RE: 3 Questions For Believers (A work in progress.)
June 13, 2014 at 11:35 pm
(This post was last modified: June 13, 2014 at 11:38 pm by Jenny A.)
Believers in anything, particularly things they have staked real time, money, reputation or anything else of substance on are entrenched. Giving up a business that you're losing money on is hard, just because you've invested in it. If others laughed (the earth is flat, the UFOs have landed, astrology works) it's harder. If your support community is faith dependent (work, political, or religious) it's even harder.
Confronting why they are wrong head on merely entrenches them further. It feels great to prove you're right in this way (I know because I've indulged, and probably will again) but it isn't productive if the goal is to change their mind. Asking how they came to their belief (not how they can prove it is right) is a much more productive question.
Once you have the answer (which is usually habit from childhood, personal revelation, or praying for faith) you need to gently (and I do mean gently) ask if that reason would apply to other areas of inquiry.
Then go away and let them think. Sometimes this actually works.
Mockery and blunt reason don't.
----- I know this is not responsive to your question. But I don't think you will get productive responses. What you will get is the circular arguments of the entrenched.
Confronting why they are wrong head on merely entrenches them further. It feels great to prove you're right in this way (I know because I've indulged, and probably will again) but it isn't productive if the goal is to change their mind. Asking how they came to their belief (not how they can prove it is right) is a much more productive question.
Once you have the answer (which is usually habit from childhood, personal revelation, or praying for faith) you need to gently (and I do mean gently) ask if that reason would apply to other areas of inquiry.
Then go away and let them think. Sometimes this actually works.
Mockery and blunt reason don't.
----- I know this is not responsive to your question. But I don't think you will get productive responses. What you will get is the circular arguments of the entrenched.
If there is a god, I want to believe that there is a god. If there is not a god, I want to believe that there is no god.
