placebo

What do you think atheists believe from non-smart reasons?

Toto

Unfortunately, Christians tend to react to ridicule of their beliefs as if it were ridicule of themselves. And face it, you are ridiculing them for being so gullible to believe what they claim to believe.

It won't do any good to try to force them to keep their beliefs private. You can see what has happened with various policy issues: Christians act defensively, home school their children, think that there is evidence mounting against evolution because they have their own "experts" who claim that it is true.

If you truly want to communicate with people and get them to change their beliefs, whether they are adults or children or whoever, ridicule is not the way.

Vagabonder

I previously made a post in line with the OP in another thread I started here, so thought I'd repost it.

Imagine yourself in the shoes of God. Here you are, existing for eternity, not knowing why you exist for eternity or how it is that you didn't have a beginning, and one day amidst eternity, approximately 6,000 years ago, you decide to start creating things. In fact, you create everything in existence save yourself. You create a billion-trillion stars, and these living things called plants and animals to roam around on one tiny planet amidst a sea of other celestial bodies.

There’s no logical reason why you’d decide to do this approximately 6,000 years ago, instead of millions or billions of years ago. It couldn’t be that you wanted something to love you, because if you did, you’d know you’d want it, and wouldn’t have waited an eternity to create the universe. Then you start thinking, if the universe is only 6,000 years old, what was I doing for the infinite amount of time before the universe was created?

But you forget that bit of absurdity for a second, and after creating animals and plants on this tiny planet you decide to make one of the animals special by giving it the ability to defeat death and live as an immaterial entity like yourself. However, there’s a catch, this being has to follow the rules you set out for it, and believe in things without evidence, even though you’ve given them the ability to critically think. You realize your cruelty of punishing people for using their abilities to critically think to realize that you haven’t left any “evidence” for your existence that couldn’t also confirm the existence of any countless other gods who have been written about existing in different holy books which share an eerie similarity to the book you’ve blessed mankind with, but you forget about that.

So after creating humans, and giving the first of each of them a wonderful place to live and be happy, you put a tree in that garden which if eaten, will make you curse them with death and pain, and the possibility of eternal torment. Since you claim to be a loving and just god, you have troubles figuring out why you do this, but you do it anyway.

But your divine plan which you have the power to stop from failing, fails horribly, but you’re not surprised, because you knew that it was going to fail in the first place, so then you ask yourself, “why did I even bother with the garden in the first place”

Anyway, now that people are out of the garden and living their lives, killing each other, and brutally and ritualistically burning the animals you created, because the smell of their burning flesh appeases you, among other reasons, you recognize that there are too many people disobeying the rules that you laid out for them, even it’s in their nature to neglect the rules

So you decide to kill every last thing except for some people and animals on a boat. You wonder why you didn’t instead create some social programs or try and educate the things you created out of love, or something else, instead of just wiping the slate clean, but oh well.

You’re especially confused about your own actions because you know that the flood isn’t going to work, and sin is just going to become as prevalent or more so, and you realize that you just killed millions of human babies and puppies, among other things, for nothing.

You try to kill yourself because you can’t live with yourself, but you remember you can’t kill yourself because you’re eternal, so you decide that if you can’t die, you mine as well have some fun.

So you have sex with a virgin, so she can give birth to yourself to wander around as a human in a small region on one of the many billion planets you created. You then let yourself get killed, and tell people that you sacrificed yourself as a gift to us.

At this point, the majority of the world’s population doesn’t know a lick about the “real” you, and they believe what their own culture has taught them to explain the origins of the universe. But thankfully, that’s going to change, because you’re going to deliver a saving message to all mankind. Oddly enough though, your saving message to all mankind comes in the form of a book, the same way that all the other saving messages to mankind from other religions come in.

You think this is particularly funny, because you then set up a stipulation that if you don’t happen to believe the one version among many that has no more evidence for it and has to be believed on faith, you’re going to burn people’s souls for all eternity. You then wonder how you’re going to make the soul’s feel pain, if they don’t have a nervous system or a brain to interpret the neural signals. Then you realize that you’ve done all this thinking without even having a brain, and you explode, destroying the universe and starting over as a big bang.

----

My girlfriend wants me to edit and expand on it, and wants to do drawings to make it into a comic. Any suggestions for additions would be appreciated.

Cheers,

Brian

Vagabonder

I respectfully disagree. I don't believe there is a "best" way to get through to someone. Since beliefs are formed through different means, and held for different reasons, you can't expect only one method of communication to be effective. As a former YEC who thought that my beliefs made the most sense, ridicule mixed with people explaining the faults in my position lead me to drop my YEC beliefs, and eventually theism altogether. It was people pointing out the absurdities such as those I mentioned in the previous post, that made the switch flick in my brain, and left me susceptible to reasoned arguments.

Clouseau

Those are not Christians.

Stephen T-B

"Those are not Christians" (Clouseau)

But they think they are.
And thinking yourself to be a Christian, and finding other people who think like you, so think they are Christians too, is, in the end, the only way to be a Christian.
Another Christian points at you across the room and says "Hey! Your're not a Christian. And I know because I am one."

And while this absurd little charade goes on, supposedly there's an all-powerful god watching it and twiddling its thumbs and saying to its angels "I ain't gettin' involved. I like it best when they get so steamed up they start killing each other."

Ben C Smith

Overgeneralization:

No true Scotsman fallacy:

Ben.

Toto

Sorry - I meant "the sort of Christians that the OP would propose to ridicule." The ones here in the US who think that THEY are the only true Christians.

placebo

SETTING: Toto and Christian are discussing the teaching of Creationism in the science classroom- already in progress:

Toto hears Christian say: "... and 4000 years ago God commanded Noah to build an ark and gather two of every creature, ... blah, blah, blah."
Toto thinks to himself: "How many times do I have to politely respond to this stupid story?"
Toto replies: "That's an interesting story. Did you know that the great flood story is a myth that has been used by many religions and cultures. Many of them predating Christianity?"

Toto hears Christian say: "blah, blah, blah ... and there is scientific proof that Noah's Ark existed. It was found on a mountain in Turkey just like the Bible said it would. Dozens of people have seen it sticking out of the ice, ... blah, blah, blah."
Toto thinks to himself: "Just like all the people that saw the Virgin Mary in a slice of toast."
Toto replies: "Eyewitness accounts are not reliable and are considered anecdotal evidence. Scientific proof is more than people seeing something. It has to be studied and tested."

Toto hears Christian say: "It's in the Bible. Read Genesis, Chapter 6, ... blah, blah, blah."
Toto thinks to himself: "Just like there are talking snakes and donkeys, virgin births, Lot's wife turned into a pillar of salt, ..."

=== Fast Forward 30 Minutes ===

Toto replies: "... do you realize how incredible this story is? The Ark would have to be enormous to hold all of those animals."

Toto hears Christian say: "blah, blah, blah, ... and the Ark was about 500 feet long and 50 feet tall. It was big enough because there weren't as many animals then as there are today. For example, all the dogs today are variations of the two that were on the ark."
Toto thinks to himself: "This guy is a knucklehead."
Toto replies: "... and how could Noah build such a big boat? All the materials and time it would take!"

Toto hears Christian say: "blah, blah, blah, ... and Noah started building the Ark when he was almost 500 years old. It took Noah over 100 years to build the Ark, and he lived to be over 600, ... blah, blah, blah."
Toto thinks to himself: "600 years my ass. More like 600 months."
Toto replies: <silence, Toto is numb>

Toto hears Christian say: "blah, blah, blah, Genesis, Chapter 9, ... blah, blah, blah, ... and Noah's sons Shem, Japheth and Ham."
Toto thinks to himself: "I think I'll have ham and eggs for breakfast tomorrow."

That's how Toto gets Christian to change his beliefs!

Clouseau

A. McCarthyites were communists.

B. McCarthyites were not communists, actually.

C. No true Scotsman fallacy!