3 ms·
Excellent question, goes straight to the heart of it. Does a public declaration of strong allegiance to religious views say something actionable about a person
by Radim 11y ago
Excellent question, goes straight to the heart of it.
Does a public declaration of strong allegiance to religious views say something actionable about a person or not?
Do people feel that strong religious beliefs are a direct threat to themselves and their loved ones? Or is it just something a person "carries in their head", harmlessly, and acting on the perceived dangers would be bigotry, as dragonwriter says?
Is pre-emptive (verbal) defence against ideologies and memes ever justified?
I submit that the answer is usually determined by economy in the end, not by philosophising. Is it more cost-efficient to do indiscriminate public shaming of certain ideologies, or is it cheaper to defer punishment to a concrete person after having observed concrete damage? Note "damage" can mean different things to different people (money lost, limbs lost, emotional anguish...).
In genetic evolution, the answer turned out to be clearly "discriminate!". Organisms take strong, immediate reactions based on observable surface characteristics of the other party (the phenotype), without performing deep analysis of its particular gene combination or its mutations, or waiting for their concrete manifestation in action.