Quote:
Originally Posted by robocop
Being able to form an opinion and regurgitate someone elses words that supports that opinion is easy, paying attention and actually considering the merits of another persons opinions requires a level of intelligence a lot of people don't have.
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There are informed and uninformed opinions. Anyone who believes in ridiculous things is clinging to an uninformed opinion despite the opportunity to become informed. THIS is what moves people to tooth-rattling rage - not the inability to consider the "merits of another person's opinions", but confronting deliberate ignorance in the face of logic and evidence.
What's especially annoying is the insistence by these ignoramuses that they are the ones who see the truth and that everyone else is a gullible idiot. Skepticism is NOT the same as incredulity - a true skeptic can be convinced, whereas the incredulous are unable to change their minds because they don't have a real opinion to change, just a belief that a countervailing explanation of events is somehow wrong because they can't understand how it could be true.
The world could use a little more interpersonal intolerance of stupid opinions, in my view. Free speech is great, as long as that right to free speech also includes the right to openly mock and deride the arguments of those whose public discourse lacks all relevance and worth. The marketplace of ideas must not be ruled by those who shout their simple slogans the loudest.