I wrote: > The reason the metaphor breaks down at the point of physically dragging them > out of the house is that there is no way to physically force someone to > freely believe (although other non-physical approaches to brainwashing may > be effective).
To which Robin replied: Yes, as I said: under fundamentalist logic Inquisition-style methods can be condemned as *ineffective*, but not necessarily as morally wrong. It may be true that some fundamentalists would try it if they thought it would work but the reason I didn't address the moral aspect was because it was assumed that it would be an immoral thing to do. I am sorry I missed the part of your original statement where you distinguished between effectiveness and morality. But I think they are also somewhat related. If you remove the effectiveness of something, you remove the moral authority to do it. How moral would it be to do something that was ineffective (sounds like an argument I have heard before used against capital punishment)? As to the comment that, "You can say that the Inquisition's methods were ineffective, but you can't say they're morally wrong", why not? Evidently, I can say almost anything is moral or immoral since I haven't yet seen anyone who can give me clear empirical evidence of why something is moral or immoral. Evidently, morality is defined by fiat or simply by whatever the majority currently believes to be moral. It is fun to distinguish reasonable, reflective moderates like ourselves from those wacky fundamentalists. They are the ultimate outgroup. Rick Dr. Rick Froman Associate Professor of Psychology John Brown University [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
