A few weeks ago when I watched this debate between Christopher Hitchens and Rabbi Wolpe. It struck me how different their argument styles are. Hitchens (mostly) relied on evidence and used that evidence as the basis of his logic. Wolpe relied on stories.

It was as if they were talking two different languages.

In college I took some classes on rhetoric, the art of persuasion. Argument by analogy came up there as a very persuasive way to make a point, but very dangerous because people can turn those analogies back on you. In this case, the "God is a shepherd" analogy became, in the hands of Hitchens, a clever observation that God keeps his "flock" around to fleece them, keep them docile, then kill them and eat them.

But somehow argument by analogy works and persists. It is even better when it is a testimonial anecdote. I learned this one in the LDS Missionary Training Center. They taught us that a testimony can't be argued against and is the most persuasive thing you can say. In my experience that was only true if the people already wanted to believe you. To the rest it was just one opinion among many.

It is at the heart of why I don't go out of my way to argue over which political party, sports team, religion, philosophy, or Food Network show is better/worse (well, ok, I'm guilty of that last one...): its not the kind of thing about which people are open to persuasion. They have their belief and everything in the world logically agrees with them--they have many anecdotes and testimonials to support their view.

What's sad is that a good anecdote and some ill-founded facts are all that is needed to start wars. We don't let facts get in the way of what we want to believe.

I wish I could just point the finger at religion on this, but it is part of our brains and religion is just one exploitation of it. The one hope I see is the scientific method, which is constantly gathering and evaluating evidence and has no sacred hypotheses. It is the best thing we have going for us as a species but it is also less persuasive to the masses. No one wants to hear about probability and likelihood, they want firm, prophetic commandments and post facto rewriting of history to claim that you were right all along.

So next time you feel emotionally charged about something, stop and ask yourself what the evidence really is, because it is usually much less substantive than you think and much less persuasive to an outsider than you hope.