(May 30, 2013 at 2:21 pm)whateverist Wrote:I too agree with antithesis, but that's not evident from the part he quoted since it omitted the following sentence, in which I expressed the same sentiment.(May 30, 2013 at 1:35 pm)the antithesis Wrote: They do that whether we do or not. This is why there is no debate. They are too deceptive to have an actual conversation.
I agree with antithesis that they will misunderstand what atheism means regardless. If anyone thought that reason would be in play, more of us might make the effort to explain why we think atheism makes sense. But if you expect reason from those for whom the basis for believing is wish fulfillment, you are unreasonably optimistic.
Anyway, the point I was making is not that you should go use reason and try to convince an irrational person that they are wrong. There are a lot of people who don't really know what they believe, and many of these are more reasonable than the theists who have already made up their mind. These unidentified types will be exposed to the caricature of atheism that religious types like to present, and there isn't really much you or I can do about that. So I would hope that they would also get to hear the real thing straight from the horse's mouth, as it were, which is why I think making "the case" is not a misguided thing to do at all.
