Would you sacrifice a complete stranger for your religion (very hypothetical question)?

Question

Suppose you are placed in the following hypothetical situation: You are kidnapped by some evil mastermind named Mr. X. Mr. X injects you with a poison that kills you in 1 hour. Nothing can stop you from dying.

Mr. X introduces you to Louie. Louie trusts you and would follow any advice you give him. Mr. X explains that you are to tell Louie not to follow your religion. It doesn't matter what options are open to Louie; you are to tell him that your religion is false and that Louie must never pursue that faith.

If you do that, Mr. X frees Louie to continue life as usual, except that he is convinced your religion is false and will never convert to your religion. If you allow Louie one shred of belief in your religion, then Mr. X tortures Louie for 45 minutes before killing him in front of your eyes. I know it's crazy rhetoric, but try to treat this as serious. Would you dissuade Louie from following your religion?

Please state your religion along with your answer.

Note: This question was posted once before but underwent technical difficulties that caused all the answers to be lost. If you answered this before, I would appreciate hearing your input again.

Note: For purposes of this question, I will consider atheism a religion. I also consider different sects to be the same religion. So, a Presbyterian trying to convert Louie to Episcopalian would still get Louie killed. The important distinction is if you are willing to persuade Louie to follow a path that is very clearly not friendly to yours.

The issue with Yahoo! Answers has been partially resolved. While I lost some answers, I have plenty with these two threads:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AhB_MKNNo5UrpZaIzvMLTizsy6IX?qid=20061106070237AATO7kl
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AsaNFcp2ztuh7mZyI10wv4_sy6IX?qid=20061107202625AafJneA

I crunched some numbers and have some interesting percentages. Of the answers I received (including private responses), I have received these numbers:
0 out of 1 agnostic would let Louie die (0%)
1 out of 6 atheists would let Louie die (17%)
12 out of 13 Christians would let Louie die (92%)
0 out of 1 Jew would let Louie die (0%)
0 out of 1 Muslim would let Louie die (0%)
0 out of 2 pagans would let Louie die (0%)

1 out of 7 nontheists would let Louie die (14%)
12 out of 17 theists would let Louie die (71%)

Answer 1

A human life is more important than religious (or non-religious) belief, so I would tell Louie anything that would allow him to live. I am an atheist.

Note - also, Louie could educate himself later, and could realize the truth for himself.

Follow-up note - You have asked an excellent question. I've read the responses here, and frankly I am disgusted. I am getting a better understanding of what religion does to people. Christians would allow a stranger to be tortured and killed instead of dissuading someone from following Christianity. Non-believers place a higher value on this life, the only one that we are 100% sure of living. No wonder religion has caused so much war and hatred in this world. I'm astounded.

Answer 2

so i have to convince Louie that my religion is not worth following,

but does Mr. X know what my religion is. (i will assume that he does for this question.)'


I am a Celtic Pagan. we are about life. and we believe that there is more than one path to a peaceful afterlife. so i would talk Louie out of being a Celtic Pagan and put him on the road to East Indian Shamanism or Buddhism. this way i have fulfilled my desire to save Louie from a painful death. and put him on track to find something that will help him attain spiritual enlightenment.

Answer 3

I'd let Louie live, another's life is worth more than just trying to save face. I'm an atheist.


Anyway wouldn't Lestat be somewhere around? I'm sure he would help! =P

Answer 4

I would try to convince Louie to kill Mr X.
Atheism, the other brand of canned spam.

Answer 5

So, how many times are you going to ask the same thing? And how many times do I have to say I would rather Louie hated the guts of my beliefs than lose his life?

BTW, are those "technical problems" reports for repeated postings?

Answer 6

I would tell Louie all about Jesus and lead him to Christ, Then Louie and I would Be in Heaven together with Jesus.
Obviously I am a Christian/ Assemblies of God

Answer 7

ok, so enable me get this good, i'm a Christian, so for the applications of your senario, all denominations of Christianity are an similar and that i could not attempt to enfluence Louie to any kind of Christianity? Is that good? Assuming that is, the following is my answer. i might want to have good the following verbal substitute with Louie: i might want to tell him the alternative I even ought to make. That i can both tell him to not keep on with the religion that has/does mean a lot to me and that i trust strongly in, and that he might want to stay a everyday existence. O R i can tell him to adhere to the religion that i have chosen and that by so doing it would want to effect in an excruciatingly painful lack of existence of him by Mr. X. Then i might want to ask Louie what he might want to like for me to do. It appears like Louie may be someone who's mentally "sluggish". if that is the case then i might want to regulate my tale, yet nonetheless go away him with the alternative to make. i won't be able to make that variety of determination on my own. i might want to must be able to communicate with Louie about it, after all, if i'm already dieing, then that is his existence we are speaking about. He has a decision contained in the count number. there's a huge difference between trust and following "any" suggestion given to you, and taking the flexibility to settle on on remote from someone. i'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Answer 8

Ok. I'm a Christian. This life is not really all that important other then to prepare you for eternity. With that in mind its bye bye Louie. Sorry about the torture, we will have a long time to work things out when we get home to Heaven.
Cool Question.
May GOD richly bless you.

Answer 9

I will never renounce my faith. Deny Jesus? No. The body is only temporary. The soul is forever. I would not tell 'Louie' a lie. My religion is Christian. My faith is Southern Baptist.

Answer 10

No. I consider that the only thing that is more precious than my temporary life (or Louie's) is our eternal lives. I am christian. )Roman Catholic)