Proselytizing: sometimes morally unsound?

Originally posted by FMF
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 wr ...[text shortened]... and, while arguably bizarre and distasteful, would not be morally unsound to my way of thinking.

Yet another dodge. Interesting.

Originally posted by FMF
So in other words, in reality you don't think it's morally sound, but if you DID think it was morally sound, then you would disagree with the real you? 😉

No. I don't understand why this is so difficult for you to grasp, and at the same time I am struggling to find easier ways to explain it.

I think someone would exhibit morally sound behaviour if they tried to convert someone who they believe would otherwise go to hell. The fact that I don't believe in hell doesn't change that fact one iota. The fact that I would not allow someone to do this to my child also does not mean I find them morally unsound. They could be well meaning, but still wrong.

Originally posted by twhitehead
Yet another dodge. Interesting.

I don’t think it's a dodge at all.

Originally posted by FMF
I think I have got to the very essence of it with the way I have paraphrased it .

Then you think wrong. And since I was the one asking the question I should know.

Originally posted by Great King Rat
No. I don't understand why this is so difficult for you to grasp, and at the same time I am struggling to find easier ways to explain it.

I think someone would exhibit morally sound behaviour if they tried to convert someone who they believe would otherwise go to hell. The fact that I don't believe in hell doesn't change that fact one iota. The fac ...[text shortened]... ild also does not mean I find them morally unsound. They could be well meaning, but still wrong.

I am not seeking to play the devil's advocate with this thread. I simply asked a question about some behaviour that might arguably be morally unsound. It seems that we more or less agree as to the answer to that question aside from some sort of fudging you may perhaps now be introducing with differentiation between the words "morally unsound" and "wrong". I see these terms as synonymous.

Originally posted by Great King Rat
Then you think wrong. And since I was the one asking the question I should know.

Like I said, I do not need to pretend to be RJHinds or sonship in order to offer my own answer to my own moral question. If a proponent of torture theology wants to offer a moral justification for confronting children with what they see as the reality of eternal torture, despite the psychological damage it might do, I will wecome the contribution, and whether they are any better able to justify it to me than you have been, remains to be seen..

Originally posted by FMF
I am not seeking to play the devil's advocate with this thread. I simply asked a question about some behaviour that might arguably be morally unsound. It seems that we more or less agree as to the answer to that question aside from some sort of fudging you may perhaps now be introducing with differentiation between the words "morally unsound" and "wrong". I see these terms as synonymous.

Wut?

FMF, please. Now you're just joshing.

Morally unsound, at least in this context, is NOT the same as wrong.

I believe people are wrong when they think there is such a thing as god and all that follows. That does not make their motivations by definition morally unsound. They could be wrong, for the right reasons.

Also, wouldn't it be way more morally unsound to guide YOU towards heaven just because you are mentally capable of judging the theist, but letting others go to hell because they lack this capability?

Hell would possibly be filled to the brim with good people with Down's Syndrome while heaven would be overrun by all kinds of people who just happened to have good mental capabilities.

Originally posted by FMF
Like I said, I do not need to pretend to be RJHinds or sonship in order to offer my own answer to my own moral question. If a proponent of torture theology wants to offer a moral justification for confronting children with what they see as the reality of eternal torture, despite the psychological damage it might do, I will wecome the contribution, and whether they are any better able to justify it to me than you have been, remains to be seen..

Well yes, actually, sometimes in order to judge another person's behaviour you need to observe the situation from his POV, rather then feeding his POV through your own moral lense and seeing what comes out.

Originally posted by Great King Rat
Hell would possibly be filled to the brim with good people with Down's Syndrome while heaven would be overrun by all kinds of people who just happened to have good mental capabilities.

OK, I acknowledge that you are arguing that it is morally sound to confront people with Down's Syndrome with notions that they will be tortured if they don't believe certain things. I don’t see it myself. You have provided the thread with a counter argument (to mine) that no torturergod-ist has sought fit to offer. Thanks.

Originally posted by Great King Rat
Well yes, actually, sometimes in order to judge another person's behaviour you need to observe the situation from his POV, rather then feeding his POV through your own moral lense and seeing what comes out.

Do you also think it wouldn't be morally unsound for someone to mutilate the genitals of someone with Down's Syndrome as long as their notion that it would save that person from "damnation" was sincere?

Originally posted by Great King Rat
...sometimes in order to judge another person's behaviour you need to observe the situation from his POV.

And then what? Declare it morally sound regardless of what your actual judgement is?

Originally posted by FMF
Do you also think it wouldn't be morally unsound for someone to mutilate the genitals of someone with Down's Syndrome as long as their notion that it would save that person from "damnation" was sincere?

No. If their motivation was strictly limited to believing that without genital mutilation this person would go to hell, this would IMO still be morally sound behaviour.

Of course, there is more to consider here. First of, as mentioned before, in general I believe these people act out of selfish reasons, which makes them morally unsound. Similar to most anti-abortion people, who claim they're believers in the sanctity of life, but in reality are only against abortion because their religion requires them to be so.

Second, while these - let us call them, "theoretical believers" - might be morally sound, their god, being omnipotent but still tossing people in hell for silly reasons, would not be morally sound.

Third, declaring it morally sound should not stop us from intervening.

Originally posted by FMF
And then what? Declare it morally sound regardless of what your actual judgement is?

Declare their motivation morally sound regardless of what you believe, yes.

Originally posted by Great King Rat
If their motivation was strictly limited to believing that without genital mutilation this person would go to hell, this would be IMO still be morally sound behaviour.

In so far as genital mutilation around the world is practiced by people who sincerely believe it benefits the children it's done to, is it - in all such cases - morally sound?

Originally posted by Great King Rat
Declare their motivation morally sound regardless of what you [b]believe, yes.[/b]

You are telling me that I always have to declare other people's behaviour morally sound regardless of what I believe?