deconversion, bibleThere is a person I sometimes speak to who always appeals to the Bible to “prove” any of his points or to explain the reasons for thinking a certain way. But pointing out any of the Bible’s problems, inconsistencies and morally questionable stuff has exactly zero effect, because this person chooses to pick only the things he deems worthy of following, and arbitrarily “un-follows” all the nasty stuff.
So, for example, asking “why do you pray every day” or “why do you believe in heaven” gets a “because the Bible says so”; asking “why do you believe anything from the Bible” gets an “it’s obviously the source of all truth” (and this answer itself can’t be argued about; it’s just simply assumed universally true). Pointing out a problem in the Bible gets me an “oh, that bit I don’t adhere to / believe in because it was written later / mistranslated / obviously stupid”.
I am at a complete loss. It’s like talking to someone who doesn’t have a brain and yet can talk somehow.
Is there some approach to convince this type of theist of anything, or is this a complete waste of time?
Arguing logic with the bible is like arguing ethics with a vegan. It’s crazy, and unproductive. You understand that, in order to argue the bible well, you have to understand it well? Do you want to do that to yourself? You don’t have to accept anything from the bible that they use in an argument; just deny the premise.
99% of Christians can’t point to anything in the bible that isn’t in Genesis, Mark, Luke, Peter, Paul, or John (the crazy John, usually). When you point out that Ezekiel was clearly on ‘shrooms, they just don’t care.
So I’d step away from the book. You don’t need it to argue about god. There is plenty of contradictory stuff inherent in the idea of god.
There are theists you can argue over the bible with. This guy clearly isn’t one of them. What harm is he doing to you with his beliefs?
Now, if he IS doing harm, such as voting against Gay Rights or something like that. Argue about Gay Rights. Don’t argue about what the bible has to say about gays. What the bible has to say about gays has exactly NOTHING to do with Gay Rights. If he wants to stone them on his own time, he is free to do so and rot in jail.
Need not address it further.
If he cannot see logic beyond faith, you must first teach him logic. Start with simple things. If he wonders, one day, about something you KNOW you can test. Do a scientific test. Form an hypothesis, devise a test for it, and do it. Eventually, with time, he will come to think critically about things. Once he does, then you can win him over with arguments. Not before.
I have encountered this type of resistance repeatedly, and an immediate win is usually not in the offing. No matter what point you put forward, the believer says,(in a US southern accent) "Well, that's a good point, but the Bahble sez..."
What I try to do is plant an "inoculation meme" "What if the Bible is just a book?" or "What if you were to try to resolve this question without referring to the bible."
Again, no guarantee it will take, but you won't "win" an argument with someone whose final response is to repeatedly fall back to "The Bible is the unadulterated, true, dictated word of God... I know this because the Bible tells me so."
I hate to pimp Tim Minchin too much, but this video about "The Good Book" might be an appropriate thing to show a believer when you're just too tired of hitting your head against this circular reasoning wall.
If what you want to accomplish is to discredit the Bible, try pointing out the contradictions in the New Testament. If you need a source for that, I would personally suggest you ProfMTH's Brief Bible Blunder series for a start though there are many other sources to pick from.
If what you want to accomplish is to call into question a particular belief, you can usually do that with reason alone. There's no need to discredit the Bible.
For example, to discredit the practice of prayer you can point out that praying to an omniscient being sounds kind of pointless; to discredit the belief in heaven, you can point out that knowing your loved ones who were good persons are suffering in eternity in hell because they didn't believe in god would be hell for you, not heaven.
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