Hello all!

[Mr Brightside]

Hello, I'm new to this site but plan on staying for awhile. Unfortunately I live in Texas so it's kind of hard for me to meet new people around here. Not that I hate religious people, its just that everyone is SUPER religious here. Saying you're an atheist in these parts isn't really a good idea... I'd probably wake up to a pile of crap on my door mat every morning. I know not all Texans are like that but it is in the part i live..

Anyways I look forward to having some intelligent conversations and debates here. I'll start off by asking you guys and gals what you think about an ongoing argument i've been having with one of my Catholic friends. She has been my friend for over 10 years and we usually don't butt heads over religious views, but lately she has been trying to convince me her God is real. I tell her legitimate reasons for my beliefs (or lack thereof) all while not trying to offend her. I tell her why i believe evolution citing actual facts and well common sense.. Then as if she ignored everything i said she says "Well if you think about it evolution actually makes NO sense" (she never says why it doesnt make any sense btw). She tells me she studied these things in great detail in college (she was also home schooled by extreme Catholic parents.. biased much?) and kind of just laughs off anything i say. Then she starts to tell me.. "if you took a watch apart piece by piece to where its just a jumble of parts and took your hands smashed them together would they go back to their original working condition?" my response was of course "no" .. then she goes on to tell me how complex watches are and how they need a watch maker to make them work.. and that is why life must have been created by a higher being. (lol) I then tell her shes talking about a watch and not the universe which is expansive beyond imagination full of infinite possibilities. But ofcourse she sees that as more proof of God.. (*sigh*)

The sad thing about this is (besides her religious views) she is an extremely intelligent human being. I guess my question here is how do you get through to people like this? It's not that i want to change her, i would just like her to see my point of view. Maybe even see through all the brain washing her parents did. Should i just play dumb and let this continue? What angers me is that I actually listen and think about what she says.. but she completely ignores me. Anyone have any similar stories? Also her whole "watch story" seemed a little rehearsed..anyone heard a similar story? Like maybe the priests/preachers etc.. teach them these things to try and convince people?

Thanks for reading, it's nice to meet all of you. Hopefully we can have some good conversations for many years to come!

Mr Brightside

[SteelCurtain]

Sup, Mr Brightside!

[eyemixer]

Welcome

I recently moved back to Florida from Texas, traded one kind of crazy for another I suppose, but I feel your pain.

What I have found in lots o' years of talking to different people is that most people I have met fit into an open mind / closed mind mold. Not sure how articulate I can be, but I'll try.

When comparing an open mind vs. a closed mind the biggest issue can be how each relates to the other. An open mind can add all the ideas possessed by the closed mind, evaluate them, and it does not 'break' any world view. By contrast, a closed mind is incapable of incorporating information outside the existing world view.

If 'what I know' and 'all there is to know' have been defined as the same thing for someone, any ideas or concepts that are outside of this 'what I know' area 'breaks' the closed mind in terms of forcing a reevaluation of a huge number of currently held beliefs. That can be very emotionally frightening for people and there is a strong response pushing back against anything that might 'break' their world view.

I know theists who believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible (each has their own favorite edition) and those who do not and embrace science as a tool for understanding God's creation.

I know atheists who refuse to accept ANY evidence that goes against {Insert conspiracy theory here} and those who focus every day on identifying and correcting for conformation bias in themselves.

Open vs. Closed is not a religious/non-religious thing, but certain religious belief systems do seem to intentionally create a Closed way of thinking as a defense mechanism against conversions and such.

My $0.02

[rexbeccarox]

Hi there! Maybe you should just try to stay away from the topic of religion with her. It doesn't sound like there's any way her mind will be changed, or opened, for that matter, and I don't think you want it to affect your friendship.

BTW- the watchmaker analogy is a Christian favorite. Here's a linky

Welcome!

[Minimalist]

Well, you might start by telling this home-schooled catholic 'scholar' that since 1993 evolution has been accepted as fact by the church.

http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ft...nview.html

When the pope came to the subject of the scientific merits of evolution, it soon became clear how much things had changed in the nearly fifty years since the Vatican last addressed the issue. John Paul said:

Today, almost half a century after publication of the encyclical, new knowledge has led to the recognition of the theory of evolution as more than a hypothesis. It is indeed remarkable that this theory has been progressively accepted by researchers, following a series of discoveries in various fields of knowledge. The convergence, neither sought nor fabricated, of the results of work that was conducted independently is in itself a significant argument in favor of the theory.

Evolution, a doctrine that Pius XII only acknowledged as an unfortunate possibility, John Paul accepts forty-six years later “as an effectively proven fact.”

Doesn't she know that she is supposed to consider these popes "infallible?" Sounds like she's risking a roasting in hell.

Welcome, btw.

[KichigaiNeko]

[pocaracas]

Welcome!
To me, the requirement of belief removes all credibility from any religious world view. I'm still waiting for some theist to reply to a statement like that...

[downbeatplumb]

Damn......now I have that song in my head....anyhoo welcome.

[Mr Brightside]

Thanks to you all for your wonderful responses and advice. I have to say @ eyemixer you seem like quite an intelligent person, i actually feel a little smarter reading your post. Some very good points made, i like your point of view. =)

I guess in the end i try and respect everyone's belief.. but i feel religion is unfairly forced down people throats these days. "You should be this way, or this way. Oh don't do that it's a sin!!" and i also guess i see a little more of that first hand.. (I live in a SUPER religious town.. East Texas.. x.x) I just want to go out like some atheist super hero some times and educate people. I can't stand that certain religious groups just blatantly spew pure lies as truth... I see first hand how the less educated are easily manipulated are brain washed into doing certain things or living certain ways and it sickens me.

I have lived my whole life in Texas.. as a kid i was quite a trouble maker in school and was pulled aside by the school counselor. She pretty much told me that if i didn't live by her version of god that i would burn in hell. That one day affected me for the rest of my childhood.. sent me spiraling into deep depression thinking i was a bad person for doing these things and that i faced an eternity of burning in hell. I think a different approach would have been much better.. Are parents and adults just so lazy they have to resort to scare tactics?

So to this day i just can't stand people lying.. i know how it affected me and i guess i just don't want anyone else to go through that. In the end i found my own way and educated myself on the subject with no help from the school. If anything school confused the crap out of me because i knew the biblical story.. but history and science classes directly contradicted each other. Then when i would lean one way towards Science or whatever I would get bullied by other kids. Because they were taught not being religious (christian/catholic) was wrong.

I guess i just don't understand some people.... I have numerous religious friends all which know far less about the bible than me. Who knows maybe if they actually read the bible they would see how ridiculous it is? Hmm well anyways I guess I will tell my friend i just don't want to talk about such things anymore, and until she shows me good supported by fact truth i will never believe. Maybe that will stop all the trying to convert me crap.. which will never happen.

[eyemixer]

Thanks to you all for your wonderful responses and advice. I have to say @ eyemixer you seem like quite an intelligent person, i actually feel a little smarter reading your post. Some very good points made, i like your point of view. =)

I can't take too much credit, a short story I read by Gordon Dickson when I was a wee lad had a scenario where alien contact happened & that basic concept was explained. It's stuck with me ever since

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I guess in the end i try and respect everyone's belief.. but i feel religion is unfairly forced down people throats these days. "You should be this way, or this way. Oh don't do that it's a sin!!" and i also guess i see a little more of that first hand.. (I live in a SUPER religious town.. East Texas.. x.x) I just want to go out like some atheist super hero some times and educate people. I can't stand that certain religious groups just blatantly spew pure lies as truth... I see first hand how the less educated are easily manipulated are brain washed into doing certain things or living certain ways and it sickens me.

I have lived my whole life in Texas.. as a kid i was quite a trouble maker in school and was pulled aside by the school counselor. She pretty much told me that if i didn't live by her version of god that i would burn in hell. That one day affected me for the rest of my childhood.. sent me spiraling into deep depression thinking i was a bad person for doing these things and that i faced an eternity of burning in hell. I think a different approach would have been much better.. Are parents and adults just so lazy they have to resort to scare tactics?

So to this day i just can't stand people lying.. i know how it affected me and i guess i just don't want anyone else to go through that. In the end i found my own way and educated myself on the subject with no help from the school. If anything school confused the crap out of me because i knew the biblical story.. but history and science classes directly contradicted each other. Then when i would lean one way towards Science or whatever I would get bullied by other kids. Because they were taught not being religious (christian/catholic) was wrong.


I guess i just don't understand some people.... I have numerous religious friends all which know far less about the bible than me. Who knows maybe if they actually read the bible they would see how ridiculous it is?

---

Hmm well anyways I guess I will tell my friend i just don't want to talk about such things anymore, and until she shows me good supported by fact truth i will never believe. Maybe that will stop all the trying to convert me crap.. which will never happen.

Just tell her it makes you uncomfortable discussing religion and that you like spending time with her because {insert reason} and you would rather talk about that.

I was in the DFW area and yeah, random people on the street would ask me if I had been saved on a daily basis (lived in Deep Ellum for a while). I think the atheist experience is out in Austin? Not sure how far that is for you but might be worth the trip if they still do dinner after the show each week.