Debate Club Quotes

All religions are man-made; God has not yet revealed himself beyond doubt to anybody.

Southern women can say more with a cut of their eyes than a whole debate club’s worth of speeches.

Each mind conceives god in its own way. There may be as many variation of the god figure as there are people in the world

There is nothing behind the curtains of religions, people put there whatever their imaginations can fathom

Atheists are the most honest of the human race. These people are unable to live a double life; they are unable to lie to themselves. Of course it's an evolutionary handicap, and if that handicap was widespread, our species would run the risk of extinction

Don't create unbelief or doubt in people's minds. When you do so you ruin their lives and you have nothing to give them in its place. It's ok if people delude themselves; those delusions keep their day running.

They say that in D.C., all the museums and the monuments have been concessioned out and turned into a tourist park that now generates about 10 percent of the Government's revenue. The Feds could run the concession themselves and probably keep more of the gross, but that's not the point. It's a philosophical thing. A back-to-basics thing. Government should govern. It's not in the entertainment industry, is it? Leave entertaining to Industry weirdos -- people who majored in tap dancing. Feds aren't like that. Feds are serious people. Poli-sci majors. Student council presidents. Debate club chairpersons. The kinds of people who have the grit to wear a dark wool suit and a tightly buttoned collar even when the temperature has greenhoused up to a hundred and ten degrees and the humidity is thick enough to stall a jumbo jet. The kinds of people who feel most at home on the dark side of a one-way mirror.

Once you believe that god is not a private property of anybody, you are on your way to becoming a new messiah. Maybe your own if not the world's

Now I don't know why, but Morrissey had always hated Joy Division. Maybe Rob got it right when after a lively debate as the cameras were turned off he turned to Morrissey and said, 'The trouble with you, Morrissey, is that you've never had the guts to kill yourself like Ian. You're fucking jealous.' You should have seen his face as he stormed off. I laughed me bollocks off.

An atheist is someone who is disappointed in his search of god. He is a man who strongly needed god but couldn't find him. Atheism is a cry of despair

Why doesn't the pope convert to Calvinism? Why doesn't the Dalai Lama, convert to Christianity, why doesn't Billy Graham convert to Islam, Why doesn't the Ayatollahs convert to Buddhism, Why isn't Buddhism swept away? Religious leaders know that all religions are equal; they know that no one of them has the monopoly to the knowledge of God. They know that each religion is trying to find the hidden God and that no one religion can claim to have found him beyond doubt. That's why they remain where they are and respect each other.

And more to the point, I have no idea what I want to do. It shouldn't be a surprise. I've had years to think about it. That and just the other day I was pestering Wolf about what he wanted to do--talk about the pot calling the kettle black. But that's just it, I guess. I've never had to think about it. I have very diligently kept all of my options open. The AP classes, the killer GPA, the SAT scores in the 99th percentile, the varsity letters from swim team, the debate club, the fundraising... I've taken on everything and succeeded at it. There is not one weak spot that can be pointed to in my resume, not a single thing that would make an administrator say, "Yes, but what about her..." Except maybe this. Except the part where it's suddenly clear to me why I've been struggling so much with my college essays, with articulating who I am in so few words. How can a person even know who they are if they don't know what they want?

He tells me that high school is no utopia, but I'm not convinced. What else would you call a place that exists solely to teach you about the world? What do you call a place with friends and teachers and libraries and book club and math club and debate club and any other kind of club and after-school activities and endless possibilities?

God has not yet revealed himself to no one in no unclear terms. Religions are attempts to find him; on that level they are all equal

The Little Mermaid had sparked a debate back downstairs, and now things had gone off the rails.

…Some club wanting a debate on ‘Should Genius Marry?’ The question’s not likely to concern any of their members personally, so why do they bother?

Listening to the debates about public schools on the Christian Right, one hears plenty of opposing opinions and a great deal of confusion. Some want to change the schools, others want to leave them. But the smart money seems to know what it is doing. It provides support for programs like the Good News Club, which slowly erode the support for public education in the country at large and in their own constituency in particular. And then it lays the groundwork for dismantling public education in favor of a private system of religious education funded by the state.

Taxation is paying your dues, paying your membership fee in America. If you join a country club or a community center, you pay fees. Why? You did not build the swimming pool. You have to maintain it. You did not build the basketball court. Someone has to clean it. You may not use the squash court, but you still have to pay your dues. Otherwise it won’t be maintained and will fall apart. People who avoid taxes, like corporations that move to Bermuda, are not paying their dues to their country. It is patriotic to be a taxpayer. It is traitorous to desert our country and not pay your dues.

When team members do not openly debate and disagree about important ideas, they often turn to back channel personal attacks, which are far nastier and more harmful than any heated argument over issues

Like the apple bruising Kafka’s beetle, each of these pellets of recollection lodged in Moose’s flesh, releasing its cargo of memories of all the things he had lost— “Not lost! Gained!” Moose thundered aloud, but now, mercifully, that debate (lost or gained?) was supplanted in his mind by the proximity of Belmont Harbor and the yacht club. Yes, this was the place; Moose eased the station wagon into a parking space, desperate to free himself of its chassis, whose sole purpose, it now seemed, was to hold him still so that these bullets of memory could assault him, enter his flesh and release their shrapnel of foolish and unreliable nostalgia.

Fertility suppressants had been debated and studied for decades, but medical trials were finally carried out in the fifties when the extraordinary Dr. John Rock was recruited to the cause: a fertility specialist who did indeed state that religion made a very poor scientist and whose Catholic faith didn’t interfere with his belief in contraception as an aid to women’s health.

I should have mentioned before, that, in the autumn of the preceding year, I had form'd most of my ingenious acquaintance into a club of mutual improvement, which we called the JUNTO; we met on Friday evenings. The rules that I drew up required that every member, in his turn, should produce one or more queries on any point of Morals, Politics, or Natural Philosophy, to be discuss'd by the company; and once in three months produce and read an essay of his own writing, on any subject he pleased. Our debates were to be under the direction of a president, and to be conducted in the sincere spirit of inquiry after truth, without fondness for dispute, or desire of victory; and, to prevent warmth, all expressions of positiveness in opinions, or direct contradiction, were after some time made contraband, and prohibited under small pecuniary penalties.

Eisenhower's military life taught him that talent was a necessary but not sufficient condition for success. The only way to guarantee smart decisions, Ike believed, was to bring all the responsible parties together and have them fight it out. "I do not believe in bringing them one at a time and therefore being more impressed by the most recent one you hear," he later said. "You must get courageous men, men of strong views and let them debate and argue with each other".

Yet the writer who lays down this splendid and staggering lie calmly says that “by the light of modern science and thought we are in a position to see” that it is true. “Seeing” is a strong word to use of our conviction that icebergs are in the north, or that the earth goes round the sun. Yet anybody can use it of any casual or crazy biological fancy seen in some newspaper or suggested in some debating club. This is the rooted weakness of our time. Science, which means exactitude, has become the mother of all inexactitude.

I have heard that in some debating clubs there is a rule that the members may discuss anything except religion and politics. I cannot imagine what they do discuss; but it is quite evident that they have ruled out the only two subjects which are either important or amusing. The thing is a part of a certain modern tendency to avoid things because they lead to warmth; whereas, obvious]y, we ought, even in a social sense, to seek those things specially. The warmth of the discussion is as much a part of hospitality as the warmth of the fire.

Many Ottomans of this period viewed life as a perennial tug-of-war between modernity and tradition. In several important ways, Salonica tilted toward the former. The city sported bustling Western-style cafés serving Viennese beer; literary clubs hosting philosophical debates; theaters staging dramas, comedies, and operettas; numerous institutions of learning; and a sizable and vibrant European community. Altogether, Salonica had undergone a major transformation during the reform era and had begun to look like a Western European city. The Muslim community, and especially its progressive Dönme component, had established the most advanced schools in the empire. Young Mustafa, who had ample opportunity to contrast the old and the new, chose to embrace modernity wholeheartedly.

His son wanted to be a firefighter, but didn't get the job. Mr. Neck is convinced that this is some kind of reverse discrimination. He says we should close our borders so that real Americans can get the jobs they deserve. The job test said that I would be a good fire fighter. I wonder if I could take a job away from Mr. Neck's son. Mr. Neck writes on the board again: "DEBATE: America should have closed her borders in 1900." That strikes a nerve. Several nerves. I can see kids counting backward on their fingers, trying to figure out when their grandparents or great-grandparents were born, when they came to America, if they would have made the Neck Cut. When they figure out they would have been stuck in a country that hated them, or a place with no schools, or a place with no future, their hands shoot up. They beg to differ with Mr. Neck's learned opinion. ... The arguments jump back and forth across the room. A few suck-ups quickly figure out which side Mr. Neck is squatting on, so they fight to throw out the 'foreigners.' Anyone whose family immigrated in the last century has a story to tell about how hard their relatives have worked, the contributions they make to the country, the taxes they pay. A member of the Archery Club tries to say that we are all foreigners and we should give the country back to the Native Americans, but she's buried under disagreement. Mr. Neck enjoys the noise, until one kid challenges him directly. Brave Kid: "Maybe your son didn't get that job because he's not good enough. Or he's lazy. Or the other guy was better than him, no matter what his skin color. I think the white people who have been here for two hundred years are the ones pulling down the country. They don't know how to work - they've had it too easy." The pro-immigration forces erupt in applause and hooting. Mr. Neck: "You watch your mouth, mister. You are talking about my son. I don't want to hear any more from you. That's enough debate - get your books out.

Midwest Book Full Review It's unusual to find a political and supernatural thriller so intrinsically woven into current issues about the fabric of American society that its fiction bleeds into a cautionary nonfiction tale, but Robert Hamilton's Crux: A Country That Cannot Feed Its People and Its Animals Will Fall represents such an achievement. Its saga of race, food security, violence and prejudice from religious and social circles alike, and the vulnerability of the American food supply chain provides a powerful story that holds many insights, perspectives, and warnings for modern-day readers concerned about this nation's trajectory. Readers who choose the story for its political and supernatural thriller elements won't be disappointed. The tale adopts a nonstop staccato, action-filled atmosphere as a series of catastrophes force veterinarian Dr. Thomas Pickett to move beyond his experience and objectives to become an active force in effecting change in America. How (and why) does a vet become involved in political scenarios? As Dr. Pickett becomes entangled in pork issues, kill pens, and a wider battle than that against animal cruelty, readers are carried into a thought-provoking scenario in which personal and environmental disasters change his upward trajectory with his new wife and their homestead. As Dr. Pickett is called on stage to testify about his beliefs and the Hand of God indicates his life and involvements will never be the same, readers receive a story replete in many social, spiritual, and political inquiries that lead to thought-provoking reflections and insights. True miracles and false gods are considered as he navigates unfamiliar territory of the heart, soul, and mind, coming to understand that his unique role as a vet and a caring, evolving individual can make a difference in the role America plays both domestically and in the world. From the Vice President's involvement in a national security crisis to the efforts to return the country to "its true Christian foundations," Robert Hamilton examines the crux of good intentions and beliefs gone awry and the true paths of those who link their personal beliefs with a changing political scenario. Whose side is God on, anyway? These and other questions make Crux not just a highly recommended read for its political thriller components, but a powerful social and spiritual examination that contains messages that deserve to be inspected, debated, and absorbed by book clubs and a broad audience of concerned American citizens. How do you reach hearts and minds? By producing a story that holds entertainment value and educational revelations alike. That's why libraries need to not only include Crux in their collections, but highlight it as a pivot point for discussions steeped in social, religious, and political examination. There is a bad storm coming. Crux is not just a riveting story, but a possible portent of a future America operating in the hands of a dangerous, attractive demagogue.

Well, since you’re so in the loop and seem to hear—or find out—everything, what am I supposed to wear tonight?” “Well, my personal belief is the shorter, the better,” he says with a smirk but then refocuses. “But so far, I’ve heard a few things. I’m not the best with descriptions, but I’ll do my best. Uh, one girl is wearing a short dress with a sweetheart neckline—not sure what that is. Another is doing a cocktail dress that’s black with shiny beads. Another is wearing something red and lacy. The girls behind me were debating jersey dresses. They say that they either make you look amazing or like a stuffed sausage. Though I’m not really sure why they would wear a sports jersey to the club.

IN Bethesda, Maryland, four powerful men sat in a plush office in a picturesque baronial structure on the campus of the National Institutes of Health. One was powerful in the religious world; one in the political realm; two in the medical community. It was a beautiful day. The sky was dark blue and clear. The well-manicured grounds outside were alive with green. The whole area resembled the most exclusive of country clubs. But the four men were oblivious to their resort like surroundings. Arguments raged. Accusations were hurled. Fingers were pointed. And in the end nothing was resolved. Through it all, one man had not raised his voice. One man had not engaged in the bitter debate. One man—a normally very verbose man—had not said a word. But the man had listened. And the man had made a decision. As

What's Wrong with the World (Chesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith)) - Your Highlight on page 93 | Location 797-799 | Added on Thursday, January 8, 2015 1:31:17 PM There is a pedantic phrase used in debating clubs which is strictly true to the masculine emotion; they call it "speaking to the question." Women speak to each other; men speak to the subject they are speaking about. Many an honest man has sat in a ring of his five best friends under heaven and forgotten who was in the room while he explained some system.

The only way to guarantee smart decisions, Ike believed, was to bring all the responsible parties together and have them fight it out. “I do not believe in bringing them in one at a time and therefore being more impressed by the most recent one you hear,” he said later. “You must get courageous men, men of strong views and let them debate and argue with each other.

Eisenhower had run the Army; he knew all the ways decision making can go off the rails, and insisted on collective debate precisely to prevent senior officials from freelancing, or putting their departmental interests first. For all the formal machinery, Eisenhower was very literally the commander in chief, making the key decisions himself and monitoring closely how they were carried out. Even years after D-Day, when critics needled him for not being on the front lines with the invading forces, he retorted, “I planned it and took responsibility for it. Did you want me to unload a truck?

Don’t curse the gods; you will feel shame when you have to call on them for help

As any debate club veteran knows, if you can’t make your opponent’s point for them, you don’t truly grasp the issue.

At first, the Jacobin Club was not the most radical club. It was known for its lively, collegial debates and for attracting diverse and prominent revolutionaries to its ranks. Though it would one day command the loyalty of the Paris “street,” its initial membership was largely professional and bourgeois, mainly because it charged hefty subscription fees to join. The Duke d’Orléans’s son Louis-Philippe—who in the nineteenth century would become king of France—joined; so did the Viscount de Noailles.

Klan Klubs were established in high schools. Hooded teens soon had their place in yearbooks in Indiana, featured along with the Glee Club or the Debate Society among the accepted extracurriculars.

There's a telos of self-improvement baked into the immigrant experience. As a teenager, I busied myself with the school newspaper or debate club because, unlike with math or science, I thought I could actually get better at these things. You flip through your father's old physics notebooks, and you know in your bones that these formulas and graphs will never make sense to you. But one day, you realize that your parents speak with a mild accent, and that they have no idea what passive voice is. The next generation would acquire a skill on their behalf -- one that we could also use against them. Commanding the language seemed like our only way of surpassing them. Home life took on a kind of casual litigiousness. The calm and composed children, a jaunty bounce to our sentences, laying traps with our line of questioning. The parents, tired and irritated, defaulting to the native tongue.

The intention of the Doubters’ Club is not to ‘win’ the debate,” I told him. “The intention is to build a platform of friendship for us to pursue truth together.” I shared with him that we do not intend to ever pray the prayer of salvation at a Doubters’ Club meeting. Our intention is to build friendships with people who don’t think like us. The common ground we all have is our doubts.