Friday, February 22, 2013

A new response to "Let people believe what they want to believe!"

   I've written a bit in the past about how this idea of letting people believe what they want to believe annoys me. It does so because it is a bad idea as well as the fact that people don't actually apply this outside of a few specific topics, particularly religion. My latest thought on this involves getting arrested for a crime for which you did not commit (the hypothetical works better if it is a fairly serious crime that involves jail time). If you were arrested for a crime, would you (A) find a lawyer and defend your innocence or (B) let the police believe what they want to believe, which is that you are guilty of the crime (which means you get locked up in jail)? If you chose A B, would you mind explaining why? If you are a person who has used this "Let people believe what they want to believe!" line before and you chose B A, would you mind explaining this inconsistency?

UPDATE: Whoa! What was I smoking when I posted this? I got A and B mixed up in my questioning. I struck out the original to somewhat preserve the mistake.