Yeah, I decided not to go into the proof side given your comment in the original post!
I think our disagreement may actually be semantics rather than substantive.
My stance is that people should be entitled to freedom of religion (genuine belief - subjective), but not to spread claims that things which *demonstrably did not happen* happened (as objective as humans can be).
I therefore do not think that there is any conflict between being for freedom of religion, but against the current trend of "alternative facts". I think that people are entitled to hold their beliefs to be true (i.e. hold them to be facts, e.g. following any religion), because that's simply how our brains work, but should not be allowed to act on beliefs/opinions which are *provably false* insofar as doing so would be harmful.
Whether or not you hold that to correspond to "Everyone's entitled to their own opinions. Nobody is entitled to their own facts." is up to you.
For example, a parent may honestly believe it to be a fact that vaccinating a child would give the child autism. However, that parent should not be able to stop the child being vaccinated based on that belief, as doing so woud endanger children too young or too ill to be vaccinated.
As a parallel to that, a person may honestly believe that there was a Bowling Green Massacre, but should not be allowed to widely publicise that belief as "news" as it stirs up tensions and hatred.
By contrast, a religion is not provably false. I may or may not believe it to be true personally (in my case, I veer between Christian and agnostic), but I cannot prove it either way. This makes it a much murkier area when it comes to whether or not people should be allowed to act on beliefs which are not provably false but *are* harmful (e.g. "you will go to hell if you are homosexual so we must cure you" - personally, I don't believe it and want all such "cures" to be illegal, but I can't actually prove the belief wrong) .... but I think that's a debate for another day!
I'm not sure how literally you intended your last comment to be taken(?). I have beliefs (Scotland is further north than Sheffield, my friend X likes me), and opinions (brownies are tasty). I believe some of those to be facts (i.e. "some of those are facts"), am unsure about others, and know that some are subjective.
I would expect anyone who doesn't like chocolate to disagree with my opinion on brownies - that does not make either of us wrong, it's simply subjective.
I would be surprised and want to see quite impressive proof if someone disagreed with me about the relative locations of Scotland and Sheffield, as I believe that to be an objective fact.
I would be upset and want to know why if someone disagreed with me about X liking me, as I would want to check things and put things right if needed.
There are shades of gray - "may or may not be" is not just politeness.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2017-03-05 10:21 am (UTC)I think our disagreement may actually be semantics rather than substantive.
My stance is that people should be entitled to freedom of religion (genuine belief - subjective), but not to spread claims that things which *demonstrably did not happen* happened (as objective as humans can be).
I therefore do not think that there is any conflict between being for freedom of religion, but against the current trend of "alternative facts". I think that people are entitled to hold their beliefs to be true (i.e. hold them to be facts, e.g. following any religion), because that's simply how our brains work, but should not be allowed to act on beliefs/opinions which are *provably false* insofar as doing so would be harmful.
Whether or not you hold that to correspond to "Everyone's entitled to their own opinions. Nobody is entitled to their own facts." is up to you.
For example, a parent may honestly believe it to be a fact that vaccinating a child would give the child autism. However, that parent should not be able to stop the child being vaccinated based on that belief, as doing so woud endanger children too young or too ill to be vaccinated.
As a parallel to that, a person may honestly believe that there was a Bowling Green Massacre, but should not be allowed to widely publicise that belief as "news" as it stirs up tensions and hatred.
By contrast, a religion is not provably false. I may or may not believe it to be true personally (in my case, I veer between Christian and agnostic), but I cannot prove it either way. This makes it a much murkier area when it comes to whether or not people should be allowed to act on beliefs which are not provably false but *are* harmful (e.g. "you will go to hell if you are homosexual so we must cure you" - personally, I don't believe it and want all such "cures" to be illegal, but I can't actually prove the belief wrong) .... but I think that's a debate for another day!
I'm not sure how literally you intended your last comment to be taken(?). I have beliefs (Scotland is further north than Sheffield, my friend X likes me), and opinions (brownies are tasty). I believe some of those to be facts (i.e. "some of those are facts"), am unsure about others, and know that some are subjective.
I would expect anyone who doesn't like chocolate to disagree with my opinion on brownies - that does not make either of us wrong, it's simply subjective.
I would be surprised and want to see quite impressive proof if someone disagreed with me about the relative locations of Scotland and Sheffield, as I believe that to be an objective fact.
I would be upset and want to know why if someone disagreed with me about X liking me, as I would want to check things and put things right if needed.
There are shades of gray - "may or may not be" is not just politeness.