Helping Christians to lose faith?

[watchamadoodle]

I think if you approach the matter as I did with my brother (post # 18 in this thread), you will not be being rude and you will likely satisfy your desire to be following the golden rule.

One of the key points is letting the conversation die, and not pushing it beyond the point that the other person wants to talk about it.  That way, the person can be left thinking about whatever it is that got them to the point of not wanting to continue the conversation, instead of thinking that you are being mean and pushing too hard or whatever.

Thanks In my case, when religion comes up there is an unspoken assumption that of course I agree with the Christian views. A week ago, my brother mentioned how much he has been worried about some issues and his opinion that this worry was a spiritual attack. I just nodded my head politely. I wondered if I should have tried to start a conversation to challenge his faith. On the other hand, my brother has a lot of worries, and losing faith might add to that. Also, I hate to think of my mother feeling isolated in her beliefs if my brother and sister became atheists.

If I did try to have a conversation on religion, I would need to be the initiator unfortunately. Somebody might ask me to pray for somebody else, and I would need to say "no, I think prayer is a waste of time". I would need to make it an issue instead of going with the flow.