pulled out a lovely anecdote about living in Cambodia in the days of the Khmer Rouge in exactly that sort of money-less situation.
At which point the sanctimonious one promptly said “Of course you had money. Everyone has money.”
I make no decisive judgement as to who was right. It would go against the neutrality I try to maintain here, and the debate was on a topic that has no clear answer to modern eyes. But it was a fascinating view into different argument techniques.
If you just went with who could move you with words, who could give a marvelous turn of speech at a moments notice, who could manage to appear superior to their opponent with every sentence, you would join the side of the person arguing good was valueless.
But if you listened closely, the one whose skill with words was lesser had more heart to her plea, more thought and energy put into her belief. If she had the rhetoric skill of the other, she would have decimated him, rather than just sitting equal, matching rebuttal to argument again and again.
Hopefully in any debate I get into in the future, I will be more like the lady than the sanctimonious one. It’s far better to have deep, well-considered arguments than ones that are naught but two-dimensional platitudes fighting imaginary straw men.
