I’ve heard the argument many times that people’s beliefs are all valid and should be respected.
That seriously annoys me now. I find that righteous goody two-shoes belief to be nauseating in its lack of criticality and blanket acceptance of “everything is the same” as a fair position to hold, making you think that you’re a bigger person for being so tolerant.
It seems to me that a lot of us people confuse the notion of having the freedom to think anything we want with actually being right in thinking anything with want.
The freedom to think is a basic right that we should all fight for. Free speech is a corollary of that basic right and, true to Voltaire’s attitude, I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
Now living in a society where you are free enough to be able to think, believe and say what you want is great, but it doesn’t mean that what you think, believe or say is as valid as anything else or that it should be respected in any way.
To respect an idea, a belief or a person in this case is to give them acceptance, to have nothing to say against them, to tacitly agree with them; the dictionary even goes on to say that respect is synonym with regard, esteem, honour, value which suggest even stronger feelings toward the thing respected.
Well, I think that anyone should be accountable for what they believe in and should be challenged to justify it.
I don’t have any problem with people questioning me on what I hold true. Heck, since doubt is so central to who I am, I even challenge myself all the time about the things I think are true.
Doubt and challenges make you re-evaluate your beliefs in the light of new evidence for or against them so you can assess if holding on to what you thought was true is still tenable or not.
Offering blanket acceptance of people’s beliefs by simply stating that they are entitled to them is absurd and dangerous.
It’s absurd because you’re tacitly giving acceptance -and credence- to things you don’t believe in and it’s dangerous because some of these ideas are let lose, unchecked, unchallenged and they may have radical and unwanted consequences for us all.
For instance would you let someone believing that AIDS is just a plot orchestrated by whomever with nefarious motives, believing that it’s all in the head and that it doesn’t really exist get away with talking such crap and possibly endangering people’s life?
How about someone who think that gays should be treated like child molesters and castrated?
These may be extreme, but what about a nice person you know saying that vaccines are bad because they play the hand of big bad pharmaceutical corporations and decide not to vaccinate their children against potentially debilitating, life-threatening diseases?
This is quite a common belief nowadays where people confuse being skeptical with being cynical.
Is it OK to just let them talk and say nothing out of respect for their belief when you know otherwise?
