An Important Distinction
"At Cambridge University I was taught a laudable method of argument: you never personalize, but you have absolutely no respect for people's opinions. You are never rude to the person, but you can be savagely rude about what the person thinks. That seems to me a crucial distinction: You cannot ring-fence their ideas. The moment you say that any idea system is sacred, whether it's a religious belief system or a secular ideology, the moment you declare a set of ideas to be immune from criticism, satire, derision, or contempt, freedom of thought becomes impossible."—Salman Rushdie
This by the way is the basis for the rules for comments at onegoodmove. Criticize ideas, yes, criticize people, no.
Comments
Well I think your policy is stupid. :D
Hi Norm, thanks for the clairification. Hopefully it will put an end to inconducive name calling and get more people to support their points with established research, which does not mean diving into the Bible and other religious documents for answers. Those texts were written hundreds and thousands of years for a different world and have their own religious agendas.
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