re: The Oxford Declaration on Freedom of Thought and Expression

quote:

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Freedom of belief is absolute but the freedom to act on a belief is not.

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Freedom of belief should be regarded as absolute not because it's innocuous without a corresponding action but because it's merely a biological reaction to available environmental inputs. True belief is ALWAYS innocent even when doctrine is not, and therein lies a major theological problem. The theist who asserts a merciful god but with a conditional paradise must also assert the opposite of my first statement, that is, he must insist that belief is NOT an innocent process but one of will.

So, we're left to contend with persons who are not fully committed to the notion of freedom of belief, even when they publicly agree that it exists. Within my understanding, there are only two values that can be assigned to a particular belief: true or false. Those other persons... those theists.... add another set of qualifiers: whether it's willful or not, and thus are willing to accept that some beliefs deserve punishment, albeit not in the here and now. A principle they're perfectly willing to ABIDE and for which they'll even proclaim an assent, therefore, is not one to which they ultimately subscribe. Such mental dissonance, unfortunately, surely results in social conflict.