TakeOnIt
Compare opinions of world leading experts and influencers.
Welcome to TakeOnIt, a website for comparing opinions of experts, leaders and organizations. All opinions here are expressed in the form of answering a yes-no question, creating a virtual debate. You can contribute by quoting an expert opinion or adding your own opinion.

Top Experts & Influencers

Top Comparisons

Top Pitches

Top Topics

Top Contributors

Rationality Websites

TakeOnIt Blog

Recently Added Issues

Recently Added Quotes

Marriage is a certainly an idealized legal institute, with few entering the relationship expecting divorce statistics will one day apply to them. Of course this is not to say that there aren't long and happy marriages, but on the whole, does the evidence suggest that marriage is, at the risk of sounding wholly unromantic, rational?
New York has countless mosques, but recently a plan to build a large mosque and Islamic cultural center two blocks from Ground Zero has sparked controversy. Some conservatives want to ban the construction of the mosque, claiming its an insult to the people who died on September 11th, while libertarians tend to argue that religious freedom is a constitutional right.
In the wake of 9/11, many Muslims have outspokenly condemned violence in the name of their religion. However, critics of the faith, and critics of religion in general, have suggested that the faith can indeed breed extremism, and that many passages in the Koran, if taken literally, seem to even condone the slaughter of non-believers.
The more idealistic we are with our principles, the more vulnerable we are to hypocrisy. Should we be less idealistic to avoid being hypocrites, or should we hold onto our ideals, even if we can't always live up to them?
Many societies enforce laws that favor monogamous relationships, such as marriage; laws partly predicated on the assumption that monogamous relationships are natural. However, looking at different cultures and even different species prompts the question as to whether monogamy is so natural after all.
Would it be feasible for all of us to work a lot less, or is the concept a pipe-dream? Some suggest that by working less, we could increase our productivity per hour, and have a happier life. Others suggest that the idea is an economically naive socialist fantasy, and that although people complain about excessive work, it's ultimately a sacrifice people are prepared to make for, amongst other things, material wealth, status, and their children.
The benefits of creative thinking are frequently espoused, but is there actually a shortage of creativity in the world? Would we actually be better off if we were more creative, or are we already creative enough, or perhaps even too creative?
Scientific theories must make predictions that not only bolster the theory if the predictions come true, but also falsify the theory if the predictions turn out to be wrong. Some climate skeptics believe that the AGW hypothesis is impervious to falsification, short of waiting several decades to directly it, and pending that test, climate scientists and in particular climate modelers have boundless latitude to massage their theories and models to match what has become their pet hypothesis.
We often trust a scientific consensus, but is this rational? Contrarians often maintain consensus is irrelevant - and that the facts should speak for themselves. However, an assessment of the facts is not always as straightforward as the rhetorically inclined advocates on either side often insinuate. In such cases, is it rational to trust the consensus, or is there always a better way to rapidly assess the truth - short of becoming an expert one's self?
Over the last million years, temperature and CO2 have been highly correlated, but with CO2 lagging behind temperature by several hundred years. The mainstream explanation amongst climate scientists is that Earth's orbital changes initiated warmings and coolings, and a positive feedback between temperature and CO2 amplified those changes. However, many climate skeptics interpret the lag during this period as evidence that CO2 can only be the effect rather than the cause of temperature change.
Jane Austen
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters. -- Narrator, Pride and Prejudice.
Robin Hanson
The US FDA prohibits the alcohol industry from advertising these studies, showing the health benefits of alcohol, because the public might get the wrong impression. You do not have free speech in the US regarding health.
Bill Bennett
Hypocrisy is better than no standards at all.
George W. Bush
The union of a man and woman is the most enduring human institution, honoring -- honored and encouraged in all cultures and by every religious faith. Ages of experience have taught humanity that the commitment of a husband and wife to love and to serve one another promotes the welfare of children and the stability of society. Marriage cannot be severed from its cultural, religious and natural roots without weakening the good influence of society.
Bill Maher
Is marriage a good thing? Mostly Disagree
I always compare marriage to communism. They're both institutions that don't conform to human nature, so you're going to end up with lying and hypocrisy.
Sam Schulman
True, many marriages promote loving intimacy and enduring fidelity, but that’s an outcome of the relationship itself – not the raison d’etre for the institution. In primordial terms, marriage only exists at all – in all of its permutations, pleasant or barbaric – because of the nature of human heterosexuality. As a species, we need to protect female sexuality in order to assure ourselves of a future. ... [Else a man] would turn her into a slave, a concubine – something less than fully human.
Laura Kipnis
And then there's the American mantra of the failing relationship: 'Good marriages take work!' When exactly did the rhetoric of the factory become the default language of coupledom? Is there really anyone to whom this is an attractive proposition, who, after spending all day on the job, wants to come home and work some more? Here's an interesting question: what's the gain to a society in promoting more work to an overworked population as a supposed solution to the travails of marital discontent?
The Catholic Church
The intimate community of life and love which constitutes the married state has been established by the Creator and endowed by him with its own proper laws. ... God himself is the author of marriage.
Roissy in DC
Marriage is a social mechanism designed to exchange sex for indentured servitude. So why are women now the eager instigators of divorce? What changed in the culture? Four things, primarily: the pill, easy divorce, women’s economic independence, and rigged laws that make divorce a good financial prospect for women. ... All the positive loving benefits you can get out of marriage can also be had within an unmarried relationship.
Frank Zindler
The discovery that humans, like chickens, had eggs, and that it was eggs fertilized by spermatozoa that developed into fetuses led to the notion that “life” began at conception (fertilization). ... In 1869 Pope Pius X reversed his church’s long-held view that the soul arrives in the fifth month of pregnancy and declared instead that the mystical woozit made its appearance at the moment of conception [whereby] Only god can make a soul, and only fertilized eggs can receive them.

New Comments

0 Points       Benja       3 days ago     Is the theory of evolution falsified by fossil evidence? Disagree
Let's mirror!

The charge of “quote mining” is indeed a serious charge. Indeed both creation and evolution advocates do it either out of carelessness or deliberate design. However, in this case the charge is true, and appears to be a maneuver for lack of any genuine scientific rebuttal.

First and foremost the O’Rourke quote fails to pertain to the greater context of the whole issue, i.e., It fails to dovetail with many similar statements made by other specialists on the topic, and in this respect is very much out of context. Secondly, the polemic (you cited) did not adequately distinguish any alleged consistency between the O’Rourke quote used, and how it was used, vs. the full context of O’Rourke’s treatise. i.e., O’Rourke’s full treatise, with the quote in context, does resolve the circular dating problem and make it go away. Finally, creationists have always used arcane explanations on this issue, but it all circles back to fallacious reasoning based on the general assumption of creationism, followed by their assumptions of the geologic columns and fossil placements. And that’s where the top begins its complicated wobble-spin.

Because then we fail to find anomalous and index fossils which are not suppose to be in a particular stratigraphic layer, and fail to find radiometric readings of columns which contradict the assumed age of the columns. And quite often when the radiometric process is rebooted it merely confirms all the previous readings. So we have fossils where they’re supposed to be, and rocks where they’re supposed to be. All of this is being fueled by the theoretical general assumption of creationism, and carried away by a series of subset assumptions, which are nothing more than stubborn puzzle pieces which quite often don’t fit together with, or in, the original picture of the general assumption like they’re suppose to.

1 Point       Airius       3 days ago     Should performance enhancing drugs be legal in sports? Disagree
IF we allow performance enhacing drugs, in the end it would come down to who takes the better drug instead of who can legitimately run faster or throw harder. This is not the spirit of sport.

0 Points       Benja       24 Aug 2010     Is the theory of evolution falsified by fossil evidence? Disagree
Not bothering to check if an expert has been quoted out of context undermines this website. You can find the context for O'Rourke's quote here.

0 Points       Benja       22 Aug 2010     Do we have an immaterial soul? General Comment
Nice link - interesting fact in that article: "In 1869 Pope Pius X reversed his church’s long-held view that the soul arrives in the fifth month of pregnancy and declared instead that the mystical woozit made its appearance at the moment of conception."

1 Point       Felix       22 Aug 2010     Do we have an immaterial soul? General Comment
Here's an excellent article about the "Soul". My take is that it's quite obvious that we have no soul. The same goes for the existence of any god, if there were one it would be obvious and everyone would know it. Faith is not required when there is knowledge, it's a poor, poor substitute.

http://www.atheists.org/Spirits,_Souls,_and_Clones

0 Points       Benja       20 Aug 2010     Is the theory of evolution falsified by fossil evidence? General Comment
I'd say your thorough examination of the fossil evidence resolves this debate once and for all.

0 Points       Benja       20 Aug 2010     Do Muslims have the right to build a mosque near ground zero? General Comment
The Economist: "the terrorists claimed to be acting in the name of Islam."

Claimed to be? So when the self-inconsistent Koran is interpreted "correctly", it's obvious that the beliefs of the terrorists are inconsistent with Islam?

The politically correct left really loves pushing the Religion is Peaceful trope don't they? If only the 9/11 terrorists had subscribed to The Economist for guidance on religious matters.

0 Points       Benja       19 Aug 2010     Do Muslims have the right to build a mosque near ground zero? Agree
I'm all for it. And as a gesture celebrating our shared belief in tolerance and cross-cultural communication, I look forward to the Imam who's heading the project to declare his enthusiastic support for a Jewish center in Mecca and an atheist center in Medina.

0 Points       Benja       15 Aug 2010     Is there life after death? Disagree
"The fact is that by his innate disposition, man believes in continuation of life after death."
That's debatable - the fact that we're so fucking scared of death is obvious evidence to the contrary (and the 'scared of the unknown' argument seems weak). It seems plausible cultural conditioning is responsible for the belief in life after death. Also, for people like myself who become atheists, were we overcoming our "innate" disposition, or did we have an "innate" disposition to become atheists? I'm not saying you're wrong, but it seems like you're making a bold empirical claim based on intuition.

"If death is the end of life, if man, after his death, is lost for ever, then why should he sacrifice his life so that others may live? ..."
This is an Appeal to Consequences. Whether or not there are good or bad consequences to believing there is life after death, has no impact on the truth of whether there is life after death.

0 Points       Benja       15 Aug 2010     Do we have an immaterial soul? Disagree
"sciences and their tools, etc cannot pass any judgment - for or against - on metaphysical and immaterial concept and beings."

This is dualism. The problem with this viewpoint, is that if you're able to talk about immaterial things, then the immaterial must be connected with the material. Your tongue waggling and the resulting airwaves, are after all, physical phenomena. The question then becomes, how does the immaterial interact with the material? Descartes famously suggested our soul interacted with our body via the pineal gland in our brain, but this has long since been refuted. The modern view is that it's a mistake to believe that there's two separate worlds interacting, but rather just one world. Therefore there can be no immaterial soul, because that would imply a separate world from the material world.

See also Can reductionist methods help explain consciousness?.

1 Point       aak       15 Aug 2010     Do we have an immaterial soul? General Comment
The word soul is that thing which every man refers to when he says "I". I agree it is immaterial and its immateriality refers to the fact that it is not material thing, it is neither divisible nor governed by time and space.

No doubt, I conceive in myself a concept which I refer to as "I"; and it is equally certain that every man has a similar conception about himself and it is a conception which we are never oblivious of - as long as we are alive and conscious. In short, it is not like our external limbs which we feel with our senses nor is it like our internal organs which we know by senses or experiment. Sometimes we become oblivious of one of the limbs or even the whole body. But we are never oblivious of "I" and this proves that "I" is other than the body and its parts.

One of the characteristics of matter is gradual change, dissolution and divisibility. If soul were body or part thereof, it would have been subject to change and division - but it is not so.

Also, this notion of "I" is simple and one; there is no plurality or parts therein, nor is there any extraneous ingredient mixed with it; it is an absolute one. Every man finds it in himself that he is he and not someone else. Therefore this notion or vision is a concept which subsists by itself and distinct; it is beyond the definition of matter and is not subject to its characteristics and properties, it is separate from matter; it has a connection with the body which makes it identifiable with the body - and it is the connection of management.

It is true that science, based on senses and perception and experiments, with all its minute, delicate and in-depth researches, has not come across a "soul". Also, it is correct that it has not found any phenomenon which irresistibly led one to the soul and its cause. But these two premises do not prove that there is not an immaterial soul. The natural sciences which discuss the laws of nature and properties of matter, are by definition limited to the researches concerning matter only, which is its main subject. The apparatus and chemicals, etc. which sciences use to conduct and complete their experiments, may throw light on matter and material affairs only. But by the same token, these, sciences and their tools, etc cannot pass any judgment - for or against - on metaphysical and immaterial concept and beings. Utmost that a natural science can say is that it did not find a soul. But not finding something is not non-existence of that thing. Besides, we do not expect them to find within their subject something beyond the limit of matter and physical nature.

Comments on the above are most welcome!

Thanks

0 Points       Benja       13 Aug 2010     Can you put a price on life? General Comment
"Haha, sure you would, chief."
You think this issue is a laughing matter? If so, please at least be funny. Being sarcastic towards someone who is being sincere makes you, in this instance, an a-hole. I'd far prefer to entrust my life in his hands to yours. You've shown nothing but irrationality and prejudice. If you're thinking of replying to this with a rational argument please do. If you intend to reply with more rhetoric, don't bother, because you'll get moderated. This website is about fostering civil debate. Not about insulting people. Least of all those who genuinely are trying to state what they believe is the right thing to do, even if it's unpopular.

New Editorial Comments

0 Points       Benja       8 hours ago     Is the theory of evolution falsified by fossil evidence? Editorial Comment
"That's about all you have is a cheap trick mirror"
In the mirror responses, are all the classy tricks you use too.

P.S. I'm not inclined to mirror your TEMPER.

0 Points       Benja       22 Aug 2010     Is the earth approximately 6000 years old? (as opposed to 4.5 billion) Editorial Comment
You're addressing a different question: Must God exist to explain how the universe began?.