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  • IridescentOak
    +6

    Stubbornness and pridefulness. When mixed with a close-minded outlook, those traits make it nearly impossible to have an insightful debate or discussion with someone. The ability to argue a point and be able to provide support for your view makes you look automatically intelligent, but for these people, that's difficult.

    • SuperCyan
      +5

      I think it's dumb that we've accepted "because that's what I believe" as a legitimate defense of an opinion (And I'm not getting all euphoric over religious stuff).

      America has a problem with accepting all opinions, despite how wrong or unsourced they are. No matter how much evidence there is supporting the opposite of their stance, no matter how faultful their sources are, we're still expected to accommodate them, because "we need to be accepting of everyone."

      It's gone beyond religion, where that defense could have merit. It seems like there's a lot of places where wrong opinions are allowed to run unchecked and rampant . People like the Anti-Vax groups are still allowed to carry on and do as they please, despite being totally fucking wrong in a harmful way. It's just absurd.

      • IridescentOak
        +5

        I believe that people can hold whatever opinion they want, so long as they do not act on it in a way that harms others. For example, I think that super-religious people who deny evolution are A-okay, since them holding their view doesn't do anything except make them ignorant. It may be annoying to hear them cling to their unsupported arguments, but personal faith is a thing that affects pretty much nothing in reality. Anti-vaxxers, however, pose a very real, immediate, direct threat to the health and safety of the rest of the population, and therefore opinions such as theirs should be put down.

        What I definitely do not agree with is the censorship of opinions and ideas. Though most people may disagree with an opinion, placing legal limits and taking real action against those views and the people who hold them is just not okay in my book. Take Germany, Czechia, Austria, etc.: In those countries, you can be fined for defending Hitler or the Nazi viewpoint in any way, and for denying the Holocaust. To clarify, I am in no way, shape, or form a Nazi, and I think that Germany's a great country. But that limitation that they place on a person's speech and expression is something that I cannot get behind.

        No matter how outrageous or ridiculous or uninformed an opinion or belief is, I think that everyone should be entitled to keeping it, so long as it only stays in their head/publishings/art/words/etc. The moment that their opinion begins to manifest itself into a physically harmful form is when I think it should be stopped. You can tell someone the truth, but you can't force them to believe it; to do so would strip them of their human right as the sole ruler of their thoughts. Let the crazies believe what they want to believe, so long as they're not imposing upon anyone else in doing so.

        Anyway, sorry for the text wall! If any of the above was unclear, I'd be glad to explain it further. And I get where you're coming from with your opinion on the matter, too, so I'm not at complete odds with you if it seems like that. :) Btw, have you ever read the book Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury? If you haven't, it's an old dystopian about a future where society basically let political correctness take over and morph into imposed uniformity. If this topic interests you, then I think you'd like it.

        • spaceghoti
          +5

          I think the problem here is not so much intolerance for different beliefs as an insistence that all opinions be given equal weight. As Asimov put it, "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge." Daniel Patrick Moynihan reminded us that everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.

          I am perfectly willing to respect your right to believe anything you say. I am only willing to respect what you believe if you can support it with evidence.

          • IridescentOak
            +6

            I think the problem here is not so much intolerance for different beliefs as an insistence that all opinions be given equal weight...I am perfectly willing to respect your right to believe anything you say. I am only willing to respect what you believe if you can support it with evidence.

            This is actually a really important distinction, and I agree that fact-based views should be given more weight than those that are not. For me, I tend to respect the belief as the right, unless it's something that I am simply opposed to.