[Serious] Christians what would change your mind?

[John 6IX Breezy]

magic sky fairy

To have an honest debate, you have to be able to describe your opponent's position in terms that he would agree with. If you can't do that, then you aren't arguing against what he actually believes.

I agree. When describing a religious opponent's ideas an atheist has an incentive to pick the least charitable one, the least logical one, the least persuasive one, or represent their ideas as such, because doing so makes those ideas easier to reject. That's what the phrase magical sky fairy is designed to accomplish.

It's a behavior often described as nut-picking, as opposed to cherry-picking. Every community is statistically bound to have individuals and ideas at the fringes that are strange or confusing. Nut picking is essentially looking for the ideas that are two or three standard deviations away from the mean, such as the man curing his baldness with water.

When we want to learn about a group it's important to go to them first. Listen to their beliefs in their most persuasive form; the form in which they themselves believe them. Not the form that's easiest to reject.

I think that the person that is unable to speak good of opposition, and represent their ideas in the most logical or persuasive form, does so out of fear of being persuaded.