Hi Steve, Platt: > > I agree. If someone finds value in believing in God, leprechauns or a > > rabbit's foot, who is to say they are wrong other than those who > > believe > > everyone should believe what they believe and try to force their > > beliefs on > > others by ridicule, intimidation or at the point of a gun? Freedom to > > believe is just as much a value as freedom to choose. > > Steve: > Who is to say that someone is wrong in holding a belief? We all do that > all the time about beliefs so long as they are not religious beliefs.
What we all do all the time doesn't mean it's right. > That's why people generally don't hold crazy beliefs. One man's crazy beliefs is another man's truth. (I'm sure you are familiar with Pirsig's view of contrarians.) > There are of > course nut jobs with all sorts of conspiracy theories. But no one > hesitates to call people on such irrational ideas, so such nut jobs are > few in number. So someone who doesn't hold your (or the majority's) beliefs is a "nut job?" > The idea is to break the taboo in the US of "questioning > someone's beliefs." All we are talking about is applying the same > conversational pressures to religious beliefs as we would to someone's > beliefs about leprechauns, government bailouts, the best laundry > detergent, and whether or not the Holocaust actually happened. Conversational pressures? LIke what? Ad hominem attacks? > Those of > use who do not believe in leprechauns and gods have little doubt that > if there is a culture shift where freedom of religion no longer means > that religious beliefs are free from the usual conversational pressures > on our beliefs then religious people would be few in number. Say what? > BTW, for someone who opposes relativism, claiming that no belief is > better or worse than any other is a strange thing to say, but it does > seem to be typical of conservatives to complain about moral relativism > while promoting intellectual relativism. I believe some beliefs are certainly better than others. My point was that I am not so arrogant as to believe I couldn't possibly be wrong. Nor do I believe others should believe they are like gods and thus privileged to force their beliefs on others. As for moral relativism -- that all behavior is equally moral -- I believe that's wrong. My moral beliefs follow the MOQ. Do you think morality applies to beliefs? Regards, Platt Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
