re: #265 Sharmuta

Freedom means other people get to make decisions you don’t like.

This seems to be forgotten when convenient.

I think the most important aspect to come out of the Enlightenment was Freedom of Conscience. That man was free to follow his own conscience on matters of faith and politics was an enormous advance for Western Civilization, and one of the reasons I oppose fundamentalist islam.

One thing I wonder … how ancient is the idea of “man [is] free to follow his own conscience on matters of faith and politics” ?

Non-western societies all had their own forms of religion… were people forced to believe everything the group believed?

Politics of course ends in “he who lives by the sword dies by the sword”, and again I wonder if our 21st century sensibilities could handle any society of, say, the 12th century?