People do not have the right to an absolute "freedom of belief"

He is obviously very passionate about this subject, as am I. I will also attempt to provide a line-by-line rebuttal. My opponent has illustrated a huge problem with his argument. He uses the example of believing in dragons, making the assumption that no such ancient animal existed, nor could have existed simply because there is not yet proof of this. Indeed many things that we now know today were only suspicions at one time, including the thought that animals like giant squids, giant octopuses, and other creates of lore were actually found with modern tools. As the sciences advance, we are finding many things that people long ago disregarded, especially in the case of archeology. Scientific revelation is only as good as present discoveries. There is much still to explore and much still to validate. Until then, it is people who are passionate in their hunches and convictions that world tirelessly to prove what they believe to be true, but do not have the current scientific evidence to do so. That being said, my point as to people being as informed as possible is a valid one. Many people believe in things that they do not even understand let alone be fully knowledgeable about. They ignorantly subscribe to things and are nothing like what they claim to believe. These, in my opinion, are the real dangers of society. "I sincerely doubt that you believe the statement you wrote. Take for an instance a man who believes it is his moral prerogative to impregnate as many women - by force if necessary - in order to ensure the survival of his genes. Now you and I both would "judge" this man's beliefs as dangerous because they clearly and unabashedly are. .. " I am far from a moral relativist. I believe most things have a clear path to wrong and right. But, what I do oppose is people deciding FOR ME what is right and wrong. This type of censorship and stripping of civil liberties have always led to excesses, both by religious zealots and aethistic communist governments. What makes the world great is that we HAVE the freedom to explore when it comes to faith and perspective. It's outside-the-box perspectives that led to Christopher Columbus taking a chance at either sailing the world, or falling off its edge. It was all just a hunch, and not a very popular one. But, if he had been censored - and others WERE - history would have been different. "I don't recall arguing that we need "know everything possible to evaluate complete and absolute truth". Furthermore, the scientific analogy is rather flawed because any valid hypothesis would first rely upon a series of objective observations. .. " My point was that when people like my opponent are the ones deciding what is "scientifically verifiable", science fails. Science and faith both thrive in environments where the mind is open to believe and imagine. It's conviction that makes people keep looking for a cure for AIDS, because they just "know" its out there. There is no evidence of this, but they believe it to be true. This fuels the chase. "Do I have the right to believe that I can murder someone and receive 72 virgins as a reward? No. Do I have the right to believe that if I see one homosexual man with another that I should stone them to death where they lie? No. " Actually, you DO havet hat right. And you have the right to believe things that are even more evil and detestable. Everyone does at some point. They develope prejudices and biases, sort of like what my opponent has towards people of faith. But, those biases must also be challenged and action must be taken to reconcile the world around you. The fact of the matter is that while one person challenges the viability of one belief, the opposite site is challenging theirs. This is the place of debate. We grow through winning AND losing them. "There are limits to what we can believe in. These limits should be enforced even if it makes you uncomfortable. To defend your right to believe anything you want defends any one of the rights I just listed as well as a myriad of other monstrous ideas. .. " Human beings ARE selfish. This is why my opponent insists on his definition of justification. And I honor that. But, how pompus is it to say that because one has never seen evidence of something himself, something that someone else believes IS justifiable is not true? Again, reasoning, debate, and dialogue are important for people to find a place of agreement. "Choice has nothing to do with this argument. .. " But, alas, choice DOES matter. At the end of the day, two people with the exact same evidence often do come to different conclusions. Which one of the two have the right to impose on the other? Who makes that decision? Each CHOSE to go a different route than the other. Which choice was right? "It would seem, having read this last passage, that you are in fact not a "FIRM" believer in the scientific process. If you were, you would understand that science does indeed "have the ability to piece together past events". For instance, the Dinosaurs. .. " I think that the above statement is a bit naive as to what science actually offers us. Science can only piece together the evidence it is presented with. Nothing in the past is completely verifiable. There are many theories about Dinosaurs, for example, that are complete and utter guesses and beliefs, not verifiable fact. In fact, almost nothing we "know" about Dinosaurs can be scientifically verified. It's all assumptions based on pieces of evidence. Nothing more. The rest is all just educated guesswork, but guesswork nonetheless. "You walk back into the room and look at the wall. That would be "scientific". " :) Of course life is always that simple, right? Of course my example assumed that you could not do that. You missed my point. The point was that when evidence cannot be found, only testimony (like in a court of law) is available to us. We then have to choose who we believe is right. "I'm not willing to indulge arguments that treat the scientific process as subjective. " Then my opponent is in denial of the reality of the scientific process. To elevate the scientific process to anything more than highly educated evaluation and conclusion is to make a religion out of it. "One can make an assumption based upon evidence. As I have never seen heaven, nor has anyone else, neither of us still has the right to believe it exists. .. " Again, my opponent shows his bais. You cannot disbelieve something simply because you have not seen it. You have never seen a dodo bird, but it existed. The default position is NONbelief, not DISbelief. Otherwise, you are a cynic, which by nature hinders you from seeing things even if the best of evidence is presented to you. If your default position is -1, then you are blind to everything you have yet to experience. If you are truly objective, you would maintain NONbelief until either belief or DISbelief is logical. "'The issue is not one of scientific verification, but of due diligence. If a human being assumes a belief system in spite of clear data and observations available to him, this is "reckless" faith. ' You are now arguing my point. " No, actually I am reiterating MY point that scientific verification is not always possible. Where it is not possible - as in many cases - a human can only do the best he can to gather evidence and testimony to make a decision. Sometimes that decision is to stay in nonbelief. "This "due diligence" you speak of is commonly known as evidence. The "verifying" of details is again known as "experimentation". .. " Due diligence is not only about hard evidence. It is about evaluations, conclusions, testimony, and keeping an open mind. Experimentation is a great way to test a hypothesis. But, sometimes experimentation does not have context in an argument. You cannot experiment to see if someone called you a jerk. You can only gather the testimony of others.