Okay. I assume you mean religions and political parties. Nominal membership in a religion requires no specific action. 90% of Irish people would be considered “Catholic” by virtue of having been baptized and confirmed as children. They need not have taken any specific action as adults to be afforded that designation, nor do they need to be “practising” in any active sense—going to Mass, for example. Many don’t. They still go down as Catholics.
In the case of political parties, you’re right that an individual needs to register, or vote a certain way, or take some action as an adult to be counted as a “member of that group”. I still think that’s a very obviously different kind of category to one like “murderers”. Of course it’s possible to argue that claiming membership of a specific political party is inherently immoral—a lot of people would argue that for membership in a neo-Nazi party, for example, though I did specify “large” parties up above (large as in mainstream, not niche or fringe, one of the main political parties of a nation, containing a decent percentage of that country’s population). Is that what you’re arguing?
Okay. I assume you mean religions and political parties. Nominal membership in a religion requires no specific action. 90% of Irish people would be considered “Catholic” by virtue of having been baptized and confirmed as children. They need not have taken any specific action as adults to be afforded that designation, nor do they need to be “practising” in any active sense—going to Mass, for example. Many don’t. They still go down as Catholics.
In the case of political parties, you’re right that an individual needs to register, or vote a certain way, or take some action as an adult to be counted as a “member of that group”. I still think that’s a very obviously different kind of category to one like “murderers”. Of course it’s possible to argue that claiming membership of a specific political party is inherently immoral—a lot of people would argue that for membership in a neo-Nazi party, for example, though I did specify “large” parties up above (large as in mainstream, not niche or fringe, one of the main political parties of a nation, containing a decent percentage of that country’s population). Is that what you’re arguing?
And any comment on the “liars” question?