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thelittledoctor comments on The ethics of breaking belief - Less Wrong Discussion
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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.
Magically animated arhgeba obzo? (rot13)