From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!eagle!allegra!sbcs!debray
Newsgroups: net.religion
Title: The Freedom to Believe
Article-I.D.: sbcs.257
Posted: Fri Apr  1 14:38:11 1983
Received: Sat Apr  2 06:29:07 1983


" ... Articles which deny a people their right to believe what they want have 
      no  business being published. ... "


The question, of course, is : who is to decide as to whether a given article
is to be suppressed ?

Let me say, before I go any further, that I am a staunch supporter of the
individual's fundamental right to the freedoms of speech, belief etc. I can
sympathize with FtG about the anti-Semitic article. However, I don't see
censorship as an acceptable solution.

To begin with, censorship in the classical style would amount to the imposition
of one person's (the censor's) beliefs over the authors : and no one person, I
feel, can be perfect. This, I feel, is the worst of all the possible 
alternatives.

Collective censorship (e.g. ostracism) amounts to, in a way, an imposition, of
the beliefs of the majority, on the individual. Sure, that's what living in a
society is all about : you give a little, you get a little. But in the
abstract, how *can* one judge what's right and wrong? Witness poor Galileo!
Societal judgements aren't infallible.

The reason I'm dwelling on this is that if I am to pass judgement, I should
know that I'm qualified to do so. While I'm opposed to having people impose
their beliefs on others, were I to try and impose *this* belief of mine upon
others, the hypocrisy of that act would remove any moral qualification I
might have had for that in the first place. The whole exercise would be
rendered fruitless.

The least unattractive alternative seems to me to be this : let them say
what they want. If someone says something you don't agree with, try to
discuss it rationally with him (read "him/her") : if he does, well, you're
getting somewhere ; if not, he probably isn't worth wasting intellectual
time on anyway.

Those are *my* beliefs ; or metabeliefs ... but they're beliefs, too!

						Saumya K. Debray
						SUNY at Stony Brook
						allegra!sbcs!debray