[MD] new blog

[Steve Peterson]

Hi Platt,

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. 
That's why people generally don't hold crazy beliefs. 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. 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. 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.

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.

Regards,
Steve