Why is it that I can legally purchase alcohol at 6:00AM on any day, Monday through Saturday, but on Sunday, I can't legally buy it until 10:00AM?
Why is it that in a country which is supposed to place individual rights as primary, most states have now prohibited same-sex marriage? Same-sex marriage infringes upon no one's rights. Prohibiting such marriage infringes upon everyone's rights.
Why is it that stem-cell research -- perhaps the most promising disease-curing research to come along in centuries -- has been stifled by government?
Why were 20-innocent people hanged in and around Salem in the 1690s?
Why were thousands of people tortured and killed during the Crusades and the Inquisition?
Why was it prohibited by law to teach evolution?
Why were 6-million people killed in an attempt to "cleanse" the human gene pool?
Why was it once strictly permissible to kill a native American but considered murder to kill a Caucasian living in America?
Why was it once considered kidnapping and murder to induct a Caucasian into involuntary servitude and beat him to death for failure to comply, but perfectly acceptable to do the same to a man of African descent?
Why have nearly 100,000 Iraqi nationals been killed on their home soil in the past 5-years?
Why were the Amalekites completely slaughtered including the children and infants?
Why were children and young virgins once tossed into the craters of active volcanoes?
Why have people been tied to stones and slowly cut apart, burned or had their hearts cut out while still beating?
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This is but a very tiny and short list. But the answer to each and every question, at it's most fundamental, is the same; adherence to unevidenced beliefs.
And still we hear people wondering why anyone would care what they believe? We hear people insisting that certain beliefs shouldn't be open to discussion simply because someone has cared to label them "sacred".
The idea that any belief is "sacred" and therefore, exempt from rational and open discussion seems to have come from very ancient, primitive and superstitious times. It persisted through the Dark Ages when so many other absurd and ridiculous ideas and practices seemed to fizzle into non-existence. And it's still with us today. It's okay to label a belief "sacred" and discuss in favor of that belief, but many consider it improper or outright prohibit such discussion on a level playing-field where the strength of the points presented mean more than whether one is speaking for or against a particular concept. Unevidenced beliefs can't thrive in an atmosphere of open rational discussion. So those holding great affection for them have attempted to isolate them from the very system utilized in every other concept, to determine truth from false-hood.
Superstitious beliefs are dangerous. They have always been dangerous and show a continual repetitious nature of leading people to adopt and defend them violently. This nearly always leads to persecution, imprisonment and the killing of those who do not accept such beliefs. This kind of outcome is especially prominent with superstitions because superstitions cannot be rationally supported. Any rationally supported belief has no need for violent, forced adherence because it can stand on its own merit. It is only those beliefs which can offer no merit which, if they are to be held, must utilize irrationality and violence or threat of violence.
So why would anyone consider it wrong to discuss beliefs and to ask for support? What's wrong with testing a belief for validity? What's wrong with recognizing that some beliefs offer good reason for their adoption while others can offer nothing of any substance? Isn't that what the so-called "justice" system is designed to do? Don't we discuss various assertions and attempt to determine which are true and which are not?
To assert that it's wrong to discuss beliefs to determine if they have merit, is to suggest that searching for truth is somehow wrong. And it shouldn't matter that some have sorted this out for themselves while others have yet to do so or have ignored the evidence (or lack thereof), due to a preference of believing just what they like to believe. Belief in servitude to the emotions has never shown any tendency to lead people to truth. In fact, it has lead to a very long list of injustices, some of which are presented at the top of this post.
No one is being persecuted when asked to present support for their beliefs. Adherence to beliefs without support is where persecution begins. If a belief is wrong, no one should see any impropriety in demonstrating it to be incorrect. That's how we establish truth and learn about reality. And learning the truth is of great benefit to all, while adhering to falsehoods leads only to the perpetuation of ignorance, persecution, suffering, death, and the loss of ability to rationally assess concepts at all levels.
If one belief can be held to be true despite a complete lack of credible evidence, then why hold any evidence-based belief to be true? The entire system for learning the difference between reality and blind-assertion is lost and mankind, is likewise lost, for the lack of any means to know truth from falsehood.
