You may be wondering about the context for last Saturday’s one liner, well, it was from an email exchange with a friend from college about determinism, belief, and ethics. After we established that from our own experiences as well as the experiences of countless others we are unable to choose beliefs and agreed on naturalistic determinism, we discussed whether or not it is ethical to mock or ridicule people for beliefs they hold, yet have no power to choose.

As you take in the evidence and weigh it in light of your world view and epistemological values; beliefs, values, and opinions can change. A large enough body of evidence and a sufficient amount of time spent considering it can also result in a change of world view and/or epistemological values. However, you cannot choose to believe or disbelieve something because the alternative view(s) will often seem absurd.

Both of us enjoy mocking creationists, but is that ethical? A person no more chooses to be a creationist than people choose to be blind, but it would quite obviously be morally reprehensible to mock a person for being blind. Should creationists be treated any differently? It’s worth noting that we were not talking about mocking creationism, because ideas are always fair game.

I see different factors that can come into play here. First is whether or not the person is intentionally or unintentionally ignorant of the scientific facts. An 80 year old living in a small town, who has gone to the same church since childhood, and who doesn’t know the evidence for evolution would be perfectly justified in being a creationist and I don’t think it would be fair to mock this person for that very unintentional ignorance. Those who have had a full and fair exposure to the evidence and rejected it for epistemological or existential reasons would be someone who is far more intentionally ignorant. This is still someone who did not choose the belief, but it is someone who should know better. Ignorance of the evidence should be treated far more diplomatically than a rejection of the evidence.

The second factor that comes into play would be whether or not this person’s views are public or private. A person who privately holds their beliefs and keep them more or less to himself or herself (including private conversations and Facebook) is someone we should leave alone. But the moment those views are presented in a public forum (traditional media, websites, Twitter, blogs, etc) then they are fair game. Reasoning with the person would be ideal, but those who can look at the evidence and reject it outright are not people who can be reasoned with. Since they are actively spreading falsehoods, then they need to be opposed and reasoning won’t work, ridicule is about the only option left.

Now, religious conservatives could say the exact same thing about atheists and gays. In the same way as I think it would be wrong to ridicule someone who is just trying to live a normal life while being a creationist, it would be wrong to ridicule an atheist who keeps his or her views to himself or herself or a LGBT person just trying to live a normal life. Please note that living a normal life includes being able to have relationships, talk about that relationship with friends, family, and coworkers, and display the same level of affection in public that any straight couple is permitted.

When it comes to public figures, it’s different. In the eyes of religious conservatives people like Dan Savage are pushing a dangerous agenda and refuse to listen to reason, but since he is in the public light then he’s just as much fair game for the ridicule.

For the record, because I have this blog, I’m fair game too.