@sand

> It's only natural to try to work at things from their angle.

There's working from their angle (that is, knowing your audience and trying to treat their concerns as real), but that's not what this is criticizing. The criticism is about using someone else's beliefs instrumentally: treating their beliefs not as something you acknowledge as a valid concern but as a string you can pull.

It's motivated reasoning and shitting on someone whose beliefs the speaker doesn't respect and presumes to interpret more accurately than the person that holds the beliefs, you know? Using a standard that you don't fit to measure someone else is hypocritical--and the use of it almost always accompanies this mocking holier-than-thou (ironically) attitude--but there's also telling someone what you think they're supposed to believe based on a half-assed assertion about their beliefs. So, you know, "Jesus says you're supposed to do what I said!" is a very different thing from "Isn't this a Christian principle?"

> It's the "so you have to do it" part that's shitty

Yeah, I think we're on the same page more or less. I think that's the dividing line between shitty/reasonable: is it just a way to make someone do something or is it respect for their belief system?