(November 25, 2014 at 10:08 pm)Mequa Wrote:(November 25, 2014 at 12:27 pm)Jenny A Wrote: See edits above.Critical thinking makes the real difference as I see it. Dogmatism breeds bigotry.
Scapegoating "despised" demographics is a method of absolving oneself of personal accountability, and demagogues can do a lot of harm there using such methods. Their aim is not to get people to think.
Again, critical thought, in addition to encouraging freethought as opposed to a herd mentality, seem to make all the difference here.
Free thought requires allowing everyone to speak, even the people you don't agree with. Deciding one type of speech is dogmatism and should therefore be censored is in itself dogmatism and prejudice. Let the bigots speak. The rest of us are plenty capable of responding. We don't need to have the government turn off some kinds of speech. Giving it that power is dangerous.
If there is a god, I want to believe that there is a god. If there is not a god, I want to believe that there is no god.
