Aside from the obvious stupidity of such acts, I'd like to open a discussion on communication in general. How can we, in our views, communicate them in such a way as to not offend people and help them think critically about our views and their own? Is there a set format? Should one be aggressive at times?
What do you think is a moral way to communicate views and ideas?
The louder you are and the better your ability is to hold your audiences attention, the more likely you are to be successful at getting people to come round to your way of thinking, the strength of your argument sadly doesn't hold as much sway as it should. Unfortunately a lot of people twist facts and deliberately try to mislead their audience, but on the surface their argument can seem extremely strong, that is until you delve deeper. For example, when I watched "Loose Change" for the first time, I have to admit I thought there was a lot of evidence pointing to the fact that 9/11 was an inside job and they made a compelling case, but once I looked into it a bit more, I found out the documentary was incredibly misleading and sometimes contained outright lies and most if not all their arguments fell apart. (If you disagree that Loose Change was misleading, please don't argue about that here as it was just an example, my point really is it is easy to fool people with arguments that sound strong on the surface but don't stand up under scrutiny).
Personally, I try and go with the argument that makes the most sense, is factually accurate, has the most weight behind it and still stands up under scrutiny after lots of questions have been asked. If someone says that you shouldn't kill children or adults, I wont just accept what they've said, I'll ask "Why shouldn't you kill children or adults?" and if the response is "Because society functions better if we're not killing each other" I'll continue to ask why, until they might eventually say "because people will be living in total fear and trust would break down and society would not be able to function together if people were killing each other on wims, not to mention all the hurt and grief it causes one another". That would seem like quite a good argument, and unless someone on the counter side made a better argument, I'd go with that. It's important to break down arguments with questions. If someone were to say "you shouldn't kill people because it says it right here in the bible that you shouldn't" and I continued to ask why in the same way, we'd probably eventually get to a situation where the person has to argue that the bible truly is God's word, which is quite a hard thing to do I think and even if you could prove God's existence, you will have trouble proving that the bible was definitely divinely inspired. It will get quite messy anyway if you use the bible as your argument, definitely best to avoid that, that's not to say the bible is wrong of course but a lot of people will be unconvinced if you use it as the centre piece of your argument.
I think the person who uses the most rational, honest argument that stands up under investigation will have the most integrity in my book, but since a lot of this is subjective we can only make up our own minds. Since people can be quite clever with language and it's the loudest people who often get heard, it is important to question everything they say. For instance, on the pro-life side, someone might say "abortion is murder". We then need to put this argument under scrutiny, why is murder bad (or killing rather, as abortion isn't actually defined as murder in most places)? Well we have the argument in my last paragraph detailing why killing is bad. Problem being is that argument doesn't stack up for abortion, because people wont be living in fear of being aborted since they've already been born, so society is unlikely to break down because of it. So you have to find another reason why abortion is bad. One might be that 20% of fathers miss the unborn child (or the idea of having a child) and grieve its loss. And you could show polls backing this up and show some examples of fathers who have been hurt by their partner getting an abortion. That's a fair, honest, argument, we've broken it down and it is almost indisputable that this is a negative side to abortion (although you may dispute the legitamacy of the poll). Of course someone might respond to this argument by saying "the mother's feelings are more important" and again we have to go through the same process of asking why, and they might eventually tell us that it is the mother who has to take the risk of carrying the baby, a risk that sometimes results in her own death, pain, loss of career and so on. So we have to eventually weigh up which argument is stronger, which is subjective, so in the end you'll probably never get every person to agree with you, but listen to the arguments with an open mind.
I don't think there is any set format in which you should present your case, in answer to what is the most moral way to communicate your views, since this is also subjective I can only give my opinion, and that would be in virtually
all cases not to resort to violence, intimidation, destroying or damaging property and be honest with your argument. Sure your argument will always have a response that may or may not be as strong, but make sure it makes sense and doesn't completely fall apart under scrutiny, and you'll probably want to avoid doing or making any arguments where you can be perceived as a hypocrite.
When judging other peoples arguments, have an open mind, if they're making a stronger argument than you there is no shame in changing your mind, there is no need to stick to your guns just for the sake of it in an attempt to 'win', if you want to win argue on the side with the stronger arguments, even if sometimes it does go against popular opinion, that way it's still a challenge if a challenge is what floats your boat.
One other thing I do a lot is to avoid focusing on trying to convince the extremists, they rarely can be reached. Instead I try to convince those watching and listening. I've had good luck with that here and elsewhere.
Yeah, I think it is very difficult to change the minds of extremists on any side. I regularly visit another forum, that is nothing to do with Christianity, ethics or any of the rest of it, it's a sport's forum that is quite busy but some of the topics are of subjects you might see here, like gays, violence, abortion, religion, there's a lot of misogyny and homophobia as well, but I always try to present rational arguments and am pleasantly surprised that I have managed to change some minds on views they seemed to feel very strongly about, even managing to change the use of some people's insulting language (not swearing as I don't mind that, but everyday language that puts down entire groups, such as the disabled, women, certain races). On a forum that is largely unmoderated, anything goes, and is on the whole quite 'macho', it is quite a buzz if you manage to get a few people round to your way of thinking.
I can't say for sure, but I read some of the threads here and good arguments are put across (much better arguments than I ever present), and I don't see much sign of people changing their minds, I think it's because there aren't really that many people that make up the 'middle ground' here. My hunch is, is that there are some very intelligent people here who are wasting their time here, they'd be much better off visiting an unrelated forum of another interest, and presenting their arguments there, and they'd probably have a bigger audience.
The internet is a great forum to have debates, as you have time to check facts, and even if you don't change the mind of the person you are arguing with, you might change the minds of some of the people reading, especially if you keep your cool and don't get riled by insults that go below the belt. I think here, and maybe some of the very right wing racist sites are going to be the worst places to present rational arguments and have people other than the 'choir' agree with you. I'd encourage people here to use unrelated forums sometimes to have these discussions if they don't already.
