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Any chance Merkel had to survive her Election and The Populism she pretty much created is Gone With The Wind now, despite her too little and late about face on immigration and refugees
It's a really, really difficult situation. This kind of attack is exactly what Trump is trying to avoid with his immigration policies, but of course there are a bunch of negative (perhaps unintended) consequences of his approach (making groups of individuals feel isolated that could possibly help spark home-grown terrorism; not being a human and showing compassion to the large amount of people who will suffer if not taken in). There are risks with both options.
kdogg36 said: "qolbinau said: "Reasoning skills so that people do not accept false or harmful ideas as true, such as religious beliefs."
I agree completely with you. I'm not as forward about it as you are because it would seriously damage some personal relationships, but perhaps I should be.
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Do be careful about who/the audience etc. - in my experience speaking like I do here may not be effective because it can offend people. Similarly, if you look at the political threads here the emotion/aggression of many posters here (including myself at times) would never convince people.
I'm guessing the best way is to build rapport (even a friendship) with someone - maybe one that already exists, and have a calm discussion where you discuss ideas and the reasons for believing them.
The problem is that many people are even unwilling to have such a discussion - I have found that some people have genuinely no interest in trying to examine their own thoughts, the reason they believe them, whether there are alternative ideas that might be more intellectually sound. Some people seem to have adopted ideas and will do anything in their power to maintain them no matter what you say. I find this very unfortunate 
. This is why I think it is a problem with the system that has to be targeted at the education level. I wish every child was taught never to accept anything as true without good reasons for doing so, was taught the structure of an argument - a conclusion based on premises. When we teach people how to think - not what to think. Most will open their own minds to thinking about whether they should accept certain things as true or not.
You can see the power of religious ideas in some of the things that people say. Dr Ben Carson is a highly educated brain surgeon yet does not accept evolution to be true. And of course, creationism is unfortunately one of the most harmful ideas because people that think we were created as men and women in god's image to serve a specific purpose leads to a whole host of negative attitudes and policies around abortion, scientific research, gay marriage etc. And it's this same pattern of thinking and ill-reasoning that leads to other ideas such as concluding that climate change is a myth. Also, despite what some people keep professing - there is a relationship between religion and terrorism. It's a complicated relationship involving many factors - but religion is used as a weapon to exploit people to commit terrible acts (often as a response to western foreign policies, I will admit - but not always). People are sucked in and often genuinely believe that they are fulfilling their religious duties by engaging in these behaviours.
I don't have all the answers, but I do think the first step is recognising the problem. And make no mistake religion is a big issue. I kind of see the impact of religion on social policies like the impact of big money on economic policies - not good and something that should be removed.
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joined:1/9/15
joined:
1/9/15
Posted: 12/19/16 at 7:45pm