It seems that people today have learned to extensively critically analyze every view or belief they come across—except their own. Today’s society has such flawed philosophies. “You shouldn’t care what people do with their lives unless it affects you personally,” “Love is love,” and “If you follow your beliefs and let me follow mine, then I’ll do the same and we can all coexist peacefully,” Are all ideas whose fallacies, to me, should be obvious.
Counting other people's sins does not make you a saint.
“You should not care what people do with their lives unless it affects you personally.” If I shouldn’t care what people do, then why should I care what happens to them either? A man who murders twenty infants on the other side of the world does not affect me personally. A man who is about to do something that I can already tell will result in a Darwin Award (such as staring lustfully at a hornet’s nest) does not affect me personally. So according to this philosophy, I shouldn't care at all.
“Love is love.” This was originally used to defend gay marriage, but now some people are using it to defend incest, too. (I truly wish I could say I was making that up.) Now, it should be acknowledged that people like pedophiles and zoophiles are just as capable of falling in love as mentally healthy individuals. The former pursuing their desires does not always result in traumatization, and the latter (claim to) have ways of identifying consent. Let us not also forget that sufferers of Stockholm syndrome sometimes fall in love with their abductors. If “Love is love,” then everything I have mentioned is still love, and is equal to that between Romeo and Juliet. So where is the line drawn?
“If you follow your beliefs and let me follow mine, then I’ll do the same and we can all coexist peacefully.” It’s not that I prefer hostility to peace, but I’ve noticed that people only ever apply this philosophy where the beliefs in question are religious ones; no one seems to abide by it when the beliefs being discussed are matters of, say, government politics. As for why I find the philosophy so foolish, I have found that C.S. Lewis explains it perfectly: “The Christian and the [atheist] hold different beliefs about the universe. They can’t both be right. The one who is wrong will act in a way which simply doesn’t fit the real universe. Consequently, with the best will in the world, he will be helping his fellow creatures to their own destruction.” –Man or Rabbit?
Am I seriously the only one who sees how poorly thought out these ideas are? Are people really so quick to debunk other’s ideas, while still being prideful enough to consider their own idea’s immune to the debunking process? Are people really this foolish?
What Girls & Guys Said
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1Opinion
You are totally right. I think a lot of people are either hypocrites, liars or just plain deluded.
In all honesty, everyone's the first two, but according to the dictionary, a delusion is when you insist that a thing is true in the fact of overwhelming contrary evindence.
Great insight.