Proselytizing: sometimes morally unsound?

Originally posted by twhitehead
What about accidents where neither thought nor lack of thought can reasonably be said to be involved? Is the intent ignored?

I don't think I follow you. If there is "neither thought nor lack of thought", then what "intent" are you referring to?

Originally posted by FMF
I am talking about the (psychological) damage you can do to an emotionally vulnerable person - who is unable perhaps to give informed consent about what superstitious notions he or she is exposed to and who, at the same time, might not be able to measure the authority and credibility of the person making the superstitiousclaims - by creating threats about invisi ...[text shortened]... meting out torture as a punishment or attempting to coerce vulnerable people with such threats.

"Superstitious claims", "invisible supernatural beings".

These are loaded words which may not properly describe how the one doing the proselytizing feels.

So I ask again, should you also refrain from warning someone for a coming train? What's the difference?

Originally posted by Great King Rat
"Superstitious claims", "invisible supernatural beings".

These are loaded words which may not properly describe how the one doing the proselytizing feels.

So I ask again, should you also refrain from warning someone for a coming train? What's the difference?

I don't see how warning a child about a train and then watching the train (that would have killed it) go past can be framed as psychological manipulation or as an attempt to scare or coerce the child for ideological reasons. I think the analogy doesn't really work.

You said "So I ask again". Apologies. If you asked that question before I either didn't read it or I skimmed over it without taking it in

Originally posted by Great King Rat
"Superstitious claims", "invisible supernatural beings".

These are loaded words which may not properly describe how the one doing the proselytizing feels.

My moral objection is about the possible psychological damage to the person assailed with threats of unimaginable violence and not any damage that may be done to the feelings of the one doing the proselytizing.

Originally posted by Great King Rat
"Superstitious claims", "invisible supernatural beings".

These are loaded words which may not properly describe how the one doing the proselytizing feels.

So I ask again, should you also refrain from warning someone for a coming train? What's the difference?

What if the damage done by the one doing the proselytizing was physical rather than psychological? What if they insisted on mutilating a child's genitals based on the immortality-jeopardising religious imperatives perceived by the one doing the proselytizing? Would there be a moral dimension to causing that damage to a child [or other vulnerable person whose ability to give informed consent was impaired]?

Originally posted by FMF
I don't see how warning a child about a train and then watching the train (that would have killed it) go past can be framed as psychological manipulation or as an attempt to scare or coerce the child for ideological reasons. I think the analogy doesn't really work.

You said "So I ask again". Apologies. If you asked that question before I either didn't read it or I skimmed over it without taking it in

The analogy works, you're just not accepting "hell" being as real and immediately threathening as the train.

So let's change it up a little bit. God reveals himself to you. He shows you exactly what happens to those vulnerable people you speak of if they don't believe. It's horrible. Eternal burning flash and all. He tells you that you can change these people's minds, even if it means scaring them $hItless. Let's assume you are absolutely convinced of what you've seen. You know if you fail in your task to change their beliefs, these vulnerable people will burn in hell for all eternity. You also begin to realise they will not change their beliefs unless you really scare them.

Would you refrain from proselytizing, thus knowing they will burn, because they can't properly judge your authority?

Is this temporal fear or even psychological damage worse than eternal burning?

Originally posted by FMF
I don't think I follow you. If there is "neither thought nor lack of thought", then what "intent" are you referring to?

The lack of intent. Rather like atheism isn't a religion.
What I am asking, is whether or not you judge a action solely on the activities and outcome or whether you take intent into account. For example, a car travelling along a highway, suddenly swerves across the median into incoming traffic killing 3 people. Is the reason why it happened irrelevant? Is the driver morally culpable for 3 deaths regardless of why he did it?

Originally posted by Great King Rat
The analogy works, you're just not accepting "hell" being as real and immediately threathening as the train.

I would be concerned about the damage the train could do to a child and I would be concerned about the damage a believer in the supposed righteousness of eternal torture could do to the child too, and I would feel a moral obligation to protect the child from those kinds of potential damage. I couldn't base what I see as my moral obligations on the fact that someone else has weird and incoherent notions and wants to manipulate or coerce a child with psychological threats. I don't see how there's a useful or instructive analogy in your oncoming train thing.

Originally posted by twhitehead
The lack of intent. Rather like atheism isn't a religion.
What I am asking, is whether or not you judge a action solely on the activities and outcome or whether you take intent into account. For example, a car travelling along a highway, suddenly swerves across the median into incoming traffic killing 3 people. Is the reason why it happened irrelevant? Is the driver morally culpable for 3 deaths regardless of why he did it?

Killing people deliberately with a car would be morally unsound to my way of thinking. Killing people in a collision with a car after losing control when sleepy or when impaired by alcohol would be morally unsound. Steering the car into the oncoming traffic, or driving after insufficient sleep or an excess of alcohol would be the actions that would be morally wrong. Thinking about killing people with a car, on the other hand, while arguably bizarre and distasteful, would not be morally unsound to my way of thinking.

Originally posted by Great King Rat

So let's change it up a little bit. God reveals himself to you. He shows you exactly what happens to those vulnerable people you speak of if they don't believe. It's horrible. Eternal burning flash and all. He tells you that you can change these people's minds, even if it means scaring them $hItless. Let's assume you are absolutely convinced of what you've seen. You know if you fail in your task to change their beliefs, these vulnerable people will burn in hell for all eternity. You also begin to realise they will not change their beliefs unless you really scare them.

Would you refrain from proselytizing, thus knowing they will burn, because they can't properly judge your authority?

Is this temporal fear or even psychological damage worse than eternal burning?

Ask someone who believes that non-believers are thrown into a furnace and kept alive for eternity. You might as well be asking me 'If you believe you should go and chop off children's heads so that they go to heaven would you do it?' The real me believes that I would have a moral obligation to protect people under my care form the character in your "let's change it up a little bit" scenario. I don't buy your thought exercise because you asking to imagine myself to be someone who the real me perceives as being borderline insane. I don't see why I have to conjure up some daft PC moral stance to accommodate my own conjecture about myself in some hypothetical state of borderline insanity.

Originally posted by FMF
There are some Christians here who subscribe to notions promoting the "perfect" nature and "ultimate" morality of inconceivably angry violence as an active and never ending revenge for thoughtcrimes.

If that's what some people believe happens, then so be it. I don't think them having such ideas is morally unsound, in and of itself ~ good luck to them i ...[text shortened]... y imbued with such extraordinary violence and anger be morally unsound in certain circumstances.

Can you give a example?

What came to my mind while reading that was how people react to those who commit suicide. Often among Christians the first thought goes to where these people end up; meaning heaven or hell. And this is without knowing anything at all about that person. Personally, my first thought is, what lead to this person wanting to do it. In many cases, and all fatal (of course) , these people are in dire straits. No where to turn, so to speak.

My wife will tell you i will talk to a brick wall. This is because i believe in talking to people,strangers, everyone. I feel it is important to reach out to strangers all the time. Not to preach, just to have a friendly chat. And maybe i can help someone with burdens just by listening.

Maybe a little off topic, it is just what can to my mind

Originally posted by Great King Rat
The analogy works, you're just not accepting "hell" being as real and immediately threathening as the train.

So I've kind of ducked out of your 'You actually believe the children are going to be tortured before they reach adulthood if they don't hear from you NOW about the torture while they are still children, so what do you do?' scenario, and I have rejected your train analogy. Therefore, if you want to duck out of my genital mutilation scenario and my 'chop off the children's heads and send them to heaven' scenario, I will understand. 😛

Originally posted by Pudgenik
Can you give a example?

Christians telling non-believer children, for example, that they are going to get tortured forever if they don't become Christians.