| One of the things I remember from high school debate team is that one can use strategy to win a debate. One makes a bunch of assumptions, proves ones argument,then listens to the opposition try to knock down the argument based on the assumptions...and then when they may have argued themselves into some corners, you prove just one of your assumptions, and the argument is won. I think that is what one of the ancient Greek philosophy schools did...I believe they were called the Sophists...and what they had was really little regard for the truth of anything (skeptical is a better word), but they made their living teaching teaching aristocratic young Greeks the art of rhetoric...often taking both sides of an argument and arguing them both strongly...thus making the opponents strongest arguments work against them. Their view was that the only true position in any argument is the winning position. Not a moral or ethical position, but it earned them a living. Plato, incidentally , and his teacher Socrates had a higher view of morality and argued themoral position and still won most of the arguments of his time. I would venture to say that , in most of the debates I have been involved in, (here and elsewhere) my first premise is always God, the eternal lord of the universe and creator of all that is in it. As such, I guess I still win most of the debates I get into and I don't really care about the ones I lose...since they are based on someone else having a faulty position on who or what God is. Now that may be viewed as a haughty and self assured position on my part, but it is what faith brings me. Don Berghuis |
