Converting the Religious: Arguments that don't help

By Bob, TFS Member

The last post discussed how we might reduce people's trust in the Bible by showing how poor the Ten Commandments are. However some arguments commonly made by non-believers might be ineffective or even counterproductive. Let's look at a few.

Probably the most common argument used by freethinkers against religion is the argument from evil. If God is all-powerful, he could prevent evil. If he is all-good, he would. So why is there so much evil in the world? As far as I'm concerned this is a correct argument, and I've used it myself (unsuccessfully). I even know of several people who say they left religion because of this argument. Still, it's not one that's likely to be helpful.

A lot of the problem is that it's so well known. Even if a believer hasn't heard it from a freethinker, they've probably heard it discussed within their religious community or been concerned about it based on their own experience. As a result, if they are still believers after having thought about it, they must have some excuse for disregarding it. For example, while they might defend the idea that God is both all good and all-powerful, they may assume that what is good for God may not be what we'd consider good and there is something good about allowing evil.

In any case hearing the argument from evil from us isn't telling them anything they don't already know, so it won't change their thinking. Debating this can also create the impression we're saying that God isn't good, which reinforces the stereotype that non-believers are really enemies of God rather than people who just have a different viewpoint.

Another tempting approach is to talk about all the evil that religions have done throughout history, but this probably isn't going to be persuasive. Again, believers are likely to have thought about it. It's always easy for them to disregard this issue by simply pointing out that these bad things were done by people who were subverting the religion, but of course they themselves practice it as it really should be practiced. And again, to the extent we imply their religion is evil, we make it sound like we hate the religion or it's followers rather than simply disagreeing about the facts.

One argument that sometimes comes up against Christianity is that Jesus never lived. Some non-believers seem pretty enthusiastic about this one. The argument is essentially that many of the attributes claimed for Jesus were also claimed for mythical gods that preceded him, such as virgin birth, rising from the dead, and performing miracles. In addition the few historical references to Jesus that didn't come from the Christian community are fairly dubious. So it is suggested that Jesus is a purely fictional character based on previous gods.

Now as people who don't believe in the supernatural we naturally agree that the miraculous traits attributed to Jesus are fabrications, but do we have any reason to suppose that the character isn't based on some wandering preacher that had a band of followers? This is very plausible since there are still such preachers today. So while it's possible the Jesus story was a pure fabrication, we can't rule out the possibility it was based on a real person. I have the sense that when freethinkers use this argument they are getting a certain smug satisfaction from claiming the Christians are even bigger fools than if they merely believed in the supernatural parts of the story. Using this argument is bound to be insulting to believers, and about all we'll accomplish is to make them angry and further increase their dislike for non-believers.

Bad mouthing religion is tempting - we certainly have a lot of material to work with - but it's not going to win believers to our side. We have to address the underlying reasons people believe and stress that we are seeking the truth, not being hostile.