Reductio ad Absurdum: How to most efficently communicate with theists

[SenpaiNoticeMeYouBlindShmuck]

I agree completely, and I've brought this point up before, though, admittedly, not as eloquently as you have.

You should check out Anthony Magnabosco on youtube. Street Epistemology is an interest way of making theists question their beliefs.

Thank you for the suggestion, he is proving to be quite interesting to watch so far.

What would be your own example of such an element.  One which could be discussed without the believer feeling (or recognizing) the threat to their beliefs?

Well, myself personally I've been having a discussion recently with an Evangelical who insists morality is objective.

Rather than just point at the OT then the NT and show that that particular deity apparently changes his mind about what is good or not at the drop of a hat, we've been talking about a case they're currently looking at as part of something to do with their study in Criminology, comparing how she feels disgust at a historical case of a woman being raped and then beaten to death by her spouse which was viewed rather indifferently at the time. She was a bad wife after all, she scolded her husband after coming in late from the tavern

We seem to have now established that how she interprets obedience and submission to ones spouse is very different to how believers of this poor womans day interpreted it. It's a slow process but we've managed to get from "They weren't really believers" to "They interpreted the scriptures incorrectly". A small move yes, but crucially she has acknowledged they were just as devout believers as her and thought the decision was right and just. I've got confidence from here we can go to "What if I'm interpreting this incorrectly?" and potentially slowly working towards examining if her God concept can be considered morally objective by her own conception of its standard.

It's slow, but for starting off as a young earth creationist six months ago I have to say I think we're making rather good progress I actually think in some ways it's easier to work with fundies, since their beliefs usually aren't as sophisticated. I've noticed sects with an academic tradition like Buddhists and Catholics will deflect questions on the basis that someone better qualified than them supports a theory ("Dr. X is so smart and believes this, I trust them") whereas non-denominational ones generally don't have an appeal to figures like that, perhaps an exception more recently to some Baptists who even then are a bit weaker than High Anglicans who can whip out High Church Psuedo-Aristotolian arguments.