(in no particular order, randomly picked out of the air)
Oswald was not acting alone.
Vaccines cause autism/are more dangerous than the diseases they caused/don't really work anyway.
Someone/thing is looking out for us.
God created the universe.
We did not really land on the moon.
The Holocaust never happened/was exaggerated/was not Hitler's fault.
George Bush knew about and allowed 9/11 to happen/The government is responsible for 9/11.
The earth is only 6000 years old.
You Must Recycle/Recycling all goes to the dump anyway.
Marilyn Monroe was murdered by the Kennedys.
Evolution is "just a theory."
President Obama was not born in the United States of America.
The flu vaccine will give you the flu.
The H1N1 vaccine is more dangerous than the disease itself.
Homeopathy.
I am still trying to figure out how to distill the Beliefs associated with health insurance reform. Is it as simple as The Government is out to get me? That seems like base paranoia and not so much a belief. Or do all the Leetle Beliefs like death panels and "g-men coming into your house to tell you how to raise your children" exist because of the base paranoia?
I am still mining my own brain for what mine are. I am picking up Denialism at the library this afternoon, and I hope it will be insightful.
More Beliefs?
Showing posts with label belief. Show all posts
Showing posts with label belief. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Friday, November 13, 2009
Reprehensible, Religious, Repugnant
The Question of the Day for our public radio station was "What should the US do to promote religious tolerance at home." This is of course in response to the recent, apparently religiously motivated, shooting at Fort Hood. I thought that the question quite missed the point, but I was pleasantly surprised to note that most of the answers did not.
I wrote that religion enjoys an abundance of tolerance in the United States of America, to the point where it has become exempt from critical discussion and responsibility. Furthermore, tolerance between religions is fundamentally impossible as long as each declares itself to be the one true faith. And, if religious individuals want to make arguments based on faith, those arguments need to be subject to the same critical thinking and scrutiny as all arguments.
(I would add that this is especially true when those religious people are using religious arguments to influence public policy.)
Then today, on another blog, I read an exchange by two believers regarding lying: whether it was ever, ever OK to lie. The example used by the questioner was Nazi soldiers knocking on your door, looking for Jewish citizens, and you know where they are. The questioner thought this was clearly a time when you could, and probably should, lie.
Oh no no no no no.
Lying is 100% wrong, all the time, no matter the circumstances, according to the answer. He uses scripture to prove this, citing, among other things that the devil is the father of all lies. Lying to protect the lives of those Jewish people in hiding would be wrong wrong wrong because we are all sinners and are going to die sometime, anyway; how could we know what would really happen if we lied?; and... well, I'll let him sum up:
"Consider this carefully. In the situation of a Nazi beating on the door, we have assumed a lie would save a life, but really we don’t know. So, one would be opting to lie and disobey God without the certainty of saving a life—keeping in mind that all are ultimately condemned to die physically. Besides, whether one lied or not may not have stopped the Nazi solders from searching the house anyway."
Am I really supposed to tolerate this sort of reasoning?
Really?
I wrote that religion enjoys an abundance of tolerance in the United States of America, to the point where it has become exempt from critical discussion and responsibility. Furthermore, tolerance between religions is fundamentally impossible as long as each declares itself to be the one true faith. And, if religious individuals want to make arguments based on faith, those arguments need to be subject to the same critical thinking and scrutiny as all arguments.
(I would add that this is especially true when those religious people are using religious arguments to influence public policy.)
Then today, on another blog, I read an exchange by two believers regarding lying: whether it was ever, ever OK to lie. The example used by the questioner was Nazi soldiers knocking on your door, looking for Jewish citizens, and you know where they are. The questioner thought this was clearly a time when you could, and probably should, lie.
Oh no no no no no.
Lying is 100% wrong, all the time, no matter the circumstances, according to the answer. He uses scripture to prove this, citing, among other things that the devil is the father of all lies. Lying to protect the lives of those Jewish people in hiding would be wrong wrong wrong because we are all sinners and are going to die sometime, anyway; how could we know what would really happen if we lied?; and... well, I'll let him sum up:
"Consider this carefully. In the situation of a Nazi beating on the door, we have assumed a lie would save a life, but really we don’t know. So, one would be opting to lie and disobey God without the certainty of saving a life—keeping in mind that all are ultimately condemned to die physically. Besides, whether one lied or not may not have stopped the Nazi solders from searching the house anyway."
Am I really supposed to tolerate this sort of reasoning?
Really?
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