Because we think something is right or wrong or because we like the consequences or don't like the consequences of something, does not make it right or wrong.  Our views are prejudiced by our beliefs, our culture, our personality, our interests and the powerful human ability to rationalize what we want into what is right.

Right and wrong exist separately from these things and must be inferred rationally from fundamental principles, not from what we feel.

For example, speaking up in defense of "truth."  If something is true then it seems anything we say or do to defend and spread the truth is right.  Hence we see pious fraud on these boards, no end of rationalizing the use of propaganda on these boards (of course if we are doing it in favor of the truth then it is not propaganda in our eyes but instead using powerful tools to try to overcome "irrational" views of others (it's seen as proper to use irrational methods to fight irrationality).

The thing is, we get a charge out of someone's being roasted on the stick of ridicule and mockery (and we compound the sin by calling it "irony.")  This pleasure to us justifies it and makes it right.  Of course this is absurd and indeed pushes evil.

The thing to remember is that our "truth" is not necessarily another's, and if we would find real truth we must use evidence and reason, not "irony" and other forms of unreasoned argument.  I don't know if roasting someone with irony ever works to change their mind -- I think it more likely to harden their view -- but even if it did succeed doing so would be unethical.

I think it may be some need to see that mockery is a form of propaganda, not of reasoned argument.

I watched a preacher on TV awhile ago mocking evolutionary theory -- basically walking around in an "ape"-like posture and making grunting noises and asking the audience if they thought claims of an ape ancestry for humanity made any sense, to which the believing (and one assumes selected) audience noisily laughed and shouted no.

I could readily identify at least three propaganda techniques going on -- bandwagon (the creation of an atmosphere of unanimity of opinion), plain folks (appeals to "common sense" and personal opinion as opposed to deferral to the views of the trained and wise), and "card stacking" (misrepresenting or even outright lying about the view being attacked -- evolution does not claim we are descended from apes but that we are apes).

That ridicule does not involve reasoning and contemplative thought but instead appeals to a semi-sadistic glee people get out of discomfiture of those they don't agree with is pretty obvious.  As such it should have no part in serious discussion and whenever it is detected the perpetrator. whether one likes what is going on or not, should be discredited.

I have a friend, in fact one of my best of friends, who is an extremely active Caodaist (a local Vietnamese syncretic religion dating from the beginning of the twentieth century stemming from French spiritualism but containing dollops of pretty much every religion around).

He said to me once, at some point you just have to decide whether to believe or not to believe, I have decided to believe and you have decided to not believe.

I see this as a cop-out.  He was raised in this religious system and indoctrinated with it as a child, and so all his instincts cause him to want to believe, and when he believes he is rewarded with feelings of peace and joy and when he doubts he is punished by feelings of guilt and fear and hopelessness.  Our instincts work that way to get us to do what natural selection has wired into us to do, and natural selection has wired us to follow the norms and beliefs of our culture.  In a more primitive environment this is important in the survival of the group.

I think it takes a pretty strong will to override these emotions for intellectual reasons (intellectual honesty and rigor), and not too many people have what it takes, and even those who do usually are burdened most of their lives with residual emotional battles that end up with the person hating the religion of their culture.

Now I see examples of people willing to commit atrocities in the name of their beliefs, and die for them (the notion that a loving God would never expect such a thing from its followers is not rational) and struggle with cognitive dissonances out the kazoo all their lives, just to get the "high" of joy and peace every now and then from succumbing to the instinct.  What a terrible trick evolution has played on us -- in many ways -- this belief trap is just one of them.