[Buddha-l] Return of blasphemy?

[Stefan Detrez]

Hi Pedro

>
> People will believe whatever they want, however (that was the part A) with
> or without much justification and in fact, there's not much that can or
> should be done about that (playing thought police is undesirable, in my
> opinion).
>
>
Au contraire, it's *desirable* that more people be thought police. Everyone
has the right to question other people's ideas, beliefs and opinions. No
truth is done justice by letting untruth pose as equally valid. It's
epistemological relativism that has brought us into trouble and we live
societies, which have to approach all sort of cultural expressions as if
they were all of the same worth. Opnions vary, but there is no variation in
the power of the strongest argument. The religious sensitivity is
cultivated and especially cultivated to avoid hard talk confrontations
which might debunk its unsupported beliefs. I am a atheist and humanist and
the last thing I get from fellow christians and muslims is 'concern about
my religious sensitivity' -  there seems to be a negative correlation
between how much respect someone demands for her religious beliefs ànd the
respect she is willing to bring up for other people's beliefs. It almost
scary to say it, but it is so.

This political correctness of the 'say no to a thought police' is a bad
thing. It transfers any individual autonomous critical thinking to an
authority, 'a thought police', an invisible *ad autoritatem*. Is this what
we've studied for all those years? Aren't we hypocrites when we hear bovine
faeces being told and we hold back out of 'respect' for the speakers
sensitivity? How can you honestly respect something, when in your private
thoughts you think it's stupid? It sounds angry, but know that I am in a
good and assertive mood, I do this out of concern for the further spreading
of political correctness in the interreligious dialogue and taboo's which
don't advance a better society.


> Anyway, we are probably just preaching to the choir in this particular
> group.
>
>
Hal-le-lu-YAH.

Stefan