Continued.....

In hopes to clarify my thoughts even more I would like to say that I am not insinuating that someone could or should remove their religious beliefs completely from their political ones. Your background, what you have been taught, is a part of you and affects your perspective on all issues. Religious or not, our experiences are who we are. However, I am saying that decisions should not be made solely from an emotional or faith based standpoint. It is not an argument to say, “well I just don’t believe in that.” And then I can say “Well I do believe in that” and then we can both be glad we had this little chat and gotten no where. It isn’t to say that moral and religious convictions aren’t important, they just aren’t logic based. When presented with a statement X people are persuaded in three ways. Ethos, meaning the credibility of the person proclaiming statement X. Pathos, your emotional attachment to the statement. And logos, an objective, logic based assessment of the statement. Pathos being often times the strongest point but definitely most often the least reliable. We are all subjective, our surroundings, experiences, background affect who we are and how we act. This has to be brought in to consideration because most people if they have an emotional attachment to statement X, it is the trump card, where no other argument can be presented. This being said, my belief that ethos, pathos, and logos is the best way to analyze a claim also comes from my background. But looking at the ethos of rhetorical studies one can see that Aristotle and Socrates also depended on this way of thought. I have no real emotional attachment to them and logically you can make many arguments for them and none of these arguments contain the words, “well I just believe in them”.