Proselytizing or Criticizing

[Ashoka]

In my view, proselytizing is always wrong. I really dislike missionaries who go to other countries especially, who try to convert people away from their culture, their religion, their home, to Christianity (I mention it specifically because it is the religion that proselytizes the most).

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Oh great, a forum mod to whom I can bring up the same concerns I'd just recently brought up with the OP's author.

I haven't been on the mod team here for several years.

One of our fellow RF comrades told me my religion of Christian Matrixism was wrong, and left this critique simply at that. I welcome constructive criticism of my beliefs, but just claiming Christian Matrixism is wrong without explaining why this simulation hypothesis is incorrect, is that wrongly proselytizing against my beliefs in God being a sims controller, a reality-based virtual reality world programmer of human consciousness?

No. Why would that be proselytizing?

 

[Suave]

I haven't been on the mod team here for several years.


No. Why would that be proselytizing?

Because with our current level of knowledge and technology, Christian Matrixism is neither verifiable nor falsifiable, meaning it can not be proven as being wrong or considered as being factually true.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

But on some level, aren’t they really the same thing? If I am criticizing, or even mocking, an idea am I not attempting to convince someone, am I not “proselytizing” my viewpoint?

I don't think so. You can use mocking to convince someone but mocking in itself isn't convincing a person to change religions. For example, if I wanted to change christian X by mocking him, I'd discredit his religion in respect to mine. If I didn't care for what he believed (not trying to convince him), my intentions would be to discredit his religion because of my ill opinions of it not because I want him to leave or change to my faith.

Many christian religious sects are very nice but at the same time they feel they are supposed to convince people to follow their belief despite the other person's views. Then you have those religious sects that talk ill about other denominations and condemn them as their intentions rather than convert. I personally don't care for the former proselytizing because it's much more settle (sneaky I guess). The latter I disrespect (the mocking) but at the heart of it they're being quite direct (personal experiences with both examples) and honest.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Because with our current level of knowledge and technology, Christian Matrixism is neither verifiable nor falsifiable, meaning it can not be proven as being wrong or considered as being factually true.

What in that would make it "proselytizing" to merely disagree with it?

 

[Valjean]

Criticizing is apprising one of errors. Making fun of someone is mocking -- a whole different thing.
Biblical criticism, critical analysis, literary criticism -- not mockery.

 

[JustGeorge]

Criticizing is apprising one of errors. Making fun of someone is mocking -- a whole different thing.
Biblical criticism, critical analysis, literary criticism -- not mockery.

To an extent, it depends on how its done.

Criticism can quickly become mockery when done in a condescending manner.

 

[Suave]

What in that would make it "proselytizing" to merely disagree with it?

You are not proselytizing by disagreeing with my religion of Christian Matrixism, as long as you don,t pass judgement by arbitrarily deeming an unfalsifiable theological simulation hypothesis as being wrong.

 

[Kooky]

To an extent, it depends on how its done.

Criticism can quickly become mockery when done in a condescending manner.

The same can be said of proselytism.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

You are not proselytizing by disagreeing with my religion of Christian Matrixism, as long as you don,t pass judgement by arbitrarily deeming an unfalsifiable theological simulation hypothesis as being wrong.

From your description, it sounds like I'd consider it not even wrong... i.e. worse than wrong.

But why would "arbitrarily deeming an unfalsifiable theological simulation hypothesis as being wrong" be proselytizing?

 

[Suave]

From your description, it sounds like I'd consider it not even wrong... i.e. worse than wrong.

But why would "arbitrarily deeming an unfalsifiable theological simulation hypothesis as being wrong" be proselytizing?

Because that might discourage somebody from considering Nick Boston as having logically deduced us living in a computer simulation. I am curious to know how could an unfalsifiable theological simulation hypothesis like Christian Maxtrism be considered as being worse than w rong?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Because that might discourage somebody from considering the notion of there being a simu

Teaching someone critical thinking skills might also discourage someone from considering it. Getting them excited about some other hobby - model railroading, for instance - that fills the time they would have used for religion might also discourage them.

You need more than that for something to be "proselytizing."

 

[Suave]

Teaching someone critical thinking skills might also discourage someone from considering it. Getting them excited about some other hobby - model railroading, for instance - that fills the time they would have used for religion might also discourage them.

You need more than that for something to be "proselytizing."

Sorry my bad, I edited the post you promptly replied to the original unedited version. The edited version mentions the critical thinker logically inclined Nick Boston.

 

[Suave]

Teaching someone critical thinking skills might also discourage someone from considering it. Getting them excited about some other hobby - model railroading, for instance - that fills the time they would have used for religion might also discourage them.

You need more than that for something to be "proselytizing."

Makes sense to me., Hopefully you would not consider religious discussions on RF as a useless waste of time...

 

[Aupmanyav]

Proselytizing- trying to convert others to a religion
Criticizing- making fun of others for their religion

Proselytizing is foolish. Trying to dominate others. Trying to make people see 'Emperor's new clothes' while having no evidence for what they say.
Criticizing is fun. That is how foolish things should be dealt with.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Sorry my bad, I edited the post you promptly replied to the original unedited version. The edited version mentions the critical thinker logically inclined Nick Boston.

I have no idea who Nick Boston is (and don't really care).

Because that might discourage somebody from considering Nick Boston as having logically deduced us living in a computer simulation. I am curious to know how could an unfalsifiable theological simulation hypothesis like Christian Maxtrism be considered as being worse than w rong?

Because it's unfalsifiable. You would need more than you have - a test for your claim - to meet the threshold of being wrong. Being wrong would be an improvement; at least being wrong would mean you'd found something testable.

Edit: there's a quote in the link I provided that gives another perspective: "what you said was so confused that one could not tell whether it was nonsense or not." Claims that have been found false are at least high-quality enough to be coherent and testable.

 

[Suave]

I have no idea who Nick Boston is (and don't really care).

Because it's unfalsifiable. You would need more than you have - a test for your claim - to meet the threshold of being wrong. Being wrong would be an improvement; at least being wrong would mean you'd found something testable.

Edit: there's a quote in the link I provided that gives another perspective: "what you said was so confused that one could not tell whether it was nonsense or not." Claims that have been found false are at least high-quality enough to be coherent and testable.

The simulation of human consciousness might very well be testable with advanced knowledge and technology.

Indications of us living in a simulation have only recently been discovered by scientists. As technology advances, and scientists become closer to being able to model and read a simulation of human consciousness, the simulation hypothesis will become more widely accepted.

Maybe it's indeed lights out and game over for everybody after ionic currents stop flowing across their brains' neurons, but who among us know for sure his/her character won't be reanimated or re-simulated by God?

A study conducted by Henry Markram and his team at the Blue Brain project have successfully simulated elements of a rat’s neocortical column, a complex layer of brain tissue common to all mammalian species. " Henry Markram at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne and his team built their model based on experimental measurements of rat brain slices. The simulation represents roughly 37 million synapses, or neuronal connections, in the brain region that receives sensory information from the whiskers and other parts of the body. Using the model, the team simulated rat whisker movement and saw similar neuronal responses to those observed in rat experiments."

Computer model of rat-brain part - Nature.

I realize a computer simulation of a rat's neocortical column is nowhere near the complexity of a computer simulation of an entire living human brain, but this does demonstrate at least a bit of progress so far being made towards an entire human brain's consciousness being simulated by a computer.

Perhaps when scientists have figured out how to read the actual results of a consciousness simulation, then the simulation hypothesis will become a widely accepted theory.

Until then, I suppose the simulation hypothesis will mostly have its doubters. Simulated Suave lets out a big sigh!

I concur with Nick Bostrom's reasoning why we are very likely living in a simulated reality.

Bostrom argues that at least ONE of the following propositions must be true:

(1) The human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a “posthuman” stage.

(2) Any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof).

(3) We are almost certainly living in a computer simulation.

Since there is a significant chance that a future generation of technologically advanced post-humans will run ancestor-simulations by powerful computers, then we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation.

 

[fantome profane]

I don't think so. You can use mocking to convince someone but mocking in itself isn't convincing a person to change religions. For example, if I wanted to change christian X by mocking him, I'd discredit his religion in respect to mine. If I didn't care for what he believed (not trying to convince him), my intentions would be to discredit his religion because of my ill opinions of it not because I want him to leave or change to my faith.

I take your point. But either way, if you are trying to discredit a religion you are trying to convince someone of something, even if it is just that they should reject that religion. You might not care what they choose to replace it with. If that is not proselytizing it is a close cousin.

(note also that the person or people you are trying to convince may not be the same people you are mocking)

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

In your opinion is one worse than the other? Are they both wrong? Proselytizing- trying to convert others to a religion. Criticizing- making fun of others for their religion

If you mean proselytizing in general, the less the better. I believe that organized religion is a net negative to society, and the less of it in the world, the better.

If you mean how do I feel about being proselytized to, I don't mind. I'm not interested in hearing it live or on TV, but though the practice is forbidden, we still see arguments citing Messengers or the Bible or Qur'an here on RF. If I do, assuming that it's not all theology, I'll read it for the purpose of evaluating the claims and the reasoning.

Regarding ridicule, if you're referring to RF in particular, I don't see people making fun of others for their religion here. The skeptics mostly just critique the argument or claim, or correct the science. If ridicule appears, it's usually due to the debating behavior of the theist, not his religious beliefs.

The most contentious threads here resulting in ridicule of late have been semantic arguments, where most of the thread is about what words like faith, atheist, and claim mean - not religious beliefs,(theology), which aren't really discussed by the skeptics. If you want to say that you believe Christ rose from the grave, I won't argue with you. But if you offer scripture as evidence of that, I might challenge using scripture as evidence, though not the belief itself. I generally don't progress to ridicule, but if I did, it wouldn't be of the religion.

Still, how do I feel about ridicule in general?

Here are some thoughts on the place of ridicule in discourse:

• "The problem with today’s world is that everyone believes they have the right to express their opinion AND have others listen to it. The correct statement of individual rights is that everyone has the right to an opinion, but crucially, that opinion can be roundly ignored and even made fun of, particularly if it is demonstrably nonsense!" - Brian Cox

• "Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus." -Thomas Jefferson

• "We can offer reasoned argument to those that can care about such things, and appeal to the consciences of those that have them, but ridicule is useful to counter those not amenable to either." - anon

So, in answer to your question, neither is really a problem for me, but proselytization would be worse. Ridicule only hurts feelings.