How do you feel?

[neilgodfrey]

I've been thinking about different emotional reactions to different types of debates. And having been burying myself lately in readings about the nature and origins of our moral apparatus, I am thinking of these emotional reactions as indicators of the different values we place upon the ideas and questions raised.

Anger can be seen as an appropriate reaction to a perception of a broken social contract.

Disgust can be seen as an appropriate reaction to a perception of a violation of sacred values.

Fear .... to an impending danger, a violation of a precaution.

Happiness -- well, to stimulus, challenges, support, opportunities to enhance status....

Mythicism evokes disgust or anger for some of us, but happiness in others. Does anyone feel fear? I suspect very few feel sadness.

I can feel a sense of happiness engaging with views I find challenging even if I find myself disagreeing with them in the end (or even the beginning). I enjoy the stimulation of intellectual exploration, discovery, tests....

I think happiness is the ideal response to all intellectual exchanges and professional disagreements.

But if we encounter arguments embedded in anger, or find ourselves responding to arguments with anger, ..... then should we see that as an indicator that the interest is no longer one of intellectual stimulation or exchange. Such a response indicates the issue is something else -- something sacred to us? or a violation of some rules or standard by which our world functions?

What is the appropriate response to arguments delivered in anger or disgust? Surely attempting to argue along lines that traditionally give us a feeling of satisfaction/happiness is pointless, yes? Should not the first step be to identify the sacred value/social convention that is perhaps the real issue of offence?

[Secret Alias]

I think one of the reason people hate so many mythicists so much is that we hold smart people to a different standard than stupid ones. That a religious zealot engages in deceitful self-serving arguments or ignoring evidence to the contrary no one is surprised. It's harder to accept this sort of thing from smart people who haven't been preprogrammed into deceit by their parents or community since the day they were born.

[Secret Alias]

But then again I may have been unfair because for many atheists who grew up in an ultra-religious household the damage was already done. I hate to agree with Casey but I think what I may be picking up on is that religious zeal for certainty only now sublimated into a denial of God and religion. So in the end the culprit is fanatical religious devotion in spite of the repacked exterior; rabid 'anything' people probably begins with some sort of disturbance in their early development. I guess we should pity children of fanatically devoted religious parents.

[Secret Alias]

It often works the same way for victims of rape or incest. It effects them in a similar manner. Whether they become ultra slutty or the reverse traumatizing children damages the ability of young adults to develop in normal ways.

[neilgodfrey]

I wasn't looking for the sorts of responses so far.

We feel angry when someone apparently wilfully or carelessly misrepresents our argument or attacks our character because the guilty party is not engaging fairly with our arguments.

So we usually try to repeat our arguments. But isn't that pointless? Hasn't the other person already expressed something other than a happy engagement with the arguments? They have seen the argument as an attack or offence of some sort for some reason.

Every effort subsequently that attempts to resolve the disagreement by intellectual argument is surely nothing but a smokescreen for something else that is the real issue -- and is only being further buried beneath the attempts at intellectual debate.

[Secret Alias]

I find 'mythicists' tedious because they seem to want to establish one certainty in place of another. Why can't we just banish all certainties and stop ourselves with maybe or at best a series of maybes? Maybe Jesus was a myth. Maybe the gospel was invented and never move to 'it has to be invented,' it has to be a myth. I think the contempt of the current crop of mythicists is entirely justified.

[MrMacSon]

... 'mythicists' ... seem to want to establish one certainty in place of another.

Your generalizations and misrepresentations are tedious.

[neilgodfrey]

So you are disgusted with mythicist arguments because you believe they are advanced by

smart people who have been preprogrammed into deceit by their parents or community since the day they were born

who are

rabid people probably [victims of] some sort of disturbance in their early development. . . . children of fanatically devoted religious parents.

and even comparable to

victims of rape or incest. . . . traumatized children damaged [in their] the ability . . . to develop in normal ways.

and while they should have our "pity", they also thoroughly deserve "contempt" because

they seem to want to establish one certainty in place of another

.

Okaaaay.....

Do I detect a touch of loathing, here?

So for you mythicist arguments are not of intellectual interest (certainly not evoking the happiness of engaging in intellectual sparring or the happiness that comes from attempting to demonstrate your respectable intellectual insights or sense of intellectual adventure in the exchange).

Rather, they evoke in you profound disgust, being evidence of deep psychological flaws. Not unlike the fear and loathing some people feel in the presence of persons with physical handicaps or in the presence of a thoroughly despised and hated race.

Which brings us back to my original question . . . .

[Peter Kirby]

What is the appropriate response to arguments delivered in anger or disgust? Surely attempting to argue along lines that traditionally give us a feeling of satisfaction/happiness is pointless, yes? Should not the first step be to identify the sacred value/social convention that is perhaps the real issue of offence?

Perhaps, but at the same time everyone knows about the Enlightenment ideal of unfettered inquiry and will be loathe to admit that they are doing anything other than applying reason to the topic at hand. Those with any self-awareness about what they are doing (and the fact that it is less than simply rational) are the exception to the rule. Those without self-awareness are that way because they are protecting their ego and will not take kindly to others pointing out that their attitude seems to stem from something to which they take offense, not from 'pure reason'.