This reminds me of a conversation last night that looking back, I regret getting into with my supervisor. His 15 year old daughter from a previous marriage was coming up here to stay with him for a while. The girl is a teenager, so a bit rambling and questioning things. I offered to let her borrow one of my books on zen buddhism to give her a different perspective. He let me know in no uncertain terms that the only thing his daughter needed to straighten herself out was to start going to church and believe in god. *sighs* This is why I try not to have conversations with my supervisor.
How is replacing one religion (Christianity) with another any better (Buddhism)? It is just one dogma for another.
It depends if it is the philosophy of buddhism or the crazy multi-god religion of buddhism :-p
This reminds me of a conversation last night that looking back, I regret getting into with my supervisor. His 15 year old daughter from a previous marriage was coming up here to stay with him for a while. The girl is a teenager, so a bit rambling and questioning things. I offered to let her borrow one of my books on zen buddhism to give her a different perspective. He let me know in no uncertain terms that the only thing his daughter needed to straighten herself out was to start going to church and believe in god. *sighs* This is why I try not to have conversations with my supervisor.
How is replacing one religion (Christianity) with another any better (Buddhism)? It is just one dogma for another.
You are one of the few people that has enough perspective to realize that, though. When you think that your particular dogma is the only way to eternal salvation, it makes a huge difference.
How is replacing one religion (Christianity) with another any better (Buddhism)? It is just one dogma for another.
This comes down to a question of ethics. Consider the following types of decision-makers:
Makes poor decisions regardless of beliefs.
Makes poor decisions based on dogmatic beliefs.
Makes good decisions based on dogmatic beliefs.
Makes good decisions regardless of beliefs.
Let's consider, with these people, only objective or reasonably objective measures of "good" and "poor" decisions. For the purposes of discussion, let's use the decision of whether or not to seek and accept standard lifesaving medical procedures for one's children. We'll assume that seeking and accepting lifesaving medical care for one's children is a good decision, while refusing or not seeking it is a poor decision.
Person 1 is beyond help: nothing other than force will change his behavior. Person 4 requires no help: his decisions are uniformly beneficial and rational.
Persons 2 and 3 are the subject of our ethical debate. Person 2 makes harmful decisions for bad reasons. Person 3 makes non-harmful or beneficial decisions for equally bad reasons. Person 2 causes objective harm, while person 3 does not. Persons 2 and 3 are equally irrational and equally subject to dogmatic control. Persons 2 and 3 share equally fallacious dogma.
The questions are thus:
Can the dogmatic person be made to be non-dogmatic?
If the dogmatic person 3 were made non-dogmatic, and his resulting decision making placed him as a person 1 type, is it ethical to instill in him false dogma such that he becomes person 3?
If the dogmatic person could not be made non-dogmatic, is it ethical to replace one false dogma with another equally false dogma if said dogma causes better decisions to be made?
This is the absolute root of the debate. I welcome your opinions.
If you look at one particular decision, such as the decision to give children proper medical care, you can split persons 2 and 3. However, if you look across the board at all decisions, persons 2 or 3 are functionally equivalent. A person making decisions based on dogma can not be trusted to make good or bad decisions consistently.
Let's say you find a person you would categorize as 3. They make decisions based on dogma. Despite that, every decision they have ever made, you would categorize as "good". Even though you might think this person is different from person 2, they are actually functionally equivalent. Because their decisions are based on dogma, rather than reality, the odds of their next decision being good or bad are equal. Persons 2 or 3 are effectively acting randomly.
This of course, comes with the assumption that the dogma has no relation to reality. What happens when someone's dogma is half reality-based and half not? You can get a person who is half 4 and half 2,3. This is exactly the reason that so many religious people get away with saying they are reasonable or not crazy. It's because they only actually use their dogma for very few decisions in their lives, and act according to reality in the rest. I submit that these people aren't actually true believers. If you truly believe in an invisible, vengeful sky man, then that belief will be your primary decision making factor across the board.
Many believe that the sky man is not primarily vengeful, but is, in fact, primarily benevolent.
Imagine if you live in a town, with a wizard who lived on top of the hill. He's not all powerful, he's just a lot more powerful than you, who has no magic powers at all. Whether he's a nice wizard, a mean wizard, or somewhere in-between doesn't really matter. The fact is that with a wave of a wand he could make your life amazing or terrible. He could kill your whole family, and torture you for eternity. He could also make you a magical paradise castle full of luxury and servants. If you lived in this town, you would have to take the existence of that wizard into account every single waking moment of your life. Does he want me to go to work? Does he like the pace at which I am walking. Does he even want me to be walking? Whether or not he is or is not watching, whether or not he does or does not care, he could be. If he is definitely real, you can not risk ignoring him at all.
And that's just a wizard on the hill. The supposedly omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent judeo-christian-muslim god is that wizard times infinity. It doesn't matter if the god is benevolent or vengeful. It doesn't matter if he cares or not. If you truly believe it exists, you will be quaking with fear every moment of your life. If you are not quaking with fear, you do not truly believe.
It is my opinion that only the crazy fundamentalists are actually true believers. Hacidic Jews, for example, have libraries of books which detail exactly how god wants you to behave in every aspect of life, and they follow the word of those books to a T every waking moment of their lives. That is a true believer. They may be crazy, but at least I can respect that they really do believe 100%. Everyone else who claims to believe is a pretender or a part-time believer.
Many believe that the sky man is not primarily vengeful, but is, in fact, primarily benevolent.
It is my opinion that only the crazy fundamentalists are actually true believers. Hacidic Jews, for example, have libraries of books which detail exactly how god wants you to behave in every aspect of life, and they follow the word of those books to a T every waking moment of their lives. That is a true believer. They may be crazy, but at least I can respect that they really do believe 100%. Everyone else who claims to believe is a pretender or a part-time believer.
I have tried, but I just don't fully understand why you spend so much energy spinning your wheels about this. Why is a part-time believer any worse than a 100% believer? Why is a 100% believer bad at all? I'm sure part of your answer would be, "they believe unprovable things, and therefore they're wrong and crazy". Well, fine . . . they're crazy. Why does it matter so much? The only possible way that I could understand it mattering in the least is if they somehow gain power over you and then try and force you to believe as they do, or if they gained office and made policy decisions based on their beliefs and nothing else. I'll be the first to admit that would be very bad, but in the case of some guy I see on the subway, I have absolutely no interest whether he is a part-time believer, a 100% believer, what he might believe in, whether he's an agnostic, or an atheist.
All of these weighty "religious people are crazy" arguments seem very much like the "achievements are bad" argument. People believe things. They sometimes believe in only parts of things. Sometimes, they even believe bits and oieces of things that are all mutually contradictory. Sometimes they act hypocritically. Sometimes, they are, in fact, crazy. A hundred Scotts over the course of a hundred Scott lifetimes will not change this. So why care so much about it?
It's especially hard to understand why you care so much about this, but you seem to have no interest at all in the economy, non-technology related current events, or politics that is much more likely to have an impact in your daily life. You have said that part of your disinterest lies in the fact that you don't think you have any control over those things. However, I submit that you have even less control over what people believe and how they believe it.
Because crazy people are dangerous, and keep the world a shitty place. The fundamental thing preventing humanity from achieving even a fraction of its potential, on the macro and micro scales, is mass delusion and anti-intellectualism.
This reminds me of a conversation last night that looking back, I regret getting into with my supervisor. His 15 year old daughter from a previous marriage was coming up here to stay with him for a while. The girl is a teenager, so a bit rambling and questioning things. I offered to let her borrow one of my books on zen buddhism to give her a different perspective. He let me know in no uncertain terms that the only thing his daughter needed to straighten herself out was to start going to church and believe in god. *sighs* This is why I try not to have conversations with my supervisor.
How is replacing one religion (Christianity) with another any better (Buddhism)? It is just one dogma for another.
I wasn't trying to replace it, just give her a broader perspective of things.
I wasn't trying to replace it, just give her a broader perspective of things.
Broader? How so? Do you think that Christians aren't aware of other religions? I hate it when people try to help solve real problems by shoving a new religion/mystical idea/pseudoscience on the person that is struggling. It is taking advantage of someone when they are weak.
. . . and obsessing over the crazy people and their crazy ways is not crazy at all.
No, it's not.
I submit that obsession about anything is an indicator of craziness.
I'm writing this on the train home. I'm sitting next to a big fat guy. He might worship The Force, FSM, Satan, or nothing. I don't care. I probably wouldn't be able to change what he worships if I talked to him all night, so that makes me care even less. If believing in The Force helps him through the day, then I'm happy for him.
Now, if he starts trying to convert me, or if he halts funding of scientific research because FSM tells him to, or if he wants to use my tax money to fund his school where he teaches all the students to worship the sky man, then I'll get upset and I'll do something about it, because something can be done about all of those things. However, obsessing about his belief before an event like that occurs is pointless, and I don't understand why such obsession seems to be so popular here.
Many believe that the sky man is not primarily vengeful, but is, in fact, primarily benevolent, despite all indications to the contrary.
There are no indications one way or another. Gods are just made up to account for unexplainable phenomena, for comfort, for monetary gain, etc. Some people want a vengeful god, some people want a benevolent god. Evidence for one god's behavior has no relation to what someone wants to think about their own god, even if the two gods have the same name. You make up the god you want to believe in and believe it. Maybe you are guided by the bible or other ancient texts, but the gods that people believe in today have no more in common with elohim or ashra or mithras than Allah has with the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
There are no indications one way or another. Gods are just made up to account for unexplainable phenomena, for comfort, for monetary gain, etc. Some people want a vengeful god, some people want a benevolent god. Evidence for one god's behavior has no relation to what someone wants to think about their own god, even if the two gods have the same name. You make up the god you want to believe in and believe it. Maybe you are guided by the bible or other ancient texts, but the gods that people believe in today have no more in common with elohim or ashra or mithras than Allah has with the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Well, I was thinking of the Christian concept of god, I'll admit - so I was talking about the bible. Of course, as you have pointed out, your mileage may vary.
There are no indications one way or another. Gods are just made up to account for unexplainable phenomena, for comfort, for monetary gain, etc. Some people want a vengeful god, some people want a benevolent god. Evidence for one god's behavior has no relation to what someone wants to think about their own god, even if the two gods have the same name. You make up the god you want to believe in and believe it. Maybe you are guided by the bible or other ancient texts, but the gods that people believe in today have no more in common with elohim or ashra or mithras than Allah has with the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Well, I was thinking of the Christian concept of god, I'll admit - so I was talking about the bible. Of course, as you have pointed out, your mileage may vary.
But there are many gods mentioned in the Bible. It was comparatively late that in the Bible story that Judaism became monotheistic. Then the god of the new testament was a completely different reinterpretation again. The concept of god that Christians have today bears almost no relation to anything in the Bible. For example, the concept of the Trinity. Ever found that in the Bible?
Just because some god did something barbaric in a book written thousands of years ago doesn't mean modern religious people believe in such a god. Call them inconsistent or illogical or hypercritical, but you have to ask THEM what they associate with their god. If it is pure love, you've got to believe them that they think god is pure love. If it is baby murder:
8 O Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction, happy is he who repays you for what you have done to us-
9 he who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.
I love me some Pslams! But most christians don't know about the baby-head-dashing parts in their religion's murky past. They probably haven't even read the Bible.
I'm writing this on the train home. I'm sitting next to a big fat guy. He might worship The Force, FSM, Satan, or nothing. I don't care. I probably wouldn't be able to change what he worships if I talked to him all night, so that makes me care even less. If believing in The Force helps him through the day, then I'm happy for him.
Now, if he starts trying to convert me, or if he halts funding of scientific research because FSM tells him to, or if he wants to use my tax money to fund his school where he teaches all the students to worship the sky man, then I'll get upset and I'll do something about it, because something can be done about all of those things. However, obsessing about his belief before an event like that occurs is pointless, and I don't understand why such obsession seems to be so popular here.
. . . and obsessing over the crazy people and their crazy ways is not crazy at all.
No, it's not.
I submit that obsession about anything is an indicator of craziness.
I'm writing this on the train home. I'm sitting next to a big fat guy. He might worship The Force, FSM, Satan, or nothing. I don't care. I probably wouldn't be able to change what he worships if I talked to him all night, so that makes me care even less. If believing in The Force helps him through the day, then I'm happy for him.
Now, if he starts trying to convert me, or if he halts funding of scientific research because FSM tells him to, or if he wants to use my tax money to fund his school where he teaches all the students to worship the sky man, then I'll get upset and I'll do something about it, because something can be done about all of those things. However, obsessing about his belief before an event like that occurs is pointless, and I don't understand why such obsession seems to be so popular here.
That's all well and good, and generally, I concur that I really only care about the net result of a belief, and not the actual belief itself. If you do good things for humanity, then I really don't care what it is that inspired you to do those things in the first place.
However, there's a problem. Let me frame the problem using fake medicine, as it's easier to understand my point in that context. We have a problem with fake medicine in this country, because much of it masquerades as being legitimate in some capacity. There is a spectrum of belief with regards to fake medicine; on one end, you have the total believers (or at least those who claim to believe, like the peddlers) who push it despite its lack of evidence, and on the other end, we have those who denounce it, as it's not legitimate medicine. Somewhere in the middle, we have most people, and that's the issue at hand.
Our society encourages a bad sort of "open-mindedness," in which those people in the middle are simply giant buckets into which information flows. We don't teach people to discriminate good information from bad information, so consequently they give both objectively valid and objectively invalid science the same consideration. We teach that this sort of open-mindedness is actually a virtue, and that saying that something is simply incorrect is, generally speaking, not something we do.
So, we have an open-mindedness that results in people simply not separating good science from bad science, leading to a low-level widespread acceptance of some bad science. How many otherwise rational people do you know believe in ghosts? How about chiropractic? Acupuncture?
I had an hours-long argument with a friend of mine last Friday. I tried to explain to him how we as scientists can in fact declare that a particular practice is not valid medicine, and he simply didn't agree. He said that I'm being closed-minded for not accepting the possibility that chiropractic actually works. That's an example of the sort of detrimental open-mindedness that I'm talking about.
When you encourage that sort of thinking - being open to information without any sort of filtering - people become breeding grounds for all sorts of completely bullshit claims, and that allows peddlers of bullshit to actually do their thing. Scientists know that chiropractic is bullshit, but because we don't teach people how to discern what is bullshit and what is not, most people have a slight acceptance of things that could be bullshit, and thus chiropractors can exist.
If we were to actually teach people how to discern bullshit information, things like chiropractic would have a drastically smaller market. We can't eliminate it completely (unless we pass a law, which I support doing), but we can marginalize the fuck out of them. Take away their basis so they can't do any more harm.
That middle-ground open-but-not-filtering mentality creates the foundation on which peddlers of snake oil can do their thing. Thus, in the case of bullshit medicine, it DOES matter if someone accepts it or not, even if they don't act on it; the acceptance of the practice in any capacity creates an environment in which that practice can flourish.
And to then expand it out, the same applies to religious beliefs. The issue is that there is a middle ground that believes all religions could probably be literally true, and that creates an environment where the extremist ideas can thrive. Teach people to screen legitimate spiritualism (which is a very noble field) from bullshit thought control, and you'll marginalize the extremists as much as they can be marginalized.
So, no, it's not crazy to care what someone else believes when their belief creates an environment conducive to the acceptance of extreme, hate-filled beliefs.
Please don't think that. I am very much in agreement that pseudoscience and fake medicine need to be vigorously opposed. The difference between those things and religion, however, is that those things are doing actual damage and there is a rational basis for argument that allows for the possibility to convince a person who believes in, say chiropractic for example, that they're wrong. I simply don't see personally held religious beliefs as having the same potential for danger, as long as the belief remains personal. Additionally, any argument about religion with a religious person rapidly becomes irrational, so it's very difficult to convince someone that they are wrong.
@Mr. Shark - your points are very well made, and somewhat related to the things I wanted to say in that thread about moral absolutes. There's been a real, longstanding, and worrisome trend of casual relativism in society that does real damage to people's ability to distinguish and discriminate between right and wrong. I don't know if anything can be done about it.
simply don't see personally held religious beliefs as having the same potential for danger
But if claims are made about them, shouldn't said claims be held to the same standard? Shouldn't all claims be held to a high standard of proof? Why is a religious claim different from any other claim?
simply don't see personally held religious beliefs as having the same potential for danger
But if claims are made about them, shouldn't said claims be held to the same standard? Shouldn't all claims be held to a high standard of proof? Why is a religious claim different from any other claim?
Maybe I've been unclear. When I say, "personally held beliefs", I mean beliefs that would not lead a person to make any sort of public claim. If the person starts making public claims, then he's fair game.
I have no problem with a person who believes in The Force if it helps him get through the day. If he keeps it personal, his belief has no affect on me. I will not inquire about his beliefs and I will not try to engage him in an argument about his beliefs. If he starts preaching to me about his beliefs, then he's turned his beliefs into a problem that affects me and I will try my best to shove a lightsaber up his bum. Sideways.
Maybe I've been unclear. When I say, "personally held beliefs", I mean beliefs that would not lead a person to make any sort of public claim. If the person starts making public claims, then he's fair game.
But you aren't ok with people convincing others of their beliefs? A la, religion or new age medicine?
Maybe I've been unclear. When I say, "personally held beliefs", I mean beliefs that would not lead a person to make any sort of public claim. If the person starts making public claims, then he's fair game.
But you aren't ok with people convincing others of their beliefs? A la, religion or new age medicine?
If you want to deny yourself medical care, that's outstanding. If you want to deny medical care to another person, you must be stopped.
If you want to deny yourself medical care, that's outstanding. If you want to deny medical care to another person, you must be stopped.
Exactly. Proselytizing is not the same thing as using force. If you want to exercise your right to free speech and tell me about your religion, I can exercise the same right and tell you that I'm not interested, and no harm has been done. If, however, you kidnap me and refuse to let me go until I accept your beliefs, you are committing a crime.
And yes, telling lies to gullible people harms them, but we can't seriously expect to have any kind of free society if we're going to be constantly protecting said gullible people from themselves. If that person is related to me in some way, I might try to get them to start using their brain, but otherwise, I honestly have better things to do.
Comments
- Makes poor decisions regardless of beliefs.
- Makes poor decisions based on dogmatic beliefs.
- Makes good decisions based on dogmatic beliefs.
- Makes good decisions regardless of beliefs.
Let's consider, with these people, only objective or reasonably objective measures of "good" and "poor" decisions. For the purposes of discussion, let's use the decision of whether or not to seek and accept standard lifesaving medical procedures for one's children. We'll assume that seeking and accepting lifesaving medical care for one's children is a good decision, while refusing or not seeking it is a poor decision.Person 1 is beyond help: nothing other than force will change his behavior. Person 4 requires no help: his decisions are uniformly beneficial and rational.
Persons 2 and 3 are the subject of our ethical debate. Person 2 makes harmful decisions for bad reasons. Person 3 makes non-harmful or beneficial decisions for equally bad reasons. Person 2 causes objective harm, while person 3 does not. Persons 2 and 3 are equally irrational and equally subject to dogmatic control. Persons 2 and 3 share equally fallacious dogma.
The questions are thus:
- Can the dogmatic person be made to be non-dogmatic?
- If the dogmatic person 3 were made non-dogmatic, and his resulting decision making placed him as a person 1 type, is it ethical to instill in him false dogma such that he becomes person 3?
- If the dogmatic person could not be made non-dogmatic, is it ethical to replace one false dogma with another equally false dogma if said dogma causes better decisions to be made?
This is the absolute root of the debate. I welcome your opinions.Let's say you find a person you would categorize as 3. They make decisions based on dogma. Despite that, every decision they have ever made, you would categorize as "good". Even though you might think this person is different from person 2, they are actually functionally equivalent. Because their decisions are based on dogma, rather than reality, the odds of their next decision being good or bad are equal. Persons 2 or 3 are effectively acting randomly.
This of course, comes with the assumption that the dogma has no relation to reality. What happens when someone's dogma is half reality-based and half not? You can get a person who is half 4 and half 2,3. This is exactly the reason that so many religious people get away with saying they are reasonable or not crazy. It's because they only actually use their dogma for very few decisions in their lives, and act according to reality in the rest. I submit that these people aren't actually true believers. If you truly believe in an invisible, vengeful sky man, then that belief will be your primary decision making factor across the board.
And that's just a wizard on the hill. The supposedly omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent judeo-christian-muslim god is that wizard times infinity. It doesn't matter if the god is benevolent or vengeful. It doesn't matter if he cares or not. If you truly believe it exists, you will be quaking with fear every moment of your life. If you are not quaking with fear, you do not truly believe.
It is my opinion that only the crazy fundamentalists are actually true believers. Hacidic Jews, for example, have libraries of books which detail exactly how god wants you to behave in every aspect of life, and they follow the word of those books to a T every waking moment of their lives. That is a true believer. They may be crazy, but at least I can respect that they really do believe 100%. Everyone else who claims to believe is a pretender or a part-time believer.
All of these weighty "religious people are crazy" arguments seem very much like the "achievements are bad" argument. People believe things. They sometimes believe in only parts of things. Sometimes, they even believe bits and oieces of things that are all mutually contradictory. Sometimes they act hypocritically. Sometimes, they are, in fact, crazy. A hundred Scotts over the course of a hundred Scott lifetimes will not change this. So why care so much about it?
It's especially hard to understand why you care so much about this, but you seem to have no interest at all in the economy, non-technology related current events, or politics that is much more likely to have an impact in your daily life. You have said that part of your disinterest lies in the fact that you don't think you have any control over those things. However, I submit that you have even less control over what people believe and how they believe it.
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is God able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is God both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is God neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?
I'm writing this on the train home. I'm sitting next to a big fat guy. He might worship The Force, FSM, Satan, or nothing. I don't care. I probably wouldn't be able to change what he worships if I talked to him all night, so that makes me care even less. If believing in The Force helps him through the day, then I'm happy for him.
Now, if he starts trying to convert me, or if he halts funding of scientific research because FSM tells him to, or if he wants to use my tax money to fund his school where he teaches all the students to worship the sky man, then I'll get upset and I'll do something about it, because something can be done about all of those things. However, obsessing about his belief before an event like that occurs is pointless, and I don't understand why such obsession seems to be so popular here.
Just because some god did something barbaric in a book written thousands of years ago doesn't mean modern religious people believe in such a god. Call them inconsistent or illogical or hypercritical, but you have to ask THEM what they associate with their god. If it is pure love, you've got to believe them that they think god is pure love. If it is baby murder:
8 O Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction,
happy is he who repays you
for what you have done to us-
9 he who seizes your infants
and dashes them against the rocks.
I love me some Pslams! But most christians don't know about the baby-head-dashing parts in their religion's murky past. They probably haven't even read the Bible.
However, there's a problem. Let me frame the problem using fake medicine, as it's easier to understand my point in that context. We have a problem with fake medicine in this country, because much of it masquerades as being legitimate in some capacity. There is a spectrum of belief with regards to fake medicine; on one end, you have the total believers (or at least those who claim to believe, like the peddlers) who push it despite its lack of evidence, and on the other end, we have those who denounce it, as it's not legitimate medicine. Somewhere in the middle, we have most people, and that's the issue at hand.
Our society encourages a bad sort of "open-mindedness," in which those people in the middle are simply giant buckets into which information flows. We don't teach people to discriminate good information from bad information, so consequently they give both objectively valid and objectively invalid science the same consideration. We teach that this sort of open-mindedness is actually a virtue, and that saying that something is simply incorrect is, generally speaking, not something we do.
So, we have an open-mindedness that results in people simply not separating good science from bad science, leading to a low-level widespread acceptance of some bad science. How many otherwise rational people do you know believe in ghosts? How about chiropractic? Acupuncture?
I had an hours-long argument with a friend of mine last Friday. I tried to explain to him how we as scientists can in fact declare that a particular practice is not valid medicine, and he simply didn't agree. He said that I'm being closed-minded for not accepting the possibility that chiropractic actually works. That's an example of the sort of detrimental open-mindedness that I'm talking about.
When you encourage that sort of thinking - being open to information without any sort of filtering - people become breeding grounds for all sorts of completely bullshit claims, and that allows peddlers of bullshit to actually do their thing. Scientists know that chiropractic is bullshit, but because we don't teach people how to discern what is bullshit and what is not, most people have a slight acceptance of things that could be bullshit, and thus chiropractors can exist.
If we were to actually teach people how to discern bullshit information, things like chiropractic would have a drastically smaller market. We can't eliminate it completely (unless we pass a law, which I support doing), but we can marginalize the fuck out of them. Take away their basis so they can't do any more harm.
That middle-ground open-but-not-filtering mentality creates the foundation on which peddlers of snake oil can do their thing. Thus, in the case of bullshit medicine, it DOES matter if someone accepts it or not, even if they don't act on it; the acceptance of the practice in any capacity creates an environment in which that practice can flourish.
And to then expand it out, the same applies to religious beliefs. The issue is that there is a middle ground that believes all religions could probably be literally true, and that creates an environment where the extremist ideas can thrive. Teach people to screen legitimate spiritualism (which is a very noble field) from bullshit thought control, and you'll marginalize the extremists as much as they can be marginalized.
So, no, it's not crazy to care what someone else believes when their belief creates an environment conducive to the acceptance of extreme, hate-filled beliefs.
@Mr. Shark - your points are very well made, and somewhat related to the things I wanted to say in that thread about moral absolutes. There's been a real, longstanding, and worrisome trend of casual relativism in society that does real damage to people's ability to distinguish and discriminate between right and wrong. I don't know if anything can be done about it.
I have no problem with a person who believes in The Force if it helps him get through the day. If he keeps it personal, his belief has no affect on me. I will not inquire about his beliefs and I will not try to engage him in an argument about his beliefs. If he starts preaching to me about his beliefs, then he's turned his beliefs into a problem that affects me and I will try my best to shove a lightsaber up his bum. Sideways.
And yes, telling lies to gullible people harms them, but we can't seriously expect to have any kind of free society if we're going to be constantly protecting said gullible people from themselves. If that person is related to me in some way, I might try to get them to start using their brain, but otherwise, I honestly have better things to do.