It really depends on your own personal moral system (assuming ethical relativism). In order to answer your question, I would need to know what you consider moral. I’ll attempt to infer your morals from your post, and then I’ll try to answer your question accordingly.
It sounds from your post like you’re torn between two alternatives, both of which you consider moral, but which are mutually exclusive. On one hand, it seems that you’re morally devoted to the causes of atheism and truth-seeking; thus, you desire to convert others to this cause. But on the other hand, you’re morally devoted to your friends’ happiness, and you realize that if they do become atheists, then they will lose their social grounding (not to mention the emotional benefits they receive from being religious).
It sounds like you’re very devoted to truth-seeking, and that you believe atheism to be the truth. (Side-note: as a Bayesian, I distrust anyone who claims to know “the truth”. The point of Bayesianism is that we don’t know the truth; all we have are probabilities, and thus we can approach the truth but never attain it.) Anyway, given your devotion to truth-seeking, I would expect you to want to avoid Dark Arts-ish methods. If atheism is true, then we (and your Catholic friends) should want to believe that atheism is true, but we should want to believe it because of empirical evidence and rational argument, not based on the words of some authority figure (especially since authority figures have proven unreliable in the realm of religion).
If you deconvert your friends using Dark Arts-ish methods, but you don’t teach them the virtues of truth-seeking, then atheism will become just another religion to them, handed down by new authority figures (you and “Science”, for instance). They’ll accept atheism in the same way they accepted religion: with blind faith. If your goal is truth-seeking, then you should want to teach your friends skepticism, not atheism. And if you’re so interested in converting your friends to atheism that you would sacrifice the virtues of truth-seeking, perhaps you should re-examine your motivations.
You note that the God issue is a source of tension between you and your friends; thus, I suspect that you want your friends to be athiests because it would relieve social tensions, not because you are devoted to spreading the virtues of truth-seeking. Because you are considering using the Dark Arts, it seems to me that your appeal to truth-seeking is a rationalization. So what you’re really asking is, “Is it moral to make my friends’ lives very difficult in order to relieve a social tension that I find unpleasant?” Most moral systems would say “no”.
Perhaps I’m being a bit unfair to you. Perhaps your true goal is to encourage truth seeking, but it’s easier to convert atheists to truth-seekers than it is Catholics. Or perhaps you believe that atheism will make the world a better place by eliminating holy wars and other problems caused by religion. If that’s the case, then I apologize for the harshness of this analysis. Also, fwiw, my personal moral system says that converting your friends to atheism would be wrong, so I’m likely to be biased. Take this (and everything else in life, of course) with a grain of salt, and good luck to you with whatever you decide to do. =)
If you deconvert your friends using Dark Arts-ish methods, but you don’t teach them the virtues of truth-seeking, then atheism will become just another religion to them, handed down by new authority figures.
Exactly this. Let’s do something better than just authority figures walking around, each one trying to convert people by Dark Arts. Try to find something that is above “my faith vs. your faith”.
What I usually do is express that although I consider all religions elaborate fairy tales, in my opinion there is no big harm in believing anything, as far as the religion does not make one do crazy things, such as murdering people who disagree with them. Therefore I don’t even try to convert people. (I just make it obvious that their attempts to convert me are futile. If necessary, I listen to their arguments, and they just say that they don’t seem very impressive to me.)
For an average person, being religious is really not a big cost; there are probably other things in their life which harm them more. For example, the greatest cost in my opinion, wasting one’s Sundays in church, is comparable by wasting time procrastinating online. Limitations in sexual life because of faith are comparable with limitations in sexual life because of lack of social skills. Belief in angels is not worse than belief in horoscopes of UFOs. Etc.
On the other way, expressing my tolerance to religion is not completely innocent. First, I indirectly remind people that religions make people do crazy things; that modern theists are culturally closer to modern atheists than to homicidal old-testament prophets, or medieval crusaders. According to religion, those homicidal guys were the cool guys, but most theists would accept that only in far mode. (A religious fanatic is one that accepts their religion also in near mode.) Second, instead of discussing “the Truth”, I turn attention to the instrumental side of religion. This is subversive even if I claim than religion is instrumentally useful, because theists are expected to believe regardless of personal benefits; considering personal benefits as relevant is already a heresy. Third, Pascal’s mugging actually works in my favor, because people don’t like to be mugged. I can accept people being religious, but their priest probably would not accept them considering ateism; therefore I am the person they can speak with freely.
I think it is important to avoid mindkilling. Also I think that theism is based on mindkilling, so by avoiding mindkilling one is already making a silent statement against theism. An attempt to convert someone might provoke resistance, or warn other people in their social circle to increase their pressure and maybe even make them break contact with me. On the other hand, just knowing me personally is a silent everyday reminder that being an atheist is normal.
You’re absolutely right that my primary motivation is simply that I WANT to do it. But ethical reasoning is about what is right in spite of my preferences, is it not? So the question of truth-versus-negative-consequences remains an important one.
Your point about truth-seeking versus atheism as a religion is a very good one. I do generally think that converting atheists to truth-seekers is easier than converting Catholics to truth-seekers, but I had not considered the possibility that I might, rather than failing entirely (which is not unlikely), fail at the halfway point and end up with atheist zealots for friends, which would DEFINITELY create more problems than it would solve.
That was a very thoughtful piece of advice. Thank you.
Aha! I think I was misreading your post, then; I assumed you were presenting truth-seeking as a reason why you wanted your friends to be atheists, as well as a reason why converting them would be moral. Sorry for assuming you didn’t know your own motivations!
Heavens, no. I want my friends to be atheists for purely selfish reasons. It so happens that some of those selfish reasons involve things like “I want my friends to know what’s true”, but most of them are reasons like “I want this awkward piece of the relationship gone” and “It’s a shame none of you believe in casual premarital sex, because I could really go for an orgy right now” and “If I have to hear you talk about how wrong gay marriage is ONE MORE TIME I do declare I shall explode.”
In other words, I really do not trust my personal desires as an ethical system, because in a vacuum I’m a pretty unmitigated asshole.
It really depends on your own personal moral system (assuming ethical relativism). In order to answer your question, I would need to know what you consider moral. I’ll attempt to infer your morals from your post, and then I’ll try to answer your question accordingly.
It sounds from your post like you’re torn between two alternatives, both of which you consider moral, but which are mutually exclusive. On one hand, it seems that you’re morally devoted to the causes of atheism and truth-seeking; thus, you desire to convert others to this cause. But on the other hand, you’re morally devoted to your friends’ happiness, and you realize that if they do become atheists, then they will lose their social grounding (not to mention the emotional benefits they receive from being religious).
It sounds like you’re very devoted to truth-seeking, and that you believe atheism to be the truth. (Side-note: as a Bayesian, I distrust anyone who claims to know “the truth”. The point of Bayesianism is that we don’t know the truth; all we have are probabilities, and thus we can approach the truth but never attain it.) Anyway, given your devotion to truth-seeking, I would expect you to want to avoid Dark Arts-ish methods. If atheism is true, then we (and your Catholic friends) should want to believe that atheism is true, but we should want to believe it because of empirical evidence and rational argument, not based on the words of some authority figure (especially since authority figures have proven unreliable in the realm of religion).
If you deconvert your friends using Dark Arts-ish methods, but you don’t teach them the virtues of truth-seeking, then atheism will become just another religion to them, handed down by new authority figures (you and “Science”, for instance). They’ll accept atheism in the same way they accepted religion: with blind faith. If your goal is truth-seeking, then you should want to teach your friends skepticism, not atheism. And if you’re so interested in converting your friends to atheism that you would sacrifice the virtues of truth-seeking, perhaps you should re-examine your motivations.
You note that the God issue is a source of tension between you and your friends; thus, I suspect that you want your friends to be athiests because it would relieve social tensions, not because you are devoted to spreading the virtues of truth-seeking. Because you are considering using the Dark Arts, it seems to me that your appeal to truth-seeking is a rationalization. So what you’re really asking is, “Is it moral to make my friends’ lives very difficult in order to relieve a social tension that I find unpleasant?” Most moral systems would say “no”.
Perhaps I’m being a bit unfair to you. Perhaps your true goal is to encourage truth seeking, but it’s easier to convert atheists to truth-seekers than it is Catholics. Or perhaps you believe that atheism will make the world a better place by eliminating holy wars and other problems caused by religion. If that’s the case, then I apologize for the harshness of this analysis. Also, fwiw, my personal moral system says that converting your friends to atheism would be wrong, so I’m likely to be biased. Take this (and everything else in life, of course) with a grain of salt, and good luck to you with whatever you decide to do. =)
Exactly this. Let’s do something better than just authority figures walking around, each one trying to convert people by Dark Arts. Try to find something that is above “my faith vs. your faith”.
What I usually do is express that although I consider all religions elaborate fairy tales, in my opinion there is no big harm in believing anything, as far as the religion does not make one do crazy things, such as murdering people who disagree with them. Therefore I don’t even try to convert people. (I just make it obvious that their attempts to convert me are futile. If necessary, I listen to their arguments, and they just say that they don’t seem very impressive to me.)
For an average person, being religious is really not a big cost; there are probably other things in their life which harm them more. For example, the greatest cost in my opinion, wasting one’s Sundays in church, is comparable by wasting time procrastinating online. Limitations in sexual life because of faith are comparable with limitations in sexual life because of lack of social skills. Belief in angels is not worse than belief in horoscopes of UFOs. Etc.
On the other way, expressing my tolerance to religion is not completely innocent. First, I indirectly remind people that religions make people do crazy things; that modern theists are culturally closer to modern atheists than to homicidal old-testament prophets, or medieval crusaders. According to religion, those homicidal guys were the cool guys, but most theists would accept that only in far mode. (A religious fanatic is one that accepts their religion also in near mode.) Second, instead of discussing “the Truth”, I turn attention to the instrumental side of religion. This is subversive even if I claim than religion is instrumentally useful, because theists are expected to believe regardless of personal benefits; considering personal benefits as relevant is already a heresy. Third, Pascal’s mugging actually works in my favor, because people don’t like to be mugged. I can accept people being religious, but their priest probably would not accept them considering ateism; therefore I am the person they can speak with freely.
I think it is important to avoid mindkilling. Also I think that theism is based on mindkilling, so by avoiding mindkilling one is already making a silent statement against theism. An attempt to convert someone might provoke resistance, or warn other people in their social circle to increase their pressure and maybe even make them break contact with me. On the other hand, just knowing me personally is a silent everyday reminder that being an atheist is normal.
You’re absolutely right that my primary motivation is simply that I WANT to do it. But ethical reasoning is about what is right in spite of my preferences, is it not? So the question of truth-versus-negative-consequences remains an important one.
Your point about truth-seeking versus atheism as a religion is a very good one. I do generally think that converting atheists to truth-seekers is easier than converting Catholics to truth-seekers, but I had not considered the possibility that I might, rather than failing entirely (which is not unlikely), fail at the halfway point and end up with atheist zealots for friends, which would DEFINITELY create more problems than it would solve.
That was a very thoughtful piece of advice. Thank you.
Aha! I think I was misreading your post, then; I assumed you were presenting truth-seeking as a reason why you wanted your friends to be atheists, as well as a reason why converting them would be moral. Sorry for assuming you didn’t know your own motivations!
Heavens, no. I want my friends to be atheists for purely selfish reasons. It so happens that some of those selfish reasons involve things like “I want my friends to know what’s true”, but most of them are reasons like “I want this awkward piece of the relationship gone” and “It’s a shame none of you believe in casual premarital sex, because I could really go for an orgy right now” and “If I have to hear you talk about how wrong gay marriage is ONE MORE TIME I do declare I shall explode.”
In other words, I really do not trust my personal desires as an ethical system, because in a vacuum I’m a pretty unmitigated asshole.
I am stealing this clause.
If it shows up in Elcenia, I do declare I shall explode from pure joy.
VOLTORB used Selfdestruct!
Magically animated arhgeba obzo? (rot13)