Argumentation in religion is very complicated because of all of the different interpretations of the religious texts. It seems that because of the numerous ways that people interpret the texts, there can only be speculation on how it should be interpreted. We can only study the texts and reach our own conclusion since no one from the creation of the texts exists today. There are many more questions that answers when it comes to argumentation in religion such as: How much free will do we have? What part of our lives does God play a part of, if any? It all depends on an individuals interpretations of the text and I think to say that one person has a more right answer than someone else about interpreting religious texts is not possible. Moral behavior is a good example of this derived from basic law: “you shall not kill”. It is hard to clearly identify what the word “kill” refers to. Does kill refer to only humans or are you not allowed to kill anything? are all lives treated equally? These are all speculations because they are interpretations which doesn’t mean that they don’t have merit, but each individual has the right to interpret things because we are not omnipotent.
In Chapter 9, the authors of the text discuss credibility. The text remarks that credibility is not only able to serve as a claim in argumentation, but it also plays a significant role as a means to support a claim (Rieke, Sillars, & Peterson, 142). The text then goes into detail about characteristics and forms of credibility but finally goes over the general principle the authors suggest for the use of credibility. Credibility can be incredibly subjective, but there are still some general principles of credibility that can apply to most situations. The principle I found to stand out the most in the group of principles the authors presented was the principle of developing credibility from reputation. Reputation is the credibility someone possesses with decision makers before they argue (Rieke, Sillars, & Peterson, 147). When I think of reputation in argument, I always manage to think of the polarized reputation of Donald Trump. There is a significant amount of people who hat
Hey Scott,
ReplyDeleteI think that you're really on to something with this blog post. I agree that argumentation in religion can be tricky because, like you said, people have so many different ways of interpreting the text, and there really is no way to state what the "correct" translation is. Beyond that, I've been in conversations where the question of if "God's word" would have changed or adjusted with our changing world; it's hard to believe that our world can go through such drastic changes, yet we are expected to live perfectly by rules and outlines set hundreds of years ago.
Aside of purely differences in interpretations of texts, I think it's important to highlight the differences between religions as well. If someone is presenting an argument to a Jewish community and tries to tie their argument back to 'The Quran,' there's going to be some disconnect and that argument may not be effective.
I think that argumentation in religion can be very challenging, too, because people are often very set in their religious views. Often, that is not something that people are going to easily shift how they think or what they believe. That being said, arguing against it can be like yelling at a brick wall; you say what you want, but it's not going to change anything. Additionally, someone making an argument may have to tread water it bit more to try not to offend someone because religion can be such a touchy thing. Honestly, I think that staying away from arguing about religion or having an argument based on religion is probably what's best.