doesn't help. I still fear you. (And think that exhibiting a panicky fight or flight type response in text is completely appropriate regardless of Shaw and Brasky's preffered social conventions so don't be surprised if I get totally hostile when you continue to argue that you would be justified to use any sort of coercion whatsoever regarding people's faith.
What? You actually quoted me saying that I don't believe in doing that. Here, I'll re-quote what you quoted me saying before you claimed in a panic (your words) that I stated I don't respect your religious rights.
First off, just feel the need to restate that I don't believe in forcing any view on anyone with stolen money.
You don't have "faith" in science? What word do you use? Who the fuck are you to define that word for me and forbid me from using it?
Science had to prove itself to me and it has to continue to prove itself to me every day. In the past, I've lost trust in old scientific methods when I was presented with better ones and I will do it again if someone makes a good case. Michael Crichton's State of Fear had that effect on me. He made me hope that his ideas for removing bias from scientific methods would become mainstream.
What scientific basis do you have for the idea that man should be free from coercion? Not wolves, or cattle. But man, alone from all other members of the animal kingdom, have the right to life and liberty. What is that if not a religious belief?
Is that a religious view for you? It's not for me. Case in point--I had already added a subject to topics for the next Flaming Freedom to question whether freedom (from coercion) is the penultimate value. You know what inspired me to add it? I've spent half the week cat wranglin' to put medicine in my cat's ear. She's... not a fan of this process, to put it lightly. But I'm confident that she wants her ear to stop hurting and that she doesn't know that what I'm doing is helping. I'm smarter than her to an exponential degree. If I had an illness that was making me miserable and would likely get worse and that humans couldn't cure (maybe not even diagnose) but some super-advanced alien race with brains 100 times more advanced than ours did have a cure, I would hope that they would abduct me, by force if necessary, and apply the cure for my own good.
But government is made up of other humans with brains just like mine. Freedom is much closer to the scientific method. Let lots of people try different things. Let's test all these theories out with open minds and let's see what works best. We're not allowed to do that by government. Government is much like religion, fixated on tired old beliefs despite any evidence to the contrary, and stuck in their old ways.
And what is to stop someone with infinite faith in science treating your religious belief in freedom like what it is and coercively prevented you from practicing your faith?
Clearly there are people preventing me from practicing my non-religious belief in freedom. We're not free. So now that the premise has been revised, what's your point? If someone is powerful and willing to use violence, all rational discussion becomes irrelevant. They will get their way.
I'm bigger and smarter than my cat and willing to use force (short of hurting her) to hold her still and shove a little plastic tube into her ear canal and squirt crap in there for her own good. At least I'm fairly confident it's for her own good. I hope I'm right.