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RE: Do you argue with religious people?
April 21, 2015 at 12:41 pm
(This post was last modified: April 21, 2015 at 12:41 pm by Dystopia.)
Usually I like debating with anyone who isn't infected with what I call the "Blind faith syndrome", meaning that person is always right and everyone else is wrong because they say so. My girlfriend debates the deist god with me from time to time, we have some fruitful conversations.
Honestly I think I'll start charging a fee for every explanation on "why being an atheist is enough". Yes, the question I get asked more is not if there is a god, but how can I live as an atheist comfortably - Considering the thought of death used to terrify me, it doesn't anymore, so I'm ok now.
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you
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RE: Do you argue with religious people?
April 24, 2015 at 12:02 pm
(April 21, 2015 at 12:41 pm)Dystopia Wrote: Yes, the question I get asked more is not if there is a god, but how can I live as an atheist comfortably - Considering the thought of death used to terrify me, it doesn't anymore, so I'm ok now. Death was a major issue for me throughout much of my developing years. It still scares me to think about it but at least I've grasped the fact that I wont actually suffer the state of death (well at least not for too long).
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RE: Do you argue with religious people?
April 24, 2015 at 12:55 pm
(This post was last modified: April 24, 2015 at 12:55 pm by Thumpalumpacus.)
(April 15, 2015 at 6:10 am)TruthWorthy Wrote: I'm wondering how you go about talking with others who are religious, when they bring up Jesus in a discussion, or whether you just let whatever fly. If you do argue, what is your approach, and do you regularly end up making the other person want to fight about it, or upset them to the point where they don't want to talk with you anymore.
It depends. If they're able to take aboard views other than their own without butthurt, I'm happy to have the discussion.
If they're using "discussion" as a code word for "I get to preach to you, but you cannot reply without my feeling persecuted", I send them on their way with as little fanfare as possible -- usually, "I hold no faith, thanks".
If they're persistent, there's a "fuck off" in their near future.
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RE: Do you argue with religious people?
April 24, 2015 at 2:43 pm
(April 24, 2015 at 12:02 pm)TruthWorthy Wrote: (April 21, 2015 at 12:41 pm)Dystopia Wrote: Yes, the question I get asked more is not if there is a god, but how can I live as an atheist comfortably - Considering the thought of death used to terrify me, it doesn't anymore, so I'm ok now. Death was a major issue for me throughout much of my developing years. It still scares me to think about it but at least I've grasped the fact that I wont actually suffer the state of death (well at least not for too long).
You won't suffer death at all. Dying... maybe, but once you're dead, you experience nothing, based on every shred of evidence we have.
There is nothing demonstrably true that religion can provide mankind that cannot be achieved as well or better through secular means.
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RE: Do you argue with religious people?
April 25, 2015 at 3:37 am
(This post was last modified: April 25, 2015 at 3:43 am by Razzle.)
The only religious people I interact with offline right now are two of my neighbours, a husband and wife. They also happen to be the only fundamentalists of any religion that I've ever met, as far as I know.
(Yeah, the 70% Christian figure for the UK from the last census is bullcrap - most of the people I've ever met believe in a vague kind of higher power at most, and probably answer 'Christian' in polls just as their cultural background affiliation, even though most of us are closer to being cultural pagans than cultural Christians, given the holidays we celebrate and how we celebrate them. Also, most of the people we have who really do believe at least the basic Christian doctrine that Jesus died for our sins and was resurrected, in my experience are first, second or third generation immigrants, hence London has a higher proportion than most of the country. It doesn't seem able to survive longer than that very often in this environment. This is where religion comes to die.)
The husband does bring it up sometimes, and they occasionally invite us to church events. I enjoy the opportunity to discuss his beliefs. We get on well, have significant personality traits and interests in common, and he's not obnoxious or judgemental about out our non-belief - he was only converted in adulthood, by a ouija board experience, and in this nonreligious society he hasn't got the ignorance and misconceptions about nonreligious people in general and atheistic nonreligious people in particular that I see online from theists in highly religious societies.
I feel sorry for them. Fundamentalist Christianity must be a horrible thing to believe in, and thinking that Yahweh reads minds, they must have to deny even to themselves how horrible they find it and how they wish it weren't true. That's why you get that evasive "it's not up to me to say you deserve hell, I just have to trust God to know best". They can't admit how they feel about it.
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