China's Bible Ban

I have argued that there is a moral dimension in holding false beliefs. Where there is no evidence for a belief, or even when there is easily accessible evidence against it, we can ask, "Why did the agent embrace that belief?" Chances are, he embraced it because embracing it fulfilled a desire of his. We can then evaluate the desire to determine if it is a good desire or a bad desire.

Of course, we immediately have the fact that the agent did not have a particularly strong desire for truth. A lover of truth simply does not embrace unsupported or easily disproved claims.

The falsehood in this case is:

The Catholic News Agency published a report in November citing the Italian sports daily La Gazzetta dello Sport and Spanish daily La Razon as saying that Bibles were on a list of "prohibited objects" in the Olympic village.

The official news from China:

"The Chinese government has never ever issued such a rule, nor any such statement," Liu said. "China's religious affairs authorities and the Beijing Olympic organizing committee have not - and could not - issue a rule banning the Bible in the Olympic village."

So, why do so many people embrace this fiction?

Because of hate. They want to hate atheists and, rather than base their hatred on any facts of the matter (because the facts do not support the hatred they want to embrace), they embrace lies and sophestry.

Because they want to love undeserved pity. Like the mother who poisons her child so that she can receive the sympathy of her friends and family, some theists lie about their victimization to solicit the sympathy of the general public.

These are not the qualities of a virtuous person.

Neither the disrespect for truth, nor the love of hate, nor lying to others as a way to solicit sympathy are qualities that we can ever expect to find in a truly virtuous person.