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How do you make a religious person actually pay attention?

To be more specific, I converse with a fundamentalist Christian person on a regular basis, and successfully made them watch and read numerous evolution-related videos and books (to name just a few, First Life and other series by Sir David Attenborough, Why Evolution is True by Jerry Coyne, selected articles from Talk.Origins, etc). The problem is that the person was taught to pretty much ignore anything that hints at evolution as an established fact. When explicitly inquired about their evolution-related thoughts of the TV series or book they read or watched, the Christian admits that the explanations are plausible, but says they feel that something is wrong. So, is there any efficient psychological technique to deal with that?

Answer 1189

Supply them with the tools to process things, first. The more you can reinforce logic skills, the harder it will be for them to conquer cognitive dissonance by dismissing evolution.

Try skeptic ideas and videos. Here be Dragons is a good example. Penn and Teller’s Bullshit is also pretty great. Also try Dawkin’s BBC series Enemies of Reason, as it mixes scientific skepticism with things like psychics and homeopathy with bits of skepticism about religion.

In short, strengthen their bond with reality and use roughly analogous situations, so they have the available tools and can see the similarities to what they believe and what every other woo peddler and mystic believe.

Answer 1191

Pretty condescending statement there. Flip it around, and imagine the fundy is making you read the bible and watch religious movies, and is angry and irritated that you’re not convinced by his argument. He has a deeply held belief, and you’re probably not going to be able to talk him out of it. People are stubborn. And Dawkins never helps: he’s too damn smug.

Mind you, evolution deniers are fucking idiots, but if someone shoved a joel osteen book in my face and told me, “Read this and you’ll see it’s true” I wouldn’t believe it if god himself appeared, gave me a trillion dollars, and told me it was true, just because that smiling weenie gets my back up. Dawkins pisses me off and I agree with him.

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