Indoctrination & Mental Gymnastics

[Glitch]

To provide some context, I'm discussing this with a cousin. I care for her, as much as she does for me. She was indoctrinated into Christianity like so many others and can't seem to think rationally when it comes to her religion. I know she's more intelligent than this, and this bronze age belief is only hindering her potential. I'd like to continue the discussion and make an impact, but I'm not sure what to say next.

Her: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KGlx11BxF24

Me: Great propaganda. They really try hard to make you feel like you're doing something wrong, pulling all those existential strings. To your perception, God sacrificed himself, to himself, to save' us, from himself. "Worship me so I can save you from what I'm going to do if you don't worship me." The first four commandments all relate to Yahweh's gigantic ego. Those four would have been better used for commandments like "thou shalt not rape" "thou shall not have slaves" "thou shall not harm children" and "thou shall treat everyone as equals" Imagine what things would be like if the writers had made him less egocentric. Selflessness is a value the abrahamic deity lacks.

Her: To save us from himself? No he's trying to save us from Satan. But the choice is ours if we want to be saved or not.

Me: Lucifer? The guy that killed 10 people in the bible? Or do you mean Yahweh? The guy that killed 2,821,364 people in the bible? Oh, so you're telling me that the other 5 billion living people on the planet will all go to hell because they believed in the wrong God? All the Islamic, Buddhistic, and Hinduistic children? All of the kind people who care for others...and aren't Christian?

Her: I'm saying if people have the chance to accept Christ and they do then they're saved. But if they reject him then they're not... But if they never had the chance to know Him then they probably aren't condemned because they had no way of knowing.

Me: So rejecting your specific deity equates to agonizing torture in the fiery pits of hell for all eternity? Sounds fair. Out of the world's 4,200 active religions and the hundreds of thousands of gods and goddesses, you expect them to pick Yahweh? It's a needle in the haystack and it's likely everyone else feels that their own deity is the right one. Your an atheist for every god created by humanity except for that one. If you were born in the Middle East you would be Islamic and claim that Allah is the one true God. If you were born in classical Greece you would believe in Zeus. If you were born in India you would believe in Vishnu. You had no choice in choosing a religion or God, your parents did that for you.

Her: There simply are no other gods besides the One True God. If you're worshipping something else you're living a lie. None of the other gods can heal, or speak directly to people, or help guide people's lives, because they're simply not real, because they were made up by people.

Me: You're performing some serious mental gymnastics to avoid rationality. Everyone believes that their God is the real God, everyone believes that their God affects the world and no one else's. Your God is as real as all the other Gods. It's subjective and determined by your culture. I know you're smarter than this, think outside of your perspective, consider why others believe in their gods and the look back at why you do.

Her: I don't understand why people believe in false gods. Probably because it's all they know if they've never had a chance to meet the one true God. I know why I believe in my God. Because He is the one true God. I have seen him move directly in my life. I've seen Him do amazing things. There's no other proof I need.

Me: Where your born has a greater impact on what God you'll believe in than anything else. If you were born in a non-Christian region, you would not believe in the God you do now. If Yahweh is so omnipotent, why has there yet to be a child born with the foreknowledge of Yahweh's supposed existence? Why were you taught about this God at a young and impressionable age, rather than inheriting the information?

Her: Because it's our job to spread that knowledge and share the good news. You can live a missional life in your own town, or in another country, according to where you're called.

Me: That's an absurdly convoluted plan for a God. Look at how convinced you are of your own God's existence, now imagine how others may feel about their own. The God you worship is as real to you as their God is to them. You may find that they are as convinced as you are in their reasoning. Try to convert them, seriously attempt to convert a Hindu, Buddhist, Islamist, or Jew to Christianity. Grab every evangelical Christian you can find and attempt to convert the other 4.8 billion people in the world. It's been tried in the past, erupting nothing more than conflict.

Her: If God puts someone of a different religion in my life than I shall. I won't get anywhere trying to do it alone, just to prove something. God must work in their heart to help them see the truth.

Me: So, God is powerless without someone to speak for him?

Her: No He's not. He has a plan. Like I said, He speaks through people. And to people if they will listen. People don't speak for Him. He speaks through people.

Me: God's plan? That sounds like a feeble attempt to explain natural disasters killing millions. If the concept of God's plan is true, you have to accept that it's in God's plan for us to abort children. If God is both omnipresent and omnipotent, you must accept that God willfully allows the murder of innocent people and permits rape to take place. Epicurus says it best. "Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence comets evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"

Her: When we first sinned we gave over control to Satan. This is why our world is broken. When Jesus returns he will conquer all evil for good. Try reading Revelation. God is willing and able to conquer evil, but His perfect timing is a must. It's not Him that allows it, but us.

She might be too far into it...thank you for reading. If you can perhaps critique my own comments or help me build an appropriate response for such...ridiculousness. It would be greatly appreciated.

[robvalue]

Heya glitch

Wow, you did a pretty good job there from what I can see. You came at it from many angles, with lots of solid arguments. She is clearly really far gone, with those mental defences set up strong.

I'll have a think about any other arguments you could use. It may just be that she is unreachable. But you never know, she may absorb some of the arguments even if she appears to ignore them, and she may subconsciously think it over a bit. With someone that fundamental it will take a lot of time and patience!

I'll rack the old noggin

[watchamadoodle]

For me, history has been more persuasive than philosophy. Christians can always fall back on things like "the Lord works in mysterious ways" when confronted with evidence that the theology doesn't make sense. I've tried to learn as much as possible about the development of the Bible, Judaism, and Christianity. It seems like different techniques work for different people.

[robvalue]

Here's something she probably doesn't know, the Ten Commandments are not what people usually think they are, see video below.

http://youtu.be/pkCJ8rb8Grw

[Jenny A]

For me, history has been more persuasive than philosophy. Christians can always fall back on things like "the Lord works in mysterious ways" when confronted with evidence that the theology doesn't make sense. I've tried to learn as much as possible about the development of the Bible, Judaism, and Christianity. It seems like different techniques work for different people.

That is a very good thought, and I highly recommend Bart D. Ehrman to the OP. He came from good Christian stock and worked his way to agnosticism through studying the OT and the historical Jesus. Of his books, Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium, would be best. He has a number of gooog youtube presentations, and is a Great Courses lecturer (I recommend, How Jesus Became God). All of the Great Courses series are ridiculously overpriced but about 20 % of them are on sale and therefore reasonably priced at any given time.

The thing is that he comes from what might be her point of view, rather than making a blatantly head-on attack.

[robvalue]

Yeah, getting a load of examples of how Christianity completely ripped off earlier mythologies may be good. It's just a voodoo patchwork doll of dead religions with a new coat on.

She has to say all the previous ones are false, yet obvious copied parts of them are now suddenly true in Christianity.

[Aoi Magi]

If she really thinks gawd speaks through people, show her the biblical contradictions and ask her why he is giving out contradictory and misleading info. You can use the few hundred doomsday prophecies too.

If she thinks only her true god does miracles, a quick google will give you a few million miracles from other religions.

[Minimalist]

Yeah. She sounds like a lost cause.

[Elskidor]

That pretty much sums up the majority of these types of debates. Too little too late.

[Exian]

You could have her study the origins of written language. More than likely, she probably never even considered that. She probably subconsciously assumes the Bible is so old and started somewhere near the beginning of time 6-7000 years ago. Hell, she might not even have a timeline worked out in her head. If you shine a little light on the time frame of human ingenuity, it might give her some wiggle room to actually think about how things must have come about.

I always knew about evolution an I accepted it as a Christian, but I kept the two words apart. When I started my search for God I was forced to connect the two worlds in my head. Thinking about the whole of human existence really makes the bible seem silly.

She probably isn't or won't be ready for that, though. Too far gone, as others have said.