Failed Conversion

[JadeBlackOliveParticipant]

Haha….that wouldn’t fit with the way she says it, which is usually among many people…..she was blessed to have her daughter, along with all 5 of her kids, blessed at xmas, blessed for her daughter’s wedding to a preacher’s son………etc.

We don’t live in the same towns so we seldom see each other, & she never says this directly to us.

[TJParticipant]

Rarely have I had a visit BECAUSE of my atheism, TO convert me, per se, albeit, random visits by missionaries, fishers of men, etc, do occur.

Most purposeful conversations about religion in this context seem to involve someone finding out, casually, that I do not believe what they believe…and, their disbelief in my disbelief.

They then tend to run all the usual tripe/wagers, and so forth, by me, expecting these pearls of wisdom to string into a lasso and pull me in.

I tend to address them one at a time, and break down the flaws in the reasoning/logic, give non-religious examples that illustrate the reasons for failure/lack of validity…

…and wait for them to regroup and go for other flawed arguments that they never actually thought about, just repeated.

So, if Pascal et al fall flat, they might try something sciencey, my absolute favorite direction to take.

Interestingly, it takes most of them a LONG time to get to a point where they even CONSIDER that every single logical reason to believe what they believe, is invalid.

They tend to hit that (800 lb gorilla) wall if at all intelligent.

MOST then pretend the gorilla is not there, and, say something like “Well, it makes me feel better”…and then they run for daylight.

The most open minded though, do sometimes get past the pacifier argument, and actually consider that they might have been wrong about religion/god. (Because all of the reasons they previously believed it were invalid)

A conversion from theist to atheist is not an instant sort of thing, typically, but the flip does happen from time to time.  Its far more common for the result to be more along the lines of rejecting organized religions as a starting point…if they are able to think about issues in conflict with worldviews, etc.

😀

 

 

 

• This reply was modified 7 years, 9 months ago by  TJ.

[Andrew BrownParticipant]

I have nice chats with Jehova’s Witnesses.
They like to shock you with a blunt question then answer it for you if you can’t.
The conversation usually spirals towards faith and I have to shut them down with the old, “Faith is not a path to truth.”
They acquiesce and I get back to my video games.

[David BootsParticipant]

Apparently the most successful form of conversion – statistically speaking – is ‘flirty fishing’.

[mikerussellParticipant]

I believe that we all have to believe in something. For me, it is science, music, art, friendship, respect and love, etc.

My mother is an extreme ‘godist’ – she’s a Franciscan, which is supposedly some sort of really godly sort of person – she used to be a nun, so I’m told, so I wonder how I got here.

Anyway, I live with her as her carer and we get on by simply refusing to discuss it. She’s too old to change her mind now and in a lot of decades, I’ve never seen any evidence that would convince me that religion isn’t a nasty, delusional cult.

So we ‘leave it there’ with the statement that she believes one thing, I believe another and that anything else is OK to talk about (but she’s religious so I must avoid any topic that would open the ‘can’).

It isn’t ideal, but she’s of a similar age to the UK’s monarch and so I have to weigh up the impact of the inevitable arguments that would ensue, vis a vis, her blood pressure and my boredom at having to return endlessly to the same futile argument.

[mikerussellParticipant]

Andrew Brown wrote:

“Faith is not a path to truth.”

 

I’ll have to try that one 😉

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

@strega – I often reply that I don’t think prayer works. I have had theists say they would pray for me but whatever it was they would pray for did not materialize. So now I suggest that they either stop asking their god to change the plan he has for me or up the ante and sacrifice a kid goat instead to see if that will make a difference.

[.Spectator]

I am still genuinely curious as to how people can maintain a delusion in the face of so much evidence to the contrary. It is sort of like the last remaining kid in the class who believes in Santa Claus.

There really is no “evidence to the contrary.” It is all a matter of perspective.

[.Spectator]

Come on, have a go, if you really believe you can save me

No person can ever “save you.” It doesn’t work like that.

[Tom SarbeckParticipant]

Belle, the last remaining kid in the class who believes in Santa Claus might have hope. Would it be cruel to take it from him?

[.Spectator]

Santa Claus is a fictional character. God is not.

[David BootsParticipant]

Belle Rose wrote:

Santa Claus is a fictional character. God is not.

Dear Belle I admire your gumption.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

 

[JadeBlackOliveParticipant]

Santa is a hell of a lot more fun!

[StregaModerator]

Santas gifts are tangible.

On a side note, I was over in Cologne (Germany) one December and discovered that their version of St Nicholas is a very different kind of Santa – he has a sidekick called Black Peter too.  If you’ve been a good little boy/girl, St Nicholas gives you the normal gift type of reward, but if you’ve been a bad little boy/girl, Black Peter beats you with the heavy cudgel he carries.  The German client told me that for years he was terrified of the 9th December – leading me to guess he wasn’t always a good little boy!

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