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THIS IS STUPID! -
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The Idea Emporium

How to Evaluate
Controversial Questions,
Controversial Subjects, Controversial Ideas

Good Thinking Solutions vs
Logical Fallacies, Bad Arguments, Not Thinking

Good Thinking vs This is Stupid!

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First things first. What is a stupid opinion?

Is it just an opinion you don't like? For some people, it is.

In the nineteenth century, when a few people voiced the opinion that women should be allowed to vote ... Outrageously stupid! Unbelievable! Heresy!!! That was the most common response.

At the time of the French Revolution, the slogan was "Lliberté, Egalité, Fraternité." One woman, Olympe de Gouges, dared suggest that the slogan should be amended to include not just fraternité, but sororité. The response was quick and efficient. November 3, 1793: Stupid opinion! Off with her head.

It wasn't even called a controversial topic, a controversial issue, a hot topic. No. No debate needed!

So, yes, for many people, a stupid opinion is one which they disagree with.

That's not the case for all people. However, many people do respond by cutting off, if not someone's head (often only because no guillotine is available), but their own thinking.

Here:

A question answered:   What is a stupid opinion?

Followed by:   15 examples   of stupid opinions
that are accepted by many as reality, and
sometimes not even considered controversial issues.

Followed by:   magic bullet answers
demonstrating why these opinions fit
within the category of stupid opinions.

Followed by:   the option of
FREE membership to The Idea Emporium
and staying in touch with FREE updates.

****

What is a stupid opinion?

For good thinkers, a stupid opinion is
an opinion that violates the basics of good thinking.

****

- 15 Currently Popular Stupid Opinions -
followed by some of the fatal flaws
inherent in some of these opinions

A question: are these controversial ideas,
controversial issues topics subjects?
In other words, is this a list of controversial topics?

The big question: for whom is it controversial?
And for whom are these opinions common sense?
And for whom are they utter nonsense?

Now, the opinions.

We are all where we are meant to be.

If bad things happen, it's to teach a lesson.

All opinions are equal.

You can't tell me I'm wrong - my opinion is just as good as yours.

It's wrong to be judgmental.

It's especially bad to judge a culture or a religion.

You must never offend someone's religion.

Only true Christians go to heaven.

Jihad is our god-given right.

Jews are the chosen people.


All religions are equal.

Who are we to judge?

Israel doesn't have the right to exist.

God gave Israel to the Jews.

Everything happens for a reason.

 

Stupid opinions. They buzz like flies on dog poop on a hot summer afternoon, they swarm like mosquitoes on a humid summer evening. It's not that there are so many of them. But one hears the same ones droning from all sides.

This is not, of course, the view of those who hold those opinions.

****

And now, for the million-dollar question.
How do these opinions violate
the rules of good thinking?

First, what's the goal?

One goal is a magic bullet answer.

What's a magic bullet answer? With cancer, doctors keep looking for magic bullets, something that will knock the cancer totally and utterly dead, and leave the person utterly and totally healthy. With stupid opinions, a magic bullet is meant to knock out the opinion and leave the person better than ever - maybe a bit like Sleeping Beauty, waking up after a hundred year sleep - here a person waking up to realizations.

A second goal is to have you become a member (FREE!) of The Idea Emporium, a place where good thinking is celebrated.

Now for a couple of Magic Bullet Answers.
Note: even if the answer knocks out the opinion,
many people who hold the opinion may not be convinced -
because their opinion is not based on thinking.

****

Violations of Good Thinking
in

- STUPID OPINION #1 -
WE ARE ALL WHERE WE ARE MEANT TO BE,
and SO IF SOMETHING BAD HAPPENS,
IT'S IN ORDER TO TEACH US A LESSON.

Millions of people hold this opinion - even though it means that the 800,000 people slaughtered in Rwanda were where they were meant to be, and that they all - even the newborn babies - were being slaughtered to order to teach them something.

Yes, millions hold this stupendously dumb idea that we are all where we are meant to be - even though it means the 6,000,000 Jews slaughtered by the Nazis were where they were meant to be, and they were all being slaughtered to learn some lesson.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. This is the start of a famous love poem.

How does this opinion violate good thinking? Let me count the ways.

MAGIC BULLETS!

Magic Bullet One. "We are all where we are meant to be" is usually uttered as if it were a fact - but facts need evidence. None provided. No further discussion needed until at least some shred of evidence is put forward.

Magic Bullet Two. If "we are all where we are meant to be", that means there is something - some cosmic force or deity - that means millions to be slaughtered in genocide, and so on. What a horrific universe - with deities or cosmic forces deliberately having horrors happen, even if to teach us lessons. By the way, no human teacher would be thought adequate if the best way they could come up with to teach a particular lesson was through mass murder. Again, any evidence is missing, plus when one thinks about it, the whole opinion makes no sense.

Magic Bullet Three. If "we are all where we are meant to be", then we have no free will. We are being pulled around, to be where we are meant to be. If we learn something, this is again what we are meant to learn. So we are puppets in a universe where the puppet master both sets up a horrific lesson plan (lots of genocide, etc) and lessons to be learned ... by puppets with no free will. The best I can say is: Nuts!

CLICK HERE FOR MORE EXPLORATION
of this opinion which has
6 This Is Stupid! Oscar nominations.
In the categories of bad thinking, logical fallacies,
not thinking, bad reasons, bad arguments, and more.

AND   CLICK HERE
FOR A SENSE OF COMMUNITY.
YES, JOIN THE COGNI SUTRANS (FREE!) -
lovers of good thinking.

****

Then, outrageously imbecilic,
yet more popular than popcorn,

- STUPID OPINION # 2 -
ALL OPINIONS ARE EQUAL.

Again, millions upon millions of people hold this, even though it means that racist opinions are as good as anti-racist opinions, that homophobic opinions are as good as non-homophobic opinions.

I have had black students argue that, while (like me) they are against racism, it is only an opinion that racism is bad. I have had female students argue that though they are glad they are living where women have rights, it is only an opinion that women are equal to men - and who are they to say anything against any other opinion?

The only opinion these people are against is the opinion that all opinions are NOT equal. Then they become judgmental (though they are horrified at the thought of being judgmental). It's wrong, wrong, wrong to believe all opinions are not equal.

But how is that possible? After all, if all opinions are equal, then the opinion that all opinions are not equal is equal to the opinion that they are.

No, no. no, come shrieks of horror. Every other opinion is equal, these people hold, but not that one. Their shrieks come because they have been hit by what should be a magic bullet.

MAGIC BULLET!

If all opinions are equal, then the opinion that all opinions are not equal is equal to the opinion that they are.

This means that the people who hold the opinion that all opinion are equal must also hold that their opinion is false. Rule of logic: when a contradiction is inherent - magic bullet! - the opinion is invalid! No wonder there are shrieks. For most people, it's much easier to shriek - no matter what the benefits of learning - than to think. But if they should choose to think - poof! - the stupid opinion disappears and they are better than ever.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE -
more exploration of the opinion that
all opinions are equal -
an opinion that has earned it
7 This Is Stupid! Oscar nominations,
including for Most Stupid Opinion of the Year.

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This Is Stupid!
Not Stupid People, But People Not Thinking! Controversial Questions, Controversial Subjects:
Good Thinking vs Logical Fallacies, Bad Arguments.

 

CONTROVERSIAL QUESTIONS, CONTROVERSIAL ISSUES:
OFTEN, THIS IS STUPID! -
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NOT THINKING
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And should you believe in a god or many gods,
here's a great quote:

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God
who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect
has intended us to forgo their use."
- Galileo Galilei (1564 - 1642)

Elsa
February 2009

copyright © Elsa Schieder, 2009, 2011, all rights reserved

 

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critical thinking

THE IDEA EMPORIUM takes on THIS IS STUPID, NOT THINKING, LOGICAL FALLACY,
BAD REASONS, IRRATIONAL THINKING, CRAZY THINKING.
EXPERIMENTS TO VERIFY IDEAS? NOT IF YOU ARE DOING POOR THINKING,
NOT THINKING, IRRATIONAL THINKING, BAD REASONS,
IF YOU UTTER LOGICAL FALLACIES AS IF THEY WERE TRUTHS CAST IN STONE*

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The Idea Emporium - why and what

One of my lifelong concerns has been trying to make sense of reality.
One of the things that hasn't made sense is the amount of just utterly rotten thinking, of not thinking. I can call it poor thinking, bad thinking, bad arguments, bad reasons, poor reasoning, logical fallacy upon logical fallacy, making some so-called thinking yo a stew of into logical fallacies, not thinking, bad reasons.

Controversial ideas. Often I don't find them controversial - I find them simple and clear. I find that often people consider some things controversial topics, controversial subjects, controversial issues, because they don't like these things. Taboo, off limits, contraband, forbidden - VERBOTEN!

The Idea Emporium. Good analysis, critical thinking skills, logical analysis - time for these to come forth and conquer opinions that each cry out for their own This Is Stupid award. Maybe sometimes controversial questions are addressed. The big question: why are these controversial ideas, controversial subjects?

Elsa
thinking pro

copyright © Elsa Schieder 2009, 2011 - all rights reserved
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