whereas reprehensible is another.
Although my dictionary only defines reprehensible as "deserving censure". Unabridged says "deserving of reproof, rebuke, or censure."
Hmm, perhaps that word is not as strong as I think (or thought) it was.
I was thinking it equated to - one of the worst people in the world. Or one of the worst things to do in the world.
Whereas I would say that just thinking anything is not, by itself, as harmful as doing something. I mean is any thought, even thinking "slavery was not that bad for the slaves" as bad as stealing a bottle of water? And stealing a mere bottle of water is a really minor crime in the big scheme of things.
One could argue that certain evil beliefs are the foundations of evil actions, and I would not disagree, but am not sure of a direct connection in this case. A case I am thinking of is where a rough looking guy wanted me to sell him a book. The plot of the book is - a woman is kidnapped and then trained/conditioned to be a slave. Well, I was not going to sell this guy something that would seemingly encourage this person to actually DO that to the women in his life. Nope, no sir. The whole purpose of my store was to sell good books that would, in some small way, make the world a better place. Granted there was a certain amount of fuzziness, because I sold (or offered for sale) some books that I would call "mostly harmless crap" - things like Danielle Steele and the average harlequin, for examples, but that was way over the line.
Also, strangely enough, I would also say that often the censure is worse than the original crime. That is, when somebody says "slavery was not so bad for the slaves" which is a morally wrong thought, they are often bombarded by people saying hateful, hurtful things to them, or about them - which is more like an action.
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