In my view, this stretches “coercive” past any reasonable breaking point. Inherent in the right to free speech is the right in some circumstances to lie – or at least the right to be free from defending everything you say against accusations of untruth.
Plenty of actions “limit another’s autonomy,” but are not coercive because they are in exercise of another’s autonomy. The general principle is caveat emptor, and while we certainly craft exceptions for fraud, they are not all-encompassing.
“Pushing their truth” is a crass and biased formulation. One can proselytize respectfully and without being aggressive or coercive. You are proselytizing a crassly anti-missionary point of view. How do you think you are doing?
I’m sorry; I don’t understand what you are saying. The dictionary defines proselytize as: to induce someone to convert to one’s faith. Induce is defined as “cause”. Sounds a bit coercive to me. But either way, “crass and biased” seems a bit over the top. What is so crass about “pushing”. How’s that different from inducing or causing?
Being so convinced you are right that you feel the need to change other people’s ideas is in fact pushing, and you can’t assume you are right and everyone else is wrong “respectfully”. If you have respect you will let others think as they choose!
From the viewpoint of a non-believer of course proselytizing is aggressive. But Christians actually believe in their religion. How could they not wish to spread the message of salvation to all mankind? Aren’t they specifically bid so to do in their New Testament?
As with many things it all depends on where you’re standing. As an atheist myself I must say I have respect for muscular Christianity. The ones I don’t respect are the mealy-mouthed ones with their talk of ‘all worshipping the same God’, ‘must respect other religions’. Why? Your religion is either right or it’s wrong. If it’s right then the other guy’s is wrong and you should have the balls to say so. If yours is wrong or you’re unsure about it then switch to another one or, better still, embrace rationality.
“Muscular” Christians? You mean the ones who blow up abortion clinics or kill doctors in the name of their faith? Give me mealy mouths any day of the week.
As an atheist I find proselytizing annoying. I think it’s wrong. I am not opposed to having a debate with someone about their religion as long as they don’t tie that to providing for the needy. Also all proselytizing doesn’t always go as expected. It’s clear that Muhammad was the victim of someone proselytizing. Arabia at the time of his birth was made up of polytheistic tribes. Someone taught him about the old and new testament. Early day christian missionaries I assume.
I think people offended by or afraid of proselytizing are cowards. They aren’t secure enough in their own beliefs or philosophies that they consider any intruding ideas to be an act of aggression or personal attack on them.
Basically, I think such people are whiny crybabies. People are so scared of religion, it’s silly. People like Mother Theresa honestly believed in what they were doing. They feel that they are helping someone when they talk about Christ, not practicing some form of extortion. I don’t understand why people have to make such a big deal about it. If you’re beliefs are different or you are an atheist, then you shouldn’t be so worried about it.
I mean, these days if you say “Jesus” and it isn’t in the form of a curse, people get so squeemish. Man up you pansies.
Did you just join so you could insult half the people in this thread?
Heavens no. I just have a knee jerk reaction towards sniveling and playing the victim and maybe my wording was a bit over the top. Nobody should get so bent out of shape about anyone else preaching what they believe. The idea that proselytizing is “forcing” some idea on another person is rubbish. Unless they are literally tying you down and torturing you a la Inquisition style or chopping off heads like a certain group in Syria and Iraq right now, then all it is, is speech.
There is a Jehovah Witness church just down the street where I live. I think they are weirdos and I have no desire to accept their view of things. But when one comes knocking at my door, as happens from time to time, I just politely tell them I’m not interested, and they politely leave. I don’t consider it an aggression on their part, they’re just doing what they believe is right and they aren’t being violent about it or something. I’m firm enough in my own beliefs not to worry about what they are saying effecting me in any appreciable way.
I used to be an atheist and I remember feeling really uncomfortable about anything religious penetrating my little bubble. I get the feeling. I spent my formative years a Christian and when I came to my new conclusions that the whole God thing was crap and religion was for ignorant people, I just hated it when those people who I then felt superior to would toss their rubbish at me like that.
But I also knew there wasn’t any ill will involved in it. People believe what they believe, and a lot of them feel like they are doing a good thing when they tell you about it. Not just good because “God said do this” or something, but they really think they are helping another person out. It’s like someone giving you a really crappy gift. You don’t like the gift, maybe you even really hate the gift. But they gave it because they care about you. There’s no sense in getting offended or raising a stink about it. Accept the gift graciously and toss it in the bin after they leave if you don’t like it.
Going through life being offended all of the time is exhausting, after all.
Perhaps an outgrowth of the whole safe spaces / trigger warning / censure on campus - industry. People are made uncomfortable by ideas they disagree with or which are new to them, and the tools with which to deal with disagreeable / new ideas have been deliberately withheld from them, so they react with fear or hatred or in other ways which are totally disproportional to the problem.
When I get approached by someone proselyting I say: nope. And that’s the end of that. It’s really not big of an issue. Unless you want to make it so – or unless disagreeable / new ideas make you deeply uncomfortably, and then you have bigger problems.
You hear what you want to hear.
Proselytize:
[ul]
[li] to induce someone to convert to one’s faith [Merriam-Webster[/li][li] to encourage or induce people to join a religious movement, political party, or other cause or organization. [Wiktionary][/li][li] to convert or attempt to convert (someone) from one religion, belief, or opinion to another [OED][/li][li] to try to persuade someone to change his or her religious beliefs, political party, etc., to your own [Cambridge Dictionaries Online][/li][li] to try to persuade someone to switch to your religious beliefs or your way of living [vocabulaty.com][/ul][/li]
As for ‘induce’, Google offers as synonyms:
[ul]
[li]persuade, convince, prevail upon, get, make, prompt, move, inspire, influence, encourage, motivate; coax into, wheedle into, cajole into, talk into, prod into …[/li][/ul]
Which is precisely what you’re doing here, and it may well be characteristic of some proselytizers, but I’ve seen Christian missionaries at soup kitchens and PADS shelters and elsewhere whose focus was on helping others while gently making available their religious convictions. Their principle ‘need’ appeared to be the ‘need’ to serve those in need.