One could spend the enegry to spin their own beliefs to demostrate their contradictions... but their cognitive dissonance will cause them to just dig deeper to maintain their world view... people have to have an open mind before any rational debates can be made.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago) (1 children)

For most of my life, I was pretty quiet about being an atheist, and literally all of my friends were Christian; *they assumed I was too, and it was easier to let them. Eventually I stopped caring who knew, and finally told a few of my friends that I’m atheist. In every case, the response was ‘you can’t be atheist – you’re too nice’.

A couple of them flat-out refused to believe I’m atheist, telling me that I’m actually Christian, I just don’t go to church or pray, and that’s okay. Utterly refusing to accept I don’t believe in their god, and trying to convince me of all the reasons I’m acktuaaly a believer, even if I don’t think I am. It’s been confusing and maddening. Some of these conversations have gone on for more than a decade.

Many people will straight-up refuse to see anything that doesn’t conform to their worldview, and there’s not a thing you can say to break through it.

e: *

[–] [email protected] 1 points 26 minutes ago* (last edited 25 minutes ago)

Damn - I'd be so down for that discussion, for no other reason than I'd be fascinated at their definition of Christian that's inclusive of not believing there is one existant God, who created the world, and whose representative/earthly form died to absolve us of our sins.

Like, you can follow every other rule in the book Ned Flanders style if you want, but these are the basic requirements to be a Christian (regardless if you're a 'good' or 'bad' one). Decent chance it ends with a hard, interesting look at the basis for their personal faith, if you have the patience and energy to pull at that for a while.

But unless you find that part interesting and just wanna be an atheist living your life, yeah, that sounds exhausting and irritating, and it sucks they're acting this way with you.

[–] rdrunner 13 points 22 hours ago

Yup, you can't reason a person out of a position they didn't reason themselves into