• ulkesh@beehaw.org
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    4 months ago

    Actions make a person horrible. Beliefs lead to a person’s actions. So if one holds horrible beliefs, it’s likely they will perform horrible actions — thus a horrible person.

    The “hate the sin, not the sinner” is nonsense. I can absolutely hate the sinner if an action they commit is immoral, unethical, and/or damages other people. However, there are very few people in this world that I would say I hate.

  • RBWells@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    I had a friend who was a great friend in so many ways, she was clever and very helpful when I needed anything, also would ask me for the same when she needed help. She told me once that it’s way better to kill someone else, than yourself, because then you have time to repent before you die. What a horrible belief! But it’s not like she actually went around killing people, it was hypothetical.

    I don’t have the answer but the belief did not make her act in any terrible way.

  • That_Devil_Girl@lemmy.ml
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    4 months ago

    Holding a belief and acting on said belief are very different things.

    There are crazies who believe certain types of people they don’t like should be exterminated, but so long as they don’t act on those beliefs I don’t consider it horrible or immoral.

  • apotheotic (she/her)@beehaw.org
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    4 months ago

    If you believe that any human being deserves lesser treatment or fewer rights than their peers, you’re a horrible person. But you aren’t irredeemable and you can become a not horrible person.

  • electric_nan@lemmy.ml
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    4 months ago

    Most people can change their beliefs. However, we don’t always have the time, and we aren’t ever obligated to entertain stupid beliefs.

  • communism@lemmy.ml
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    4 months ago

    Well, yeah, a fascist is a horrible person, and so on. But I don’t think “horrible person” is a particularly useful or meaningful category. I don’t care if you’re a good or bad person; I care what you’re doing, what effect you have on other people and on society at large, and if the answers to those questions are negative, is there anything that can be done about it? If a fascist can be reformed, then we should do whatever we can do make that happen. If they’re a lost cause, well… I like to believe that no one is a completely lost cause. The solution if someone is truly a lost cause is not particularly nice or humane.

  • Elise@beehaw.org
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    4 months ago

    Well, yesterday a cashier decided it was a good idea to tell me, a hippie looking transwoman, that she’s not racist, but what is Turkey doing in European football? And yeah she immediately crossed that threshold and went on my asshole list.

    Of course I can come up with a gazillion excuses for why she said that. She doesn’t know our own history. She doesn’t know geography. She’s just trying to fit in to her social group. I can go on and on. But still, what she is saying is damaging on a purely racist basis. She is old enough to realize that.

    However, I wouldn’t use the word hate. I know what you mean, and that’s what I am responding to rn, but I don’t genuinely want to hate anyone. Hate is more corrosive to the vessel than that which it is poured upon.

  • flamingo_pinyata@sopuli.xyz
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    4 months ago

    All of them. Beliefs are what makes a person good/bad. Any bad actions come from those bad beliefs, but belief must exist first.

    Let me give a very simplistic example. Most of us agree that murder is bad. In order for someone to commit murder they must first believe there are some cases where killing another person is justified or even desirable specifically for them. And not commonly agreed on ones like self-defense.

    We even encode this difference in laws. Killing with intention is called “murder”, while if it’s done unintentionally it’s a lesser change of “manslaughter”. Belief is what decides severity of the action.

  • JayObey711@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    I used to think that believes really don’t matter as long as the person doesn’t act on it, but almost all believes shape who we are. It starts with little comments and evolves into actions. It doesn’t have to be that way if people acknowledge harmful ideas, but if you let someone believe that women are worthless or that their race makes them superior for long enough they will become a bad person.

    • Stovetop@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Before 2016, for example, we used to ignore a lot of conservative blustering as just political posturing or not worth attention because they could never do anything about it. Then Trump takes office and suddenly everyone with these shitty beliefs feels empowered to act on them.

      People who have shitty beliefs are just waiting for those beliefs to be validated by someone in power so they can quit masking and act on them.

  • owenfromcanada@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    The CEO of Nestlé has gone on record saying that he believes that all water sources should be privatized.

    So, to answer your question, yes.

    Though there are a plethora of stronger reasons to hate the CEO of Nestlé.

  • spittingimage@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    I think it’s actions that make a person horrible. You can believe what you like, but as long as you keep those thoughts sealed up in that fetid dome of yours, we’re cool.

  • JackDark@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Belief is a choice, not fact. It’s fair to hate a person for choosing bigotry.

    • Communist@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz
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      4 months ago

      I don’t agree that belief is always a choice, in many cases people simply cannot conceive of an alternate position being the case, in my case I have no choice but to be an atheist because I can’t believe in a god, I find it far too silly a notion.

      bigoted beliefs are of course bad, but I don’t think people choose them necessarily

      • bane_killgrind@slrpnk.net
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        4 months ago

        A lack of education still means that a bigoted person is choosing to devalue other things.

        At a certain point, theres no obligation to be hostile or dismissive of different things. You are choosing to remain bigoted, and stay comfortable with your behavioral habits.

        If you are saying that some people lose the ability to become accustomed to things they are exposed to, I would agree with you. People aren’t like that.

      • johker216@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        But you are making a choice: you’re choosing to only let observable facts influence your beliefs. Everyone is an atheist by default, and most of them are then told to believe what they’re told from birth, but at some point people make a conscious choice on how information is prioritized. Humans aren’t read-only and I would say it’s a safe bet that most people have the opportunity to influence their own beliefs and act accordingly. Obviously if someone is abused and doesn’t develop mentally, then yeah, don’t hate the person but don’t necessarily give up on helping that person develop, either

      • JackDark@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        You’ve proved my point. You’re choosing not to believe because it’s not fact.