Discourse with religious believers
Chuck Doswell - 04 March 2011
I’ve been having a continuing discussion with RJ regarding how to
interact with religious believers. I think any fan of this
program knows that RJ is reluctant to cut believers much slack,
preferring instead to give them a substantial dose of his own
particular brand of verbal capsaicin.
It’s been something of a struggle for me to cope with this issue.
My initial reaction to RJ was one of disapproval of his implicit
disrespect in his comments and responses to believers. We had
some vigorous arguments regarding this topic and RJ even went so far as
to proclaim something of a change of heart, choosing to stop the
insulting name-calling (like ‘christard’) when interacting with
believers. But at the same time, I was coming to a new
appreciation for RJ’S viewpoint, in part because he educated me about
the so-called ‘moderate’ believers who follow a non-fundamentalist form
of their chosen faith. When pushed to choose between acceptance
of atheists and being counted among the believers when confronted with
the choice of “with us … or against us” by fundamentalist extremists, I
suspect most moderates would choose to go along with extremists.
The evidence is there in history.
At any rate, I hope it’s pretty clear I have no respect for any of the
major religious beliefs. And I find it puzzling, indeed, when
those whom I respect for their ability otherwise to think
independently, to be rational, and to use logical, evidence-based
arguments, choose to reject all of that and embrace an unthinking,
irrational belief system that demands unquestioning faith and obedience
on the basis of no evidence! It seems to me to be a monument to
compartmentalized thinking. They are rational only insofar as it
doesn’t conflict with their faith. What such moderates seem to do
is to “cherry-pick” those aspects of religion that are least
contradictory and violent, while ignoring most of the actual teachings
embodied in their putative “sacred” texts. As Ken Humphries
has shown, careful study of sacred texts reveals the inconsistencies
and contradictions that lead me to conclude these documents cannot be
the work of an infallible diety. At least the fundamentalists are
consistently irrational!
But what’s the point of arguing religion with believers? It seems
to me that there can be only two objectives (for an atheist) to a civil
discussion about religion with a religious believer. One possible
objective is to offer such a compelling argument that the believer
would be forced to confront the irrationality of their beliefs.
That is, the idea is to convert the believer to unbelief (or at least,
to doubt). The other is to understand the sort of thinking that leads
the believer to embrace irrationality. Let me consider each of
these, in turn:
Converting believers to atheism is not something most atheists want to
do. Atheism isn’t a religion in its own right (despite the
specious statements to that effect by many believers); rather,
it’s the denial of belief in a deity. We have nothing to which to
convert believers! There are no atheist creeds, there are no
atheist sacred documents, there are no atheist churches, there is no
atheist dogma. Moreover, if someone wants to believe in something
despite the clear absence of evidence, what is that to me? In my
experience, believers consistently refuse to accept that their beliefs
are inconsistent with rational thinking. It’s pretty unlikely
I’ll shatter their irrational belief systems with any rational argument.
What about understanding their point of view? Increasingly, I
find it less and less interesting to attempt to understand a
perspective that accepts inherently contradictory elements. What
value might I derive from a deeper understanding of this? I’m at
a loss to know, but ...
I’m left with the following: I seem to have no rational reason to
be civil to my believer friends! Thus, I’m forced to conclude
that I’m being irrational about this. It seems that friendship
can have an irrational basis so I can enjoy maintaining relationships
with my believer friends because this brand of irrationality causes me
no harm. If they don’t push their beliefs on me, I won’t push my
disbelief on them. And we can continue to get along. Live
and let live. I’m not completely rational myself, I
suppose. It seems only the fictional Vulcans of Star Trek fame
fit that label.