Converting the Religious: Review

By Bob, TFS Member

I've presented some of my thoughts on why it's important to get more people to recognize the false nature of religion and how we can do a better job of it. Here's a recap of some of the major points.

1. While it's useful to protect our rights using separation of church and state, we're much better off if we can get believers to come over to our side. We're only asking them to believe what is true, and that should be good for everybody. The more that freethinking becomes mainstream, the fewer problems we'll have with either government or friends and family trying to impose religion on us.

2. I expect that few of us want to aggressively try to get others to change their beliefs. Nevertheless, most of us will find ourselves defending our freethought position against religionists from time to time. Usually when we do this we have little success despite having strong evidence on our side. If we have a well-thought-out approach to handling this situation, we might be far more successful in getting others to move toward our way of thinking.

3. A big reason religious debates are so often futile is that we don't discuss the underlying reasons for people's beliefs. Instead, we debate rationalizations and topics they think will be hard for us to refute. If we can determine the real reasons people believe and address those, we have a much better chance to change people's thinking.

4. The real reason most people believe in religion is because they have been told it is true by the people they trust the most. We need to get them to realize these sources have no special knowledge when it comes to religious questions. One way to do this is to point out that people who have false religions believe for the same reasons they do.

5. We should point out that “hooks” like an obligation to believe, the virtue of faith, guilt, fear of hell and the attraction of heaven have nothing to do with the truth of a religion but are effective in preventing people from questioning what they are told. When beliefs are based on good evidence, this kind of emotional manipulation isn't necessary.

6. People who believe the Bible is true are usually unaware of its many serious shortcomings. Pointing out some of these helps undermine their confidence in the Bible and their confidence in people who tell them the Bible is sacred. It may also help if they see that we are well-informed about these issues.

7. We must discuss these topics from the position that we are seeking the truth, not that we are enemies of their religion or the Bible. Our point should always be that the religion is factually incorrect, not that it is morally wrong. Our long-term success depends on winning others to our side, not insulting them or making them look like fools.

I wish I could say I've had great success using these principles to win people over to the freethought position. Often, I've just fallen into the trap of responding to people's arguments rather than addressing their underlying assumptions. On the other hand, my discussions have generally been friendly and I think I've been able to get some people to reexamine some of their beliefs. One thing that we can do is that when we get together in person or online, as in our forums, is to share our experiences of influencing others or others influencing us. Perhaps in time freethinking will be the norm in this country. Let's do whatever we can to make this happen.