Evil Milkman

Standing in the PC Games aisle of everyone's favorite retail department store, Wal-Mart, my very sweet girlfriend and I discussed my morals and beliefs...

A little background: I am a 'closet agnostic' but I'm currently putting on the facade of being a Christ follower to pretty much everyone. Just recently, I've talked with her about my new skeptic view and I think she might be just now learning to understand where the view is coming from.

She is a Christian and has lately been been upset that I may not believe what she believes with such passion. She and I get along well, but tonight she was upset about me cussing in front of her a few times, and I suppose she was rightfully upset. It's rude and sorta lame, in my opinion. I was happy to talk with her about it.

Anyway, then she started bringing up relationships with God and I just listened until I felt she was done talking. Then I told her what problems I had with this all-loving God that she was referring to. I just assumed she was talking about the 'Holy Bible' God, but as of late I've grown weary of hearing that generic term. Anyway, I just started off by reminding her about God killing or commanding other people to kill innocents such as babies and fetuses in the Primitive (Old) Testament, and even had the nerve to bring up a line of thinking like, "If this all-loving supreme power of the universe killed INNOCENTS such as these, how can Christians fully support the anti-abortion view, etc..." Then she of course replied back with something like this, "Well, He's God and His will is perfect... He had a plan in killing those people, and in fact, they (infants and the unborn) probaly deserved it for not following God's Will (this thought frightened me for her sake)!..." The more than usual weak argument that we've all heard more times than countable. Then I attempted o make her realize that if this God does truly exist and kills babies without mercy, he seems very wicked indeed. This argument went on for a little longer but I felt confident that what I was saying was right. She kept trying to change the subject to Noah's courage when discussing the cruel flood myth while I was trying to tell her about the mass murdering God had done to all of those innocents...

We also had some lovely discussions about freewill in which I had apparently "won" because she seemed frustrated and mentioned that she had to continue shopping for a gift. I didn't bother trying to continue the conversation, although I did mutter something like, "Heh, 'Thou shalt not kill...' Right, God can't even follow his own rule?"
She didn't respond.

Maybe one day if she realizes that this God she so strongly believes is personal is actually wicked, in then indeed does not even exist, she will grow out of the biggest fairy tale in the history of mankind.

To end this post, I would like to ask some of the veterans here or anybody for that matter if they have any good atheist/agnostic agruments that one could use to avoid being crushed underneath bogus theistic arguments. Thanks to all who read or replied!

[ September 13, 2002: Message edited by: Evil Milkman ]</p>

jdawg2

you can always tell her that she doesn't necessarily have to see things as either "Christianity or atheist" or whatever...there's plenty of people that do the whole "i'm spiritual not religious" schtick. Could be a decent middle ground just to let her know she doesn't have to totally "give up god". *shrug*

Then later on you can dismantle that whole spirituality "God is a force! The force of love!" mess

K

Evil:

I think you're in a bad situation. My guess is that she'll start resenting you long before she starts hearng any of your evidence. I owuldn't push her. I think people need to come to grips with the crumbling of their myths on their own. If you try to nudge her, she'll probably just feel like you are trying to take something that she values greatly from her.

This is clearly all in my humble opinion from experiences I've had. It's probably worth exactly what you paid for it.

ex-idaho

My girlfriend of nearly 3 years was a devout Pentecostal when we met. She was convinced that she could win me over to Jesus but here plan failed miserably. Now she is basically agnostic and has alot of animosity towards the faith of her youth and feels sorry for her family for not seeing the manipulation that they inflict upon each other.

I accomplished this by being patient and non-confrontational as much as possible. Alot of, "I've got a question for you" type stuff. She would assume that I was curious when I was really just trying to get her to start thinking for herself. Of course I had an advantage that you lack, I was a known atheist.

Adamantia

I’d make a point of being gentle with her, as no one likes being made to feel stupid.

I also recommend these articles:

<a href="http://www.csicop.org/si/2000-11/beliefs.html" target="_blank">Why Bad Beliefs Don't Die</a>
Because beliefs are designed to enhance our ability to survive, they are biologically designed to be strongly resistant to change. To change beliefs, skeptics must address the brain's "survival" issues of meanings and implications in addition to discussing their data.

<a href="http://www.csicop.org/si/9505/belief.html" target="_blank">The Belief Engine</a>
Our brains and nervous systems constitute a belief-generating machine, a system that evolved to assure not truth, logic, and reason, but survival.

ax

wow, yea, I'm having trouble with the whole telling my xian friends and family what I believe. Its a terrible feeling when you upset people you care for by stating your beliefs.

Evil Milkman

Thanks guys, I appreciate your input. I will make an effort to be very tactful when we talk about her beliefs. I really don't want to make her feel stupid and I would expect the same generosity in return from her.

Jdwag 2, you hit it right on the head! I will try to explain to her the different views and that's it not's only just Christianity competing with atheism.

I really don't want her to resent me, that's what her last boyfriend did. He just wouldn't shut up about his atheism and I think he bashed her beliefs. I'll to try to be open with her in the kindest way possible, presenting the evidence (or lack of her evidence) in a good light. In the long run it should really make me look understanding but yet confident. I suppose I just don't want to be that guy who won't listen to her arguments.

Yeah, the last thing we both need is for her to hate me just for my current stance on this extremely complicated subject.

[edited for spelling]

[ September 14, 2002: Message edited by: Evil Milkman ]</p>

Gregg

Too bad that now that humankind has reached a point where ONLY truth, logic, and reason will save us, more and more people are falling into natural patterns of "survival" behavior which now actually INCREASE the likelihood we'll destroy ourselves.

At this point, I'm sad to say that I think our only hope might be that some hugely devastating event precipitated by religious antagonism (much more devastating even than the WTC, killing hundreds of thousands or millions of people) might be the only thing that will wake people up and stop them from blindly following their instincts. An important thing to remember: Our capacity for reason, too, is an evolved survival trait.

Gregg

JL

Milkman,

A tactic I've found useful with Christian friends and previously Christian girlfriend is not to always get into full blown debates. I offer my hopefully faith-erroding insight let them have their say and then try and move away from the subject. By not pressing them into some emotionally charged counter to my argument they seem to digest what I say and don't always dismiss it out of hand. And usually it will come up again days or weeks later where more often than not I'll at least get a tip of the hat to an interesting point.

As far as specific arguments go I think I'm going to try and start working an area a buddy of mine whose always trying to convert me brought up yesterday; his dissatisfaction with some of the local churches he's attended. It seems like the topic might expose a potential chink in his armor.

BTW I don't mean to sound like I go around spouting the wonders of atheism to Xians, but for those who come around witnessing its a different story.

Grumpy

Were the two of you weighing the merits of Black & White? Or is there a Left Behind video game I'm not aware of?