I think I have "Dillahunty Syndrome"

[Colanth]

I guess it's just that when you debate with theists all the time it's easy to forget that many of them may be new to arguments you think are so old, tired and frankly obvious.

I haven't got the same buzz I used to get when debating like when I first joined here if I'm honest.

I've been arguing against religious stupidity, not only on the internet, for over 60 years. Long ago, I got to the point that I'd give a theist one civil response. If I got more religious stupidity in response, I'd just keep tearing him new ones until he gave up. That's still how I handle nutters now that I'm doing it on the internet.

Some people can be reasoned with. For the others, someone invented the term "chew toy".

[Napoléon]

Some people can be reasoned with. For the others, someone invented the term "chew toy".

But even that gets boring (at least for me).

Plus I'm getting to the stage where, so what if people don't understand. Is insulting them and tearing them to shreds really going to benefit me?

Starting to feel like a waste of time, hell, it is a waste of time.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

Is insulting them and tearing them to shreds really going to benefit me?

Probably not,but I find it helps relieve the frustration.

Right now,Spockrates is proving to be a challenge in keeping my cool. I suspect psychologically incapable of facing the probability that his personal beliefs are built on sand. In principle,a pathetic situation.However when faced with the same thing over a long period,from diverse pathetic drips, it becomes tedious and rather annoying.

I do my best not engage such fools, with limited success. I mean,they say such ignorant and stupid things,so consistently. I think Undeceived is winning at present with his claim that the author of the gospel called Mark was an eyewitness. Better not to get involved in THAT,I might say something most unkind.

[Napoléon]

Right now,Spockrates is proving to be a challenge in keeping my cool.

Well, I certainly cannot work out whether his intentions are genuine or not. That's what frustrates me the most. So many disingenuous troll come along, that when you get one who may actually be interested in hearing what you have to say, you come across as a dick because you're so used to them all being the same.

I get pissed off with myself for how I respond a lot lately, but I just can't fucking help it. The stupidity of these people's beliefs drives you up the fucking wall, you just want to grab them and tell them to snap the fuck out of it.

[DeistPaladin]

This is the primary reason that I don't post much anymore. I get sick of typing the same things over and over again as each new believer comes along thinking they have the perfect 'gotcha' argument for us poor lost atheists. The worst are the ones that redefine everything to fit their agenda and flat out refuse to listen to reason. I guess I sort of understand that, since 'reason' is the enemy of superstition.

In fairness, the reason they rehash the same arguments over and over is there is no alternative that I can see.

In science, there is always new information to consider. In history, there are some old ruins or parchments discovered that sheds light on what wasn't known before. There are always new developments in art. Philosophy also updates itself according to new information.

What would be the basis for a new theological argument? There is no new information that can be uncovered. There are no new tests that can be run. Theology can admit no changes to itself. All existing arguments have already been thought through as the established Church spared no expense, employing the greatest minds it could, for two thousand years.

Pity the apologist. They can't come up with anything new. It's all been bullshitted before.

[jonb]

It is incredibly hard to hear groups of people all using the same arguments and still think of them as individuals.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHZIUdHm6...re=related

But they have been trained to move in unison, as the second part of the vid shows. I love individuality, as such I have to interact until it becomes invigorated, If I have a belief it is in individuality.

[Angrboda]

It may help to look at it from a different perspective. Try understand why and how a person is believing in the way they do. Are they insane? Only if you expand the definition of mentally deranged to the point that the concept is useless. They are quite sane in the normal sense. Are they dishonest? Some, perhaps, but most often only in the sense that we all are at times. We confabulate, that's what we do. When faced with a thing that demands an explanation, and an absence of such, the brain kicks in and fixes it for you. And this is only one mechanism. I strongly doubt many, except the few charlatans, are liars in the sense of self-consciously telling people things that they know to be untrue. Are they classically stupid or unintelligent? In general, no more so than anybody else; true, there is a skew, but the overlap of the distribution of intelligence among belief and disbelief is far greater than the disjunction; and we've all met clever apologists. If not liar or lunatic, are they then Lord? Eh, I rather doubt it, and I think we have good reason for disbelieving the veracity of their beliefs.

So what explains why and how they behave as they behave? We all have roughly the same brains, so the difference has to be largely one of different content. And it's not necessarily faulty content either. We all notice the cycle wherein a believer presents some evidence, finds it faulty, and simply returns to the well in hopes of finding a better explanation consistent with her prior belief, or, failing that, simply holds on in hopes of deliverance somewhere down the road. (See perseverance of belief.) But we all do similar things. We know that general relativity and quantum mechanics in their current form cannot be reconciled. Do we just abandon both as obviously wrong in some way? No, we try to preserve the truth by looking for ways to fix the problem.

And there's an even more fundamental question of why religious belief in the first place? It's an adaptationist myth that every feature has to justify itself in terms of function, but the truth remains that religion is ubiquitous. It's kind of like the old saying, paraphrased, "If religion didn't exist we'd have to invent it." And despite enormous variations in form and content, so much so that it's almost impossible to give a single all encompassing definition of what "religion" is, we all seem to know it when we see it. And patchwork explanations like, "religion exists to satisfy our need to explain things" and "religion helps us cope with our mortality" are just that, patchwork; none really holds up under scrutiny or anthropological analysis.

So just why do human brains do what they do in such a way that results in the phenomenon we know as religion? And how do they do it at the individual level?

As H.L. Mencken said, "Explanations exist; they have existed for all time; there is always a well-known solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and wrong." This applies aptly to 99% of the explanations of why religions exist and why specific religious people think, act, believe, and behave as they do.

That left over 1% is what fascinates me.

[Faith No More]

So many disingenuous troll come along, that when you get one who may actually be interested in hearing what you have to say

So far, this guy Spockrates seems to actually be interested in learning. I say we give him the benefit of the doubt until we discover that he's actually a troll.

[jonb]

So many disingenuous troll come along, that when you get one who may actually be interested in hearing what you have to say

So far, this guy Spockrates seems to actually be interested in learning. I say we give him the benefit of the doubt until we discover that he's actually a troll.

It is a nice shiny new pet I give you, but what have you learnt from it what information has it provided? Sure it is interesting because it can take a bite out of a post look at 111 and 112, but the lack of any substance leads me to agree with others. Yes I like to play, but I do have a serious side I just can't see any evidence with this one. But I am more than fallible so I won't muddy that stream again.

[FallentoReason]

Sorry for joining in a little late, but I think it's absolutely crucial that when one feels like responding to a theist's argument, one has to make it count. I say this from personal experience. If it weren't for those people on AF.com that persisted with constructive arguments that made me think I could very well still be a Christian and thinking all atheists are angry and arrogant.

Another reason why it's important to always give it 110% when one responds is that for some people the argument that has been presented might be avoided initially, but it will lurk at the back of their heads whether they like that or not. Again, I speak from personal experience. There were arguments that I would convince myself were flawed or I had answered fully, but at the end of the day it would still make me think harder even though I didn't like to admit it.

All I can say is that every person is worth it. You don't know where they're at or how much they've looked into things. So if you want to engage in debate there's more than enough reasons to do it properly.