The Problem of Evil combined with the problem of Free Will

[Valyza1]

Engaging in healthy, communal, educational debate is great, as long as in the final analysis, there's a mutual respectfulness exhibited by both debaters.  That's great to see on the forums.  But when people argue with the mentality that the other side is deficient for being on the other side, I find that anti-productive and futile.  

Personally, I tend to think that converts on either side just never examined their initial position thoroughly enough to identify what they really believe.  In such a case, examination is helpful as long as, again, it's honest examination.  I don't see how that's possible when one's guard is up.  Ridicule and condescension are not conducive to self-examination, IMO.

I see your point, but still. It depends. And it can be a great backfire. I remember I first started really questioning my own views on religion after I'd rudely dismissed a classmate's belief in the abilities of 'psychic investigators' as unfounded nonsense and ridiculed her for believing in something without having any evidence to point anyone towards to. No more than three seconds later a little voice in my head went: "Yeah, kind of like your belief in Christianity."
But as a rule of thumb, I tend to agree. While I find the ideas behind religion ridiculous and utterly ridicule-worthy nowadays, when my conversational partner is polite I will reply in kind. Otherwise a decent conversation often seems impossible. It's only when one starts being demeaning to me that I tend to return the favor.
That all being said; I do don't really agree that converts on either side never examined their initial position thoroughly enough. Sometimes you can just have a gestaltswitch, sometimes just like that, sometimes brought on by grain by grain of argument until the weight of the final straw breaks the camel's back. Couple that with other attributes such as ego and stubborness which may cloud your objective ideas with subjective counterarguments. In that case, you've still concidered your arguments thoroughly, you just blocked them off internally for bad reasons.

These are some good points. The stoics say that blaming others for one's difficulties is the hallmark of the uneducated, blaming oneself is the hallmark of one who has begun education and blaming no one is the mark of the fully educated. It sounds like most of the conversions we're discussing arise from the quest to figure out where exactly to place blame, not necessarily on people, but on ideas. Either the opposing side has the right idea or I have the right idea, but one of us is right and the other is wrong. There either is a God, or there isn't. But the problem with the existence of God, as opposed to most other beliefs, is that the only common definition of God amongst theists is so general, that it's essentially a non-falsifiable concept, and one which which holds immeasurable value. Most non-falsifiable beliefs don't hold that kind of value for it's adherents. No one measures their entire life by the belief that Elvis is still alive or that Bigfoot exists. There is practically no point in ascertaining the truth value of the proposition itself, though there may be a point to ascertaining the truth value of some concrete co-beliefs that go along with certain religious views. But upon disproving such beliefs, the theist simply adjusts what they believe about the existing God, not the basic, non-falsifiable premise that God exists to begin with. So to expect that argumentation is going to affect someone's core beliefs past a certain level is, I think, misguided.

I, again speaking from my own experiences, had a hard time admitting I'd been wrong my entire life plus that I wasn't 'special', two things that really wreaked havoc on my bloated sense of self-importance. If I were ever to make the switch again, I imagine I'd find myself again hard-pressed to accept that I was wrong about this thing I only 'till recently described as ridiculous.

I would hope that you would only make a switch again if it no longer had to do with correctness, but rather with personal choice. Objectively speaking, God's existence or lack there of doesn't depend on what we believe. Our world view does.