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Guesshoo, I very much disagree. Very, very often people with religious convictions make it their business to criticise other people for their beliefs and lifestyles. Rarely with any sort of rational argument to their views. All very well. I hold onto the irrational belief that Ricky Martin is only 4'11". Doesn't mean I have the right to tie him up and try to poke his rigid, vertical body under a five foot iron limbo pole. However much fun it would be.
Sorry. I have a sore throat and a headache so bad I couldn't sleep last night. And still I had to go into work today, having taken three days of sick for my own ends last week. The band news is there's three more paragraphs after this. I'd make them sound softer, but these sicknesses always impinge on my ability to craft a considered sentence.
Anyway, I would assert that if people insist on voicing their unsubstansiated beliefs, I have every right to answer back. I find it most upsetting when otherwise intellegent people contradict their own better judgement because their religion discourages them from thinking for themself. There's a very obvious example I could cite. A girl in a certain band. Given any chance at all, I'd love to be able to change what she believes.
I find promoting any kind of blind faith most distasteful. I could suggest all sorts of reasons that religions might invest in it, but it'd be needlessly attrious. In short, I see it as very dangerous to accept belief alone as rationale for action that infringes on other people's rights. It is, I think, fundamentally important that people's beliefs always be open to question. If they claim God told them something, I care no more than if they claim Robert Johnson came down in a flying DeLorean in a dream and told them. I still want justification. Good justification.
When an individual's beliefs see them doing something as troublesome as branding a person, say, evil or wicked because of who they choose to sleep with, I think it's vital that this judgement be open to challenge. It should not be permissible that belief alone be used to subjugate whole sections of the community. If someone must try and impose their opinions on me, I at least want reasons that show some sign of having thought for themselves.
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