Yesterday I posted about a religious topic. For better or worse, some responders decided to pick up on the particular religion in question. The name of the religion doesn't matter. Quote mining is wrong for the same reason I can take any word or sentence someone has said and apply it to a different context.
Nonetheless, quote mining is powerful when it comes to debates of politics and religion because the average mind can only make direct correlations with the subject matter without properly evaluating context. Imagine for example if we are talking about nuclear bombs and someone quotes some random scientists from military projects in order to criticize the entire field of science. That wouldn't be fair right? Even so, it works and we all learned that the hard way.
Same applies for religion and everything else really. If we are trying to make a point about an entire ideology that involves sometimes billions of people then using a quote from a book, speech or paper, will make our argument weak. It is the trap of overgeneralization and supersimplifaction. We just hope the masses "bite" the bait.
In subjects of religion, the text is interpreted differently for different people and for different reasons. Heck, even in science peer-reviewers can have different opinions about the data and interpret them differently. For anyone involved with statistics, they know very well what I mean. Using statistics you can pretty much prove anything you want. The only thing one has to do is shift the target of their evaluation and move some ratios around.
Religious quotes without context can and will be perceived differently because people carry different histories, practises and ideas about the subject in question. Without proper argumentation, without rational arguments, we will be dooming the debate into an ideological war. The very thing we are trying to avoid.
Language is a very powerful tool. We all know more or less how some arguments are unfair but only when they are used against us. Interpretation is one of the most fundamental aspects of being human and that should never be used as a tool to deceive someone to accept our point of view. Let us no become like the ones we often accuse.
Everyone has their own religion and like always , fights occur because of religious thoughts . Religion is something that should not be brought up because that is one ascpect of what makes us all different from one another and we should respect each other’s beliefs
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saya setuju sir/ dear
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A quote for your post.
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using religious quotes affects me the same way that waving a red flag affects a bull.
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If religious texts can be interpreted countless ways, and if one can find anything they want in a religious text - violence, love, compassion, wrath, evil and righteousness - then why would anyone trust them when seeking for truth?
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I have participated in a lot of debates where the other side would always quote the bible to defend a certain thing's morality. It sucks, because we all know how illogical it could always be when one uses such argument, plus when you want to make a purely rational point that could keep everyone regardless of religion listening, that whole misuse of religious stuff just gets in the way and automatically makes the people even the panelists (damn, here in Philippines they're always religious) side with them. It's not fair in the event of civil debate.
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Very beautiful advice dear @kyriacos. Once I also fond of this type of debating but soon I came to know the reality that I was only deceiving myself. Debate's real reason should be to found the truth & reality and when the debaters will actually realize this they will never even intend to deceive anyone else for their own ego & pride etc.
And you are right about context. Context is every thing, so without context one can use anyone's words for any purpose.
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the fun part is that if you go a step further and try to merge the religion with that person who argued you gonna find out that even those religious people don't follow the exact things their religions talks about :P
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People always try to explain everything around them. This is our nature. People are trying to put everything into the language of numbers. People are trying to predict everything. Think about the meaning of fundamental analysis, about the forecasting of exchange rates, stock prices. Using the desire of people to foresee the future, statistics are often used as a tool for deception and not for the proof of truth. It's bad, it's appreciated, it's immoral, but they often useing us.
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Awesome post I like it.
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When an argument eventually lead to religions quotes, it's automatically moves the issues from a realistic perceptive to an ideological level, which makes it totally impossible for it to be solved. When ever I am locked in an intellectual argument with some, immediate he or she start making use of Religions quote, I immediately agree with the person's point of view in order to save my strength for something more productive.
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Great post there, keep up good work !
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very good post I hope you visit mine and you like it
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Context is everything in language, even in, or maybe especially in, English we have words that can mean very different things to different people or when used in different ways. Not to mention how context has been changing throughout time for individual languages. Look at writing from 100 years ago, way different meanings than now. So when talking about these ancient texts I wonder how far off we are from the original meaning.
Either way, people should be able to express their own truth in life, despite whatever source material they are talking about. Nice article, I've always been fascinated with language and context.
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This is simultaneously succinct and substantial. Context is so important, hats off to fighting for that to not be forgotten.
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Amen.
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For me there are two reasons people quote:
because someone said something in a very compact, pithy and powerful way
as an appeal to authority
Quotes stemming from #1 are probably difficult to quote mine, because the quote will have to be long enough to give a pretty good sense of exactly what the author originally intended.
Quotes stemming from motivation #2, on the other hand, are tempting to use quote mining, and to use partial quotes at that -- all you are doing is really name dropping to make it look like whatever author you are quoting agrees with what you are saying.
Trying to quote mine for reason #2 when it comes to religious topics is amusing to me, because if your post or comment is intended to provoke dialogue with people outside of that faith, then people outside of that faith do not recognize whatever person you are quoting as an authority in the first place!
We often see this with people saying "but the bible says", or "but the koran says" -- forgetting that to someone who sees both books as collections of historical but not necessarily divine origins, this reference carries no weight at all. Attempting to appeal to authority in this way ends up being circular in that it is only convincing to those that are already convinced.
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Isn't this what Catholics call 'prooftexting'?
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The topic is very interesting. I'm surprised that there is so little discussion around the topic that you raised. Really no one did not understand?
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I don't know if I've ever actually witnessed a religious "debate".
They always seem more like someone attempting to shove their "faith" down the other person's throat.
Often in the attempt to convince themselves of the validity of their own beliefs.
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A well written piece that challenges anyone who engages in the practise of using quotes out of context to simply win an argument. When one searches for truth in any context dialogue will be more productive in most cases. Blessigs
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Excellent challenge to those who quote out of context to win arguments or debates. I agree that quotes out of context are not fair. It has been my experience that one rarely wins a debate even with quotes that are in context. The very nature of debate puts one in a position of winning or losing an argument. An attempt to simply win an argument by quoting out of context rules out any serious dialogue and search for truth.
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If I go with religious quotes, for me they usually come in pairs or groups that contradict each other.
Still, religious texts are a very different source than any other topic because they are supposed to be divine and all true, so even a single quote-mined bit should be enough to disprove and discredit this false notion of perfectness and holiness. But I'm not too sure you are referring to that at all here.
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followed @kyriacos
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