a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment
kleinbl00  ·  2126 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Daniel DeNicola: You don’t have a right to believe whatever you want to

Reason is the act of fact-finding through analysis. Faith is the act of trust or confidence in absence of facts. Conflate the two at your peril.

The author attempts to use reason to disprove faith while using a shitty definition of faith. Someone who "believes" something with no evidence for or against is practicing faith; someone who "believes" something despite available facts is practicing delusion. The author's argument is not against a right to believe but against a right to delude; that she makes no difference between the two does not reinforce her argument.

Internal beliefs are much less harmful than externalized beliefs. It matters much less to me that Trump thinks Obama is a secret Muslim than it does that he tied up half the country with easily-disprovable nonsense. But then, Trump was not practicing belief, he was practicing propaganda and slander which are much less controversial to impugn.

If you firmly believe that Jesus was crucified and rose again, I commend you on your faith. Should you attempt to compel me to believe the same, it will not be the belief that starts the war it will be the compulsion.