street epistemology

[drfuzzy]

From one of my new favorite authors, Peter Boghossian. (I rate him with Dawkins and Hitchens and Stenger and . . . all our favs.)
From "A Manual for Creating Atheists".   

But I'm a little torn. Sure, I dream of a day when religion is classified as a mental illness.  I would love to see 95% of my 9-year-old
cousin's HS graduating class claim to be atheist. I would love to see a day, before I die, when nobody kills each other over who has
the RIGHT imaginary friend.  BUT . . . 

I have told many Xtians who were trying to change MY mind that it was disrespectful. That they were treating me as if I was not an
intelligent adult, quite capable of choosing my own beliefs, and that those beliefs were none of their business.

If I try to "debate" a religious person away from their religion, am I not committing the same act of disrespect?       

Paul Boghossian is absolute garbage.

Doesn't know anything about epistemology, doesn't know anything about religion.

I'm embarrassed for him and the mindless drones he has managed to convince that he's doing something meaningful.

The atheist Deepak Chopra.

I actually had a slight objection to his use of "epistemology", although I understood that he was trying to present a parallel with the xtian terminology.  Actually, epistemology is the defined as the study, or understanding of knowledge, and it has been hijacked by xtians who think that their fairy tales are knowledge.   Boghossian's book, though, was actually a lot more about debating techniques, how to identify and zero in on logical fallacies.  While I appreciated the study of debate tactics, I could not see myself using them in real life.

I'm sure any xtian would think Boghossian was garbage.  After all, his take on "faith" is spot on: