RE: Can atheists convert theists?
July 8, 2010 at 8:45 am
(This post was last modified: July 8, 2010 at 8:51 am by Godhead.)
Strattosphere -
No offense taken, but let's be honest here. Let us not equate religion, let alone theism in general, with ww3 and the like. You know as well as I do that the kind of people who use religion to justify that kind of stuff are a tiny minority compared to the vast proportion of religious people who are as against that as you and I. So for the sake of clarity let's make a distinction between a simple, everyday belief in god, and the crazy stuff done in its name by a few. Some of you have theist parents no doubt, so you can see that this distinction exists. With that in mind, do you still think it's important to get believers to shed their beliefs on the basis of "just in case they blow something up"? What about other people? People do bad things in the name of all kinds of stuff, but we can't go around shedding them of whatever it may be that could, maybe, possibly, form part of a reason to blow something up. As for the frustration, you have another choice, which is to not be frustrated, or, to just live with your frustration rather than trying to shed others of what frustrates you. I'm perfectly comfortable with the fact that there are plenty of people who don't share my views, why is it that so many atheists (based on what I've read, not just here) feel this overwhelming desire to remove what frustrates them, rather than live with it? I'm a theist but I'm not religious, and what I've observed from my "middle" position is religious people and atheists thinking along the exact same lines, which is to try so hard to get others to agree with them. If you look at that purely on a psychological level, it seems like deep insecurity.
Eilonnwy -
You're saying that you don't try to convert people, but then you say that you try to put people to the test, you talk about getting people to discard their beliefs, and you like to think that something you say will make a theist look at things differently, and that that's something you hope for, and that you'd love the world to be atheist.
No offense taken, but let's be honest here. Let us not equate religion, let alone theism in general, with ww3 and the like. You know as well as I do that the kind of people who use religion to justify that kind of stuff are a tiny minority compared to the vast proportion of religious people who are as against that as you and I. So for the sake of clarity let's make a distinction between a simple, everyday belief in god, and the crazy stuff done in its name by a few. Some of you have theist parents no doubt, so you can see that this distinction exists. With that in mind, do you still think it's important to get believers to shed their beliefs on the basis of "just in case they blow something up"? What about other people? People do bad things in the name of all kinds of stuff, but we can't go around shedding them of whatever it may be that could, maybe, possibly, form part of a reason to blow something up. As for the frustration, you have another choice, which is to not be frustrated, or, to just live with your frustration rather than trying to shed others of what frustrates you. I'm perfectly comfortable with the fact that there are plenty of people who don't share my views, why is it that so many atheists (based on what I've read, not just here) feel this overwhelming desire to remove what frustrates them, rather than live with it? I'm a theist but I'm not religious, and what I've observed from my "middle" position is religious people and atheists thinking along the exact same lines, which is to try so hard to get others to agree with them. If you look at that purely on a psychological level, it seems like deep insecurity.
Eilonnwy -
You're saying that you don't try to convert people, but then you say that you try to put people to the test, you talk about getting people to discard their beliefs, and you like to think that something you say will make a theist look at things differently, and that that's something you hope for, and that you'd love the world to be atheist.
