3 ms·

First, many countries, with many different prominent religions, have those penalties and do horrible things. It's very dangerous to assign group guilt: Because

First, many countries, with many different prominent religions, have those penalties and do horrible things. It's very dangerous to assign group guilt: Because the government of the Philippines does something bad, does that reflect on each Catholic you meet? Does it give you a way to judge them? Can you judge Chinese individuals based on the government of China's behavior? What about the government of Taiwan's? It's the same propaganda the Nazis used, with similar results. Read some old Nazi propaganda; it was "based on concrete actions", group guilt, etc. > Note I'm not saying anything about individual Muslims I'm not sure what else you could be saying? Could you explain?

MichaelGG 10y ago
Thank you for your response. You explain why I don't want to accuse any individuals of guilt. Just that it seems that overall, as a group, there seem to be unacceptable beliefs held. When I meet Catholics, sometimes I do quiz them on the huge amount of damage the Catholic Church has done to people by fighting birth control (and a good chunk of my family is Catholic). I've been tangentially involved with a medical clinic in Guatemala for years, and have seen how damaging this is to people, firsthand. (And I hear STDs in other countries have done even more damage.) If a country was designing a health system and was facing a bunch of Catholics trying to join the decision board, they'd be perfectly justified in saying "hey, the Catholic church has some harmful views on this health issue; we're not saying you do, but we'd like to make sure we're on the same page before you come onboard". Is this unreasonable?
- hackuser 10y ago
  > Is this unreasonable? I don't like hypotheticals because we can always construct one to justify anything. Want to justify torture? Invent a hypothetical 'ticking time bomb scenario'. It depends on people's individual beliefs; if you want to restrict the board to certain beliefs, you'd better ask everyone. > You explain why I don't want to accuse any individuals of guilt. Just that it seems that overall, as a group, there seem to be unacceptable beliefs held. I don't understand how a group can hold beliefs. The mechanism doesn't exist; humans are not hive minds. More importantly, you can't accuse the group without accusing all its individual members. Unless you want to unjustly penalize the >1 billion individuals and apply group guilt, there's no application for this 'group belief'. The Catholic Church as an institution, is different from the group of all Catholics.

MichaelGG 10y ago

Thank you for your response. You explain why I don't want to accuse any individuals of guilt. Just that it seems that overall, as a group, there seem to be unacceptable beliefs held. When I meet Catholics, sometimes I do quiz them on the huge amount of damage the Catholic Church has done to people by fighting birth control (and a good chunk of my family is Catholic). I've been tangentially involved with a medical clinic in Guatemala for years, and have seen how damaging this is to people, firsthand. (And I hear STDs in other countries have done even more damage.) If a country was designing a health system and was facing a bunch of Catholics trying to join the decision board, they'd be perfectly justified in saying "hey, the Catholic church has some harmful views on this health issue; we're not saying you do, but we'd like to make sure we're on the same page before you come onboard". Is this unreasonable?

hackuser 10y ago
> Is this unreasonable? I don't like hypotheticals because we can always construct one to justify anything. Want to justify torture? Invent a hypothetical 'ticking time bomb scenario'. It depends on people's individual beliefs; if you want to restrict the board to certain beliefs, you'd better ask everyone. > You explain why I don't want to accuse any individuals of guilt. Just that it seems that overall, as a group, there seem to be unacceptable beliefs held. I don't understand how a group can hold beliefs. The mechanism doesn't exist; humans are not hive minds. More importantly, you can't accuse the group without accusing all its individual members. Unless you want to unjustly penalize the >1 billion individuals and apply group guilt, there's no application for this 'group belief'. The Catholic Church as an institution, is different from the group of all Catholics.