Should all beliefs be tolerated?

[TheLastStarFighter]

palou said:

TheLastStarFighter said:

And that's the problem. You can't put your rules on free thought, otherwise, it's no longer free.  People must be completely free to express thoughts, and encourage similar thoughts in others, no matter how offensive.  We as individuals then respond accordingly.

Your rules are flawed:

1. One must not sell superiority, through faith or any arbitrary quality among believers (see: caste system.). It must not give the right to judge others because of their beliefs, or instigate excessive fear of the lack of belief, attacking the irrational.  What if the superiority is justified?  What if the fear is justified?

 
2. One must not oppose the fundamental rights of any human, can not take away their right to free speech, and more importantly, free thought.  This conflicts with points 1, 3, and 4.

3. One must not promise you rights which are not yours according to law.   I have free speach in point 2.  I should be able to promise you whatever I want.  I'm allowed to be lousy at keeping my promises.  Also, laws are meant to be changed.

4. One must be open to debate, questioning. It cannot sell itself as infallible, and must allow, or even encourage the exploration of other ideas, particularly amongst youths.  What if my ideas are infalable?  Who are you to say they are not?


If a philosophy/religion/sytem of beliefs fails to fulfill any of the above, I believe it must be adjusted accordingly, and only then tolerated by society.

Yes, these are flawed. I did write them down rather quickly. I do think that a certain set of rules needs to be made, though.

 

1. I don't think that it matters if the superiority is justified or not. People believing that they are inherintly superior to others leads to useless conflict, and kills debate. If there is actual superiority, believing it will not be necessary for it to shine through.

 

Remember, this is for the spread of ideas, not what individuals believe. It is fine to make a hierarchic ranking between people - but that is something that each person should do by themselves, not by instruction of another.

I'll need to think a bit to make a good way to categorize the fear part - it's a bit difficult. But fear is generally dangerous, in itself, and can cause more dammage than what is feared - I do think some kind of mechanism is necessary to block it, as it is a thought that spreads incredibly fast.  Fear is a natural feeling.  It saves us from danger.  Irrational fear makes us foolish.  But it's not your place to judge which is which, nor should our society block fear.  When it comes to ideas and a feeling of superiority, this is natural and again necessary.  If a believer in an idea does not believe it to be superior, it will never spread.  And if the idea is indeed superior, we will all lose for its lack of spreading.

2. I support free thought. With the free speach part, I think that I may have formulated it badly - you cannot promote punishing someone for saying something that you don't like. You can, however, prevent their message from spreading, in my opinion.  But it's not your right to prevent it from spreading.  If it spreads, it's because people desire it to do so.

 

3. See point 2. Also, laws can and must be discussed - but as long are still in application, in a proper democratic society, you cannot tell people that it is fine to disrespect the law.  So the next time a black person is banned form sitting at the front of the bus, they should simply move without questioning it.  Also, the next time a leader says to round up Jews and cook them, we should not dissobay. 

 

4. This is again something that I believe should be determined by each individual by themselves. You can not spread a belief which includes that everything said can not be questioned.  Of course it can be questioned.  That is the point here, free thought.  I can say that murder is wrong and anyone that wishes to say otherwise is not welcome in my group because it's an unfalable opinion.  But others are free to think differently.  Just like the organizers of the Women's March would not welcome women who were anti-abortion.  It was the marcher's right to exclude differing thoughts because they believe in only their opinion being right.  But it also the right of the other women who are pro-life to not participate, and criticise the group for their closed mindedness. 

 

 

 

 

Generally, 

 

a) With tolerance of beliefs, I want to say allowing a belief to be spread. 

b) This is not an attempt to find an absolute truth. This is a list of rules to prevent the spread of ideas which can be highly harmful to society, irregardless of if they are true or not.