Help with a Catholic

[Anymouse]

On baptising foetuses: there were Catholics in the USA when a mother was in danger of losing a foetus to spontaneous abortion, who would actually do in utero baptisms, until the Church put a stop to it.

Rather than him coming after you to justify your position, turn the table and make him justify his. He is the one with the extraordinary claim (a deity) therefore he is the one who has to make the justification.

The best defence the atheist, agnostic, or pagan has against the Christian fundamentalist position is knowing the Bible better than they do. First, if you don't have one, get a New American Bible (the Catholic one as opposed to the abridged Protestant version), and get familiar with it.

Then on the question of morality: leave questions like abortion out of the issue. There are many non-Christians and non-religious that are opposed to abortion, too. Abortion is not a religious issue, it is a political one. Christians are just trying to claim the moral high ground.

If slavery is immoral, from whence comes the Book of Philemon? Paul had a real chance when setting down his epistles to eradicate the inequality between slaves and freemen, and men and women. Instead, he told women to be quiet in church and returned Philemon's slave. Ask him to justify this as moral. And keep asking the same question until he fails in defeat and admits it.

Is he a pro-death penalty person? God is quite clear in Exodus: You shall not kill. That is the justification for opposing abortion, it should also be the justification for opposing the death penalty. If he cannot justify both (if he supports the death penalty), you have shown him to be a hypocrite to his own holy book, and make sure he knows it. (This won't work if he is opposed to the death penalty as well as abortion.)

Rather than letting him batter you from his religious position, take control of the conversation, and make him justify his position. If the Bible is his justification, the more of it you throw at him, the more flummoxed he will become.

Many Christians have not actually read all the Bible, they just know what they've been told about the Bible. They love going through it tossing out quotes like John 3:14 as if the Bible is a telephone directory, looking up their favourite passages and only reading those.

But if the Bible is in fact the Scripture of their faith, then -all- of it is scripture. If he stands firm on one passage (abortion=murder due to "you shall not kill,") then either all of it is scripture, or he must explain to you why he is qualified to take what he says is God's final word and determine for himself what applies and what doesn't.

The best defence is a good offence, so they say. Take the fight to him, and make him justify his positions. As an atheist one does not have to justify the position of non-belief. You cannot really justify a lack of something anyway.

There are two good sources for information: forums like this one, and the Skeptic's Annotated Bible. http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/ It is broken out by verses, and also by subject matter (women, prayer, &c.). It also deals with the Koran and the Book of Mormon.

Hope this helps,
James.