You mean the responsibility to brainwash people?

I think you would first have to show that someone has the responsibility to brainwash people (ie, use any means necessary) before you would have made an affirmative point about the importance of brainwashing people.

Just because you make up a flawed theology that requires people to brainwash others does not imply that anyone actually holds such a theology.

You've made an arbitrary declaration of how religious people should behave, and then you criticize their belief on the basis of that arbitrary standard. Your "empirical" observation about people holding the belief that they have some form of responsibility to "save" non-believers (see N_R's statement for clarification) somehow doesn't include the "empirical" observation that most of them don't believe that it's necessary or beneficial to try to brainwash everyone?

Classic Mightybooshian argumentation.

I haven't focussed on Christianity, this applies to anyone in a similar situation, and I'm not talking about sharing faith because there's some rule, some duty to do it, described in some religious book somewhere.

If I believed in a god, and I believed that not believing in that god was sure to condemn people to an eternity of torment, I would consider it a moral obligation to change their minds, to make them see. How could I possibly do any differently? What kind of person would just get on with their lives knowing that people who don't believe are going to hell without trying to save them from that? And if you decided not to actively do anything about that, perhaps out of a desire not to be desperately unpopular or perceived as crazy, how could you possibly live with that knowledge?

But is this your *ONLY* moral obligation?

People and religions are more complex than the myopic way you're trying to portray them.

It's true that some people don't try at all, and that's on them.

Maybe being desperately unpopular and perceived as crazy is just a terrible strategy for convincing people of things. So it's not that they have decided not to actively do anything, but they're actively deciding to do things other than the things you're imagining.

You're setting up enough caveats so as to beg the question: If you believe in a God, and if you believe that not believing means certain demise, and if you believe that you can change the minds of men to believe, then I guess you're right.

The real question is if you are correct in all these assumptions, but hypothetically, I can concede that if these are all correct, then you should take action.

This is a really good point that is often overlooked. Reminds me of those who stand on the corner yelling at passers-by. Seems very counter-productive in almost all contexts.

Sorry MB I didn't realise that you were talking of a hypothetical theology that entails an eternity of damnation to all non believers. My point was that if the theology does not entail this there is not the same motivation to convert.

If we accept the following premises for this hypothetical theology

P1 Not having the truth condemns the non believer to an eternity of damnation.
P2 God does not care how the believers come to their belief

Then yeah there is a motivation to convert non-believers that would extend to brainwashing them but I don't recognise this theology.

You don't need to do this. If you don't think that there are any religions that meet the criteria, just say so directly.

A point received and understood for some time now. Where we seem to differ is in whether or not any religions meet the criteria, I've address that in the bottom paragraph.

P1 I would rewrite to read something like 'Not having the truth (i.e. not believing in the god in question) condemns the non believer to an eternity of damnation' because it is that lack of belief that is the problem.

P2 is a little odd given that we're discussing the moral obligation on the part of those 'in the know' to impart their knowledge in an attempt to save others by instigating the required belief, and not how god feels about that. I think that some gods are quite clear on the issue.

However, since you generally agree that not meeting the criteria would result in people being damned, even though you think that only hypothetical currently, then we've made progress. Now we just have to decide which, if any, religions meet those criteria. Take Christianity as a first example (it being the most popular religion), it says this in the bible, amongst other things:


Or this one:

Clearly then there is both an instruction from God which would not be being met by those not proclaiming the gospel, and also surely, a moral obligation to help save those who will be condemned?

Not directly related to the topic, but I think what needs to happen at some point is we (society) have to designate people who honestly believe any religion to be true as insane. Mentally ill.

Rather we should just designate anyone who believes this to be an idiot.

I prefer insane, but whatever works for you.

You prefer to refer to your position as insane rather than idiotic? Okay.

LOL

This is the problem. People can't get real.

If you observe the happenings in the world and think there's a god in control, you're pretty much beyond help I guess.

No, the problem is that you think it's appropriate to consider people mentally ill for holding popular beliefs and there is no definition of mental illness that covers these beliefs. So in order to demonstrate the regard you hold religious beliefs in you merely undermine the credibility of your own.

Sounds great.

Which god do you believe in?

How has the fairytale worked for you up to this point?

Were you indoctrinated?

Brainwashing is a dangerous thing.

LOL @ "popular belief" justifying anything.

Not all religions can be right, but they can all be wrong.

Imagine existing in some form for eternity. Torturous.

Good luck in the future. Tell Jesus I said hello after he decides your fate.

God has a plan for you.

Unsubbing from this mess.

U mad, bro?

My original point in this thread was regarding the assumption that not believing entailed an eternity of damnation, it's not that I don't think there are religions that meet this criteria, there probably are but it wasn't clear to me that they were the only religions under discussion.

I'm not sure of the objection to the original P1 and it's not clear how you are reframing it but I doubt it matters much. With regard to P2 what if the truth entails the following proposition.

P3 God only accepts those that accept the truth freely.

In the event of P3 being true P2 is rejected. However while P1 remains the same brainwashing someone into the truth no longer becomes a moral prerogative.

I accept that there are Christians of various traditions that have accepted both of these passages, and other similar passages such as the famous quote attributed to Jesus that no one can come to the father except through me. I also accept that these traditions have sought to spread the word and convert motivated by these passages. What I do not accept is that within the Christian tradition followers are compelled to convert by any means. I also accept that many traditions have moved on from a literal interpretation of them.

This seems a little vague and a form of counter that I doubt you would accept from me. You've accepted that Christianity at least has a clearly stated requirement that believers attempt to convert non-believers, but seem to be relying on 'many traditions have moved on from a literal interpretation' to undermine my view that there would be a moral obligation on the part of all believers to attempt to save non-believers from the eternity of damnation that believers know is in store for them. (The Christian thing to do right?) Those who actively resist such efforts would probably be beyond help and would in effect be condemning themselves, but that shouldn't prevent believers from making the effort and given the stakes, what level of effort would be enough?

In any case, I don't think that your 'non-literal interpretation' explanation is a sufficient counter. The obligation to convert needn't be the result of simply being told to do it, it should be a natural consequence of knowing what you know about eternal damnation and being a decent person who would save others from unnecessary suffering, a moral act of compassion, in the same way that I'm assuming you would try to prevent people from putting themselves in the way of any harm that you knew about and they didn't.

It's not a counter MB it's an explanation, and while it may be vague given that I am not an expert in the field it can't be anything else.

I'm not sure what the point is, my argument is concerned with the motivation to brainwash people that you think is merely a function of knowing that not believing in god condemns one to an eternity of hell. If believing in god must be arrived at freely in order to prevent eternal damnation then the motivation to brainwash is gone.

I'm not discussing brainwashing, perhaps that's a source of misunderstanding, but now your 'god cares' premise makes sense to me. Brainwashing would be only one of several means to achieve belief and I'm only concerned with the effort made by the believer, not the means by which belief is achieved in the non-believer.

I'm saying, simply, that the believers of some religions have a moral obligation to save non-believers from eternal damnation. Christianity is an example of this (previously established) and except for any Christian sects that don't believe in Hell (not aware of any, just covering my bases), all Christians have a moral obligation to convince non-believers of the truth that they are aware of. I don't see this happening on the scale that it should and so I would level a charge of immoral behaviour against those Christians because of their inaction. They are simply allowing non-believers to go to Hell rather than making whatever effort is required to prevent it.

This was where I came in

This is the claim that I have been responding to all along.

Which explains the confusion, but that's a separate issue from the one I thought I was discussing with you. Since that's now sorted out, where do you stand on the 'moral obligation' claim I've made?

If you want we can agree that there's a moral obligation, or even just use it as a hypothetical, and jump directly to the lengths it would be acceptable to go to to meet that obligation, such as brainwashing. At this point, I'm not sure where I stand on that. Surely it would be a conflict to use immoral means to meet a moral obligation, and I think that even with the best interests at heart and for the best reasons, brainwashing has to be considered immoral? Or not. Not sure. There's probably a consequentialist argument in there somewhere, or an 'end justifies the means' argument.

There is and I'm just about to leave the office but I'll be back to this later or tomorrow.

You got your BT sorted out yet?

Cool now that the confusion is cleared up I'll do my best to answer this.

There's two perspectives here the first is the perspective of the person who holds such a belief. If that person believes that converting someone to a set of beliefs saves them from eternal damnation then they should employ whatever means available to them to convert that person. Arguments can be constructed on deontological, consequentialist and virtue theoretic grounds that the believer is compelled by their faith to convert non-believers. Their faith may dictate it is a duty to convert people, that the consequences of not converting someone is to do them a moral harm and that the virtuous person undertakes unpleasant acts for the souls of others. So yes if a person holds such a belief then they may consider their motivations entirely moral.

However there is the perspective of the rest of us and those arguments only hold purchase when we accept their premises and we may not. So just as they consider themselves morally obliged to convert people we may still consider their acts immoral because we disagree that their acts are saving souls.

No.... holy crap..... BT.....

So, would any believer not doing everything in their power to save non-believers be failing to meet a moral obligation? (And one that it's difficult to imagine there being a greater obligation then, after all, we're talking about saving people from spending an eternity in torment, what could supersede the importance of that?)

Agreed, but should this prevent believers from doing what they know is right? It's the very fact of non-belief that creates the obligation in the first place.

Any believe that believes that not doing everything in their power to save non-believers would be failing to meet a moral obligation. This is very different from saying that every believer not doing everything in their power would be failing to meet a moral obligation.

If there is a moral obligation to not do certain things, such as not to brainwash people, then that would "supersede" (the word limit is better) the means available to fulfill the other moral obligation.

If your list of moral obligations is more than one item long, then it makes sense to balance moral obligations against each other, rather than being myopic.