My view is that your philosophy dictates your quest for truth far more than your self-selected methodology. Everyone has a different view of justice and thus everyone will have a different view of who supposedly got what they deserved.

“A study technique I learned in grad school (and wish I’d know earlier) is to pose questions and set out to find answers.”

I think that problems arise when people pose answers and then set out to find the questions, as, unfortunately, too many are wont to do.

**

As a Christian, I believe in TRUTH that is only known 100% by God. I think any truth that people discover is part of the TRUTH. I think that truth is present wherever it is and that often people we don’t expect to have it actually do. I think everyone possesses some degree of truth. I think that if we combined the parts of truth that we know, we could create a better world but that humankind will never possess TRUTH, otherwise we’d be God, and we’re not. I think communication is very important in the conveyance of truth.

There are many ways to discover truth. One is by fact-finding. This way is used by everyone but is vital to the scientific method. A hypothesis is formed and facts are gathered to prove or disprove the question at hand. This method does not always give a definitive answer. But there are other ways of knowing.

One is through comparing and contrasting two or more things (or people, such a candidates for president). This method is used in literary analysis. In literature (sacred and secular) we see archetypes for good and evil. We judge characters or people by given traits. Does the person possess traits we admire? Is he/she kind, brave, helpful, etc.? We learn this type of character judgment even before we can read. The stories our parents read to us as toddlers are designed to teach values. If literature teaches about life (which I think it does), we learn the values we admire in people. Stories can help us know how to size people up with respect to the truth.

And intuition plays a part. First impressions are important—they can make or break a relationship—but they do not tell the entire story. And life is a story not a series of facts. Personality has a lot to do with a first impression, but character is makes a relationship endure. People can be grouped as to friendly, shy, or slow to warm up. The charismatic person is friendly but not necessarily a better worker (teacher, president, . . .) than one with a different personality. Character, however, means everything in one’s choices for a life partner, a president, etc. The person with a flawed personality may, indeed, be the person with the stronger character (i.e., the most favorable value system). The person who always seems to say the wrong thing may be the best choice for a given task. He/she may speak before thinking. In some field, this deadly. In others, it matters little. Intelligent people are willing to change their direction (what they believe and what they say,) if they prove themselves wrong or find a better way to do something. Bad vibes do exist (and likewise good vibes), but it dangerous to trust these alone unless a person feels he/she is in physical danger. If the sense of danger is strong, it is probably true. If the good vibes are strong, it’s probably hormones.

It is important to know one’s own learning style. The style in which one processes material is not only a positive indicator of how well one might do in a given field (college major, job) but helps a person actually learn more, presuming he/she wants to continue learning throughout life. A person can determine which of the five sense provides the best input for learning. Some people can follow verbal directions; others learn only by doing. I learn by setting educational goals and seeking to fulfill them. For long term educational goals, I phrased these are infinitive phrases. For example, in a college course (grad school), I might say my goal this semester is to improve my reading comprehension level. To accomplish this goal, I read materials I did not understand on the topic I was researching. I knew I was accomplishing this goal, when I started to understand part of what I was reading, in this case, lots of statistics concerning life in slave times.

A study technique I learned in grad school (and wish I’d know earlier) is to pose questions and set out to find answers. This is a similar to the scientific method, in that it begins with an idea, but different in that it’s much more subjective. A lot of learning is subjective. That’s why teachers (I taught junior high and high school English for nine years) ask questions and require students to support their answer with facts? They are not just opinions; they are informed opinions. Not every fact is a statistic, quantitatively measured. For example, a question might be, “Which character in the story got what he deserved? Support your choice by citing three examples.” Not every student will select the same character. It’s subjective. There is more than one right answer.

In a class entitled, “Slavery: Black Point of View,” (which meant we’d be reading primary sources written by slaves or former slaves), I chose to write about the lives of female slaves. My thought process went like this: How can I narrow the field so that I can learn the most about a subject of which I know almost nothing? Problem: They are slaves; I am free. They lived in a different century. They are black; I am white. But women, mmm. We have shared experiences. We are wives. We are mothers. Maybe I can get into their heads. Did you know that some white, slaveholding women actually breastfed black infants? It’s true. But the reverse was true more often. I looked for patterns in the stories and accounts I read. The facts show that for almost any trend, one can find an exception. Here’s where drawing conclusions leads to controversy. My thesis advisor once said to me, “Do you know what historians do? They sit around all day criticizing other historians.” We laughed, but it’s true. And mush of what we do on this blog is the same thing on a less scholarly level.

Given that communication requires each party to think like the other party at least some of the time in order to correlate concepts, this might be a major component of why you can’t really do anything about the arguments presented here against your positions.

but that’s not always what happens. People twist facts to make their points.

Facts have interpretations and while facts don’t change from person to person, interpretations certainly do. Logic helps a person who wants to interpret facts, to get it done correctly.

What better way to create a desert and call it peace than by honoring fallen mass murderers?

Ariel Sharon ,although in a bad place, is not dead whereas Carter should be both deceased and in a bad place.

Spiff

Carter has managed to make victims of Israelis, both living and dead.

He is, the Grim Reaper. He’s actually worse, but I will respect the Bookworm Room and hold my tongue here.
Suffice it to say…he should never have been allowed outside of Georgia.

BTW, my undergrad major was English, so I’m liberal arts all the way. I did, however, make an “A” in the first semester of calculus, but I also realized that all I was doing was memorizing patterns and plugging in numbers. I got out before disaster had time to strike me. I don’t think like a scientist.

Yeah I saw that. Don’t hold your breath though waiting for Carter to lay any wreaths on any Israeli victims though.