How do you form opinions on things?

hotrhymez

Rhymeslayer
Joined
Jul 14, 2015
Messages
992
Age
36
Gender
Male
Religious Affiliation
Christian
Marital Status
Single
How do you decide what to believe? Like for example abortion..I am against it but I can go on the internet and Google 100 good arguments for abortion...but you can Google the opposite too....so....??

Or like with politics..I can Google or look up 100s of valid reasons why Trump is bad..boo....or good...yay!! So how to decide which side to pick?

Maybe its a really dumb question..hopefully someone knows what I mean..
 

Lucian Hodoboc

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 1, 2019
Messages
1,270
Location
Eastern Europe
Gender
Male
Religious Affiliation
Christian
Political Affiliation
Conservative
Marital Status
Single
Acceptance of the Trinity & Nicene Creed
Yes
100 good arguments for abortion
Unless the pregnancy seriously endangers the mother's life, there are no arguments to support abortion. All the arguments that support it are based on a flawed understanding of our purpose on Earth. We were put here to be fruitful and multiply within the covenant of marriage. Sex used for any other purpose than its original one is sinful.
 

Stravinsk

Composer and Artist on Flat Earth
Joined
Jan 4, 2016
Messages
4,502
Gender
Male
Religious Affiliation
Deist
Political Affiliation
Conservative
Marital Status
Widow/Widower
It sort of depends on what it is.

If I find something of interest to me, I will typically spend a whole lot of time looking into it. This is especially true if it is a minority opinion. I want to understand the arguments for the position before I adopt it against what is known as "the herd" - the mass of humanity that forms opinions because it makes them "popular" (or saves them from being unpopular), the go-along-to-get-along types, requires them to do little to no thinking/research or have the guts(if they do), to be a black sheep and actually express it.

Now if it's something that I don't care about, like fashion or furniture preferences, my opinion, whatever it is, is probably ill informed, because I just don't care enough about these things to be informed on them.
 

Lamb

God's Lil Lamb
Community Team
Administrator
Supporting Member
Joined
Jun 10, 2015
Messages
31,692
Age
57
Gender
Female
Religious Affiliation
Lutheran
Political Affiliation
Conservative
Marital Status
Married
Acceptance of the Trinity & Nicene Creed
Yes
I try to determine if the bible is for or against it first off. Secondly, I trust my gut instinct to know if something is wrong.

Abortion is violence. That's simple enough to understand even if you agree or disagree about it being murder.

As for selecting a politician to side with, you aren't really siding with that one person but the entire party since the party has the power. I learned that ages ago when I voted for Obama because he claimed in his first run for Presidency that he was against abortion. But then I learned that Democrats are for abortion and having a President against it is not going to change the party. So look at what the party believes and see if those beliefs are in line with what you agree with. Trump wasn't a Politician going into this but a man who wanted to change the country to help more people and he did that. There are good and bad things about him just as there are good and bad things about previous Presidents.
 

tango

... and you shall live ...
Valued Contributor
Joined
Jul 13, 2015
Messages
14,200
Location
Realms of chaos
Gender
Male
Religious Affiliation
Christian
Marital Status
Married
Acceptance of the Trinity & Nicene Creed
Yes
How do you decide what to believe? Like for example abortion..I am against it but I can go on the internet and Google 100 good arguments for abortion...but you can Google the opposite too....so....??

Or like with politics..I can Google or look up 100s of valid reasons why Trump is bad..boo....or good...yay!! So how to decide which side to pick?

Maybe its a really dumb question..hopefully someone knows what I mean..

Politics, at least as far as casting votes is concerned, is more complex because you're choosing between entire packages rather than taking a stance on individual issues. Putting your X in the box beside a candidate could mean anything from agreeing with every single aspect of what that candidate stands for, to disagreeing with much of what the individual believes but supporting enough of the party line to support them, to hating almost everything about them but hating the other side even more.

For other issues, to the extent I care about them at all, I try to look at an argument from both sides and then form an opinion. There are also two levels of opinion, namely whether I think something is appropriate and if not whether I believe others should be prevented from doing it.

It always used to be said that if a conservative didn't like something he just didn't do it, but if a liberal didn't like something he didn't want anyone else doing it either. But then two dudes wanted to marry each other and the conservative howling started as if the world was about to end. Hence it's perfectly possible to find something that I disagree with but don't believe needs to be specifically prohibited.

To give an example, something like gay marriage is something I have no interest in doing - I'm just not into guys like that. I can look to Scripture and find it fairly easy to make a case against it. But then if two men want to marry each other it doesn't make any difference to me or to my life, and they might not accept Scripture as having any relevance at all. So in that regard it's not something I have any desire to do but I don't see a reason why others should be prevented from doing it. I do, however, believe that the freedom of religious ministers must be equally respected if they choose not to bless a union they consider to violate their religious beliefs.

Often I like to try to defend both sides of an argument to see which one survives best. Sometimes that leads into some thorny perspectives but seems to be a good way to figure if I'm on the right side of something. As a rule I don't believe things should be banned unless they involve a clearly identifiable victim. So, for example, rape and murder are banned because at least one party to the event was non-consenting and therefore a victim. On the other hand I don't believe the government has any business regulating, or even trying to regulate, what consenting adults do in private. The fact I might find an activity distasteful doesn't mean that others who consider it acceptable shouldn't be allowed to do it in private.
 

hotrhymez

Rhymeslayer
Joined
Jul 14, 2015
Messages
992
Age
36
Gender
Male
Religious Affiliation
Christian
Marital Status
Single
It just seems with every issue there's tons of arguments for both sides..and it gets overwhelming. No matter what you say someone will say you are wrong.On a different website I said Trump was a good president and about 100 people said I was an idiot. So I dunno anymore. Maybe Biden will be awesome? I DONT KNOW!

I hate it all and its dumb. I wish I could have no opinion on anything but I dont think that's possible.
 

tango

... and you shall live ...
Valued Contributor
Joined
Jul 13, 2015
Messages
14,200
Location
Realms of chaos
Gender
Male
Religious Affiliation
Christian
Marital Status
Married
Acceptance of the Trinity & Nicene Creed
Yes
It just seems with every issue there's tons of arguments for both sides..and it gets overwhelming. No matter what you say someone will say you are wrong.On a different website I said Trump was a good president and about 100 people said I was an idiot. So I dunno anymore. Maybe Biden will be awesome? I DONT KNOW!

I hate it all and its dumb. I wish I could have no opinion on anything but I dont think that's possible.

There usually are arguments in favor of both sides, which is why a "you are wrong" response is frankly rather silly. In many ways there are things that don't have nice clean right/wrong arguments - if anything I'd say most things are matters of opinion rather than fact.

... which constantly leads me back to the concept that government should be small so we don't get one group of people imposing what they think is "right" upon unwilling others who are, in their eyes, "wrong" and therefore don't even know what's best for themselves.
 

Member4592

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 9, 2021
Messages
92
As for selecting a politician to side with, you aren't really siding with that one person but the entire party since the party has the power. I learned that ages ago when I voted for Obama because he claimed in his first run for Presidency that he was against abortion. But then I learned that Democrats are for abortion and having a President against it is not going to change the party.
The Constitution of the United States provides for a wholly secular government for the people as a whole.

Any action by the Congress, the Executive, or Judiciary that confers any benefit upon religious organizations or places any impediment in the way of religious expression that does not infringe the rights of others is a violation of the letter and spirit of the Constitution.

Then you have the separation of the church and of the state.
The First Congress' deliberations show that its understanding of the separation of church and state differed sharply from that of their contemporaries in Europe.[citation needed] As the 19th-century historian Philip Schaff observed:

The American separation of church and state rests upon respect for the church; the [European anticlerical] separation, on indifference and hatred of the church, and of religion itself... The constitution did not create a nation, nor its religion and institutions. It found them already existing and was framed for the purpose of protecting them under a republican form of government, in a rule of the people, by the people, and for the people.
Separation of church and state in the United States - Wikipedia
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom