religionHow do you deal with people who want to “teach” you there is a higher power and how I can’t see that because I couldn’t possibly understand it.
This kind of behavior where you are an ignorant because you don’t believe, is extremely irritating. How do you deal with this kind of people?
Do you try to explain your point of view, do you pretend you agree with everything they say, or is it best just to ignore them?
I play “devil’s advocate”, I don’t show my hand by stating my religious beliefs but let them assume our beliefs and background are the same. I never try to convince someone to abandon their religion, but poke holes in the religion that we “share”. Pointing out inconsistencies like the state of Africa versus to US or horrendous natural disasters that repeatedly haunt some regions. In the end I like to point out that god has a plan for each of us and he knew whether we would go to heaven or hell before we were even born. I like to plant seeds of doubt and fight the battle behind enemy lines.
Perhaps I’m a little unusual, but I actually enjoy the debate.
Ever since college, I used to invite the Jehova’s Witnesses in (often, to their surprise) and engaged in a pretty thorough debate on the subject. Oftentiems, these people would leave a little shaken and unsure of their position.
Since moving to the US, I’ve had several conversations with members of JC&LDS who are usually bright, intelligent, well-trained and heavily indoctrinated. Oftentimes, though, they’re young and as soon as you step outside of their (obvious) training, then they falter.
One approach I like to use is to determine if my opponent expresses a belief in the literal word of the bible. If so, then I test their belief.
Me: “So, you believe in god”? Them: “Yes” Me: “And he created man in his own image?” Them “Absolutely” Me: Which image? Caucasian? Black? Asian? Hispanic …? Them: “All of them” Me: “Riiiight. Male or female” Them: “Erm … both?” Me: “So you belive that God is a mixed-race hermaphrodite?” Them: “Erm .. well .. no … he’s probably white though” Me: “Really? Why? The Bible was written in what is now the Middle East so he’d at least look Arabic, no?” Them: “Erm … well maybe”
So, now we have them shaken a little …
Me: So you believe in the literal word of the Bible? Them: Absolutely Me: And that the Bible is the moral compass by which we should live our lives Them: Yes. Me: So it’s okay for me to stone my wife to death if she’s ever adulterous? Them: Erm … well .. no, of course not. Me: And yet your moral compass tells you this is entirely acceptable. Them: Well, we OBVIOUSLY don’t believe in that. Me: So you don’t believe in the literal word of the bible then? Them: Erm … well, of course, we do, just not some bits Me: Who wrote the bible Them: God, of course. Me: Really? How? Them: Through man. Me: When?
At this point, I’ve heard more utter gobbledygook and garbage than you’d ever believe. LAst year, I had the 3 guys from JC&CoLTD arguing amongst themselves about the vaildity of the bible.
It’s quite fun, really :)
Ignore them. It’s like trying to argue with die-hard racists. You won’t change their minds and you’ll only end up frustrated.
Like you said, it “is extremely irritating”. I, most of the time, just ignore them, since trying to argue is a waste of time. It’s like they were blind.
I tend to use a ‘three strikes’ rule, I will explain my position and why I believe it three times. I do my best to not directly contradict what they’re saying so as to not put them on the defensive.
If they still try to argue with me, I’ll tell them that we’ll have to agree to disagree and I ignore them after that.
Explain the law of large numbers and cite examples like ghosts and aliens that they may not believe in, but people will swear they’ve experienced. Your chance of success is probably low, so be prepared to walk away.
I like to get in early on in the conversation with really earnest, interested doctrinal questions. I don’t mean aggressive things like “how do you explain the Asian Tsunami then?”, but more along the lines of “so, are you a convocational protestant? Does your church support the doctrine of transubstantiation? Is it a nonconformist church, how do you select your pastors? Which version of the New Testament do you consider definitive? Lutheran or Calvinist? Bells and smells or low chirch?”.
The thing is, most religious people are not very well educated about religion. In Christian-majority countries, this is especially true of Christians, because they don’t get much questioning or challenge to their beliefs. And once they grasp that you actually know more about the ins and outs of their ritual and belief systems, and the history of the church, than they do, they kind of lose the appetite to debate with you. Nobody likes to be shown up as an undeinformed buffoon.
Discuss and have fun as long as you are sure you won’t be constantly meeting this person. They usually like evangelizing and it is guaranteed that the next time you meet he/she will come back to discussion with a fresh bunch of “arguments”.
I think in those kind of situations the goal is to let the person know that his/her speech is not taken seriously (f.e. by making some not-insulting joke answers), once they get that they usually lost the interest.
You can also prepare some answers beforehand. F.e. “Well, that’s an interesting opinion” “Sin? Isn’t it something from christianity? I’m not one, so it is not applicable to me”
Those that are in insidious are usually those who don’t really want to have a rational conversation.
I tend to deal with those people by only discussing the heart of the matter. Whether or not there is evidence of a god. I will not discuss jebus or any thing else until they can produce evidence that a god even exists. Then I spell out what that evidence would entail. For me it is the regrowing of a buddies arm that was cut off in a boating accident. Until I can see verifiable evidence then that would at least match that, I just tell them to go away.
There is no point in discussing anything else. All it does is validate the concept of their being a god and that the other discussion has validity. If you pursue discussions other than the single most important one, they will assume you concede the existence of a god.
ask the person what it would take for them to change their mind about their belief. If they say nothing then politely point out to them that the discussion is over.
The best way to deal with insidious religions is pointing out what underlies the religious impulse, what values their ‘beliefs’ are giving voice to. This means carefully and concretely identifying their fettering resentment (which underlies all reverence of benefactors); their hatred of life, reason and existence; their base desire (to repress desire); the monotonous vulgarity of religious ‘thought’; and finally it can help to walk through the vast and noble difference between a scientific function or a philosophical concept, and a religious ‘law’.
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