Entry 1877, on 2017-09-18 at 21:46:18 (Rating 4, Religion)
I recently spent some time with a colleague discussing how to deal with a fundamentalist Christian's irrational ideas that he had recently become aware of. I have to say that this fundy keeps his crazy ideas pretty much to himself and is otherwise a perfectly pleasant and reasonable person, so there was no real need to try to "convert" him, but sometimes the need to try arises - such as in a debate situation - so I thought I might describe my technique here.
I have had varying degrees of success with this in the past, from complete rejection (because some people are never going to change their views) to moderate success (for example, a person admitting to changing his opinions, or one who was on the road to enlightenment: that is, believing the same thing as me, and I am fully aware of how arrogant that sounds).
But where I have had some successes it has never been using just one technique. In addition, it is never easy to tell which method of persuasion is likely to be effective for a particular individual, so I have created a three step process which formalises by debating technique...
Step 1. Use facts.
My first instinct when debating controversial issues is to use facts. In general the issues I support can be easily supported with good evidence. But most people who believe in irrational ideas didn't get to that point by following the facts, because there never are many supporting them. So it often follows that they can't be moved by using facts either.
In addition there are always facts on both sides. Sometimes the "facts" on one side are barely facts at all (hence the quotes) but many people will believe an extremely doubtful or weak fact if it supports what they want to believe, even if there are a hundred which are much more certain against them.
Step 2. Use logic.
When step 1 fails it is often useful to try a process of logic. A complex idea can be broken down into a series of steps which logically follow and are difficult to deny. There doesn't necessarily have to be any facts involved in this because logic usually transcends facts.
Step 3. Use morality.
If both facts and logic fail a good backup strategy, depending on the actual subject under discussion, is to use a moral or ethical argument. While morals vary from one person to another to some extent, there are common concepts shared by most people, including fairness, non-violence, and freedom.
So now I should give an example. Obviously I'm not going into details because half my readers won't have even got this far and are unlikely to want to read 20 pages on the subject, but I will use a very condensed version of how I would handle the issue. So here's an imaginary debate between me and a fundamentalist Christian...
Fundy: The Bible says that God created humans, so evolution cannot be true, and following events described there it makes it obvious the world is only 6000 years old. The Bible also says that it is the inerrant word of God and that the devil is always trying to find ways to deceive us with false truths. Without the Bible to guide us we will have no moral compass and there will be increased violence and evil around the world.
Me: You say that evolution cannot be true yet almost every expert in the world has concluded it is. Also there are many lines of evidence which anyone can understand which show evolution is an accurate theory to describe the variety of life on Earth. The age of the world cannot possibly be that short and I can show you evidence from geology, biology, astronomy, physics, chemistry, and many other areas of science to show it is almost 14 billion years. The time light has spent travelling from distance galaxies shows this, for example. Let's get these fact-based claims out of the way before we move on to the other stuff.
Fundy: But the Bible has been shown to be accurate, so how can it be wrong? Also there are many scientists who don't believe in evolution or an old Earth. Here is a list of URLs for you to look at. Not following the Bible leads to you rejecting God's offer of salvation and you just don't want to admit his authority.
Me: The Bible is full of errors if you are prepared to accept scientific and historical evidence. For example, there is no evidence at all of major stories like Genesis, the Flood, Exodus, etc. These so-called scientists you cite are not publishing in scientific journals so I would say they are not practicing scientists. In fact most of them work at Answers in Genesis. If they are only looking in one place they will never be able to look at all the evidence. Let's keep to facts and forget about God's salvation for now.
Fundy: You have your facts and I have mine. Many serious researchers are religious and you cannot reject their research so easily. Also science changes all the time. Who can tell when a new theory might come along and contradict the Big Bang or evolution? You say yourself that science can never prove anything with 100% certainty, so why are you so sure that science is right and religion is wrong?
Me: Instead of just offering an opinion on who is doing science and who isn't, we should look at a standard which is widely accepted. People who are engaged in science publish in reputable journals. Anyone who isn't doing that isn't really doing science. They might still be right, but based on past experience the scientific consensus is far more reliable than anything else. And you are right, we can never be 100% certain of anything, but it is still reasonable to accept a theory which is 99% likely to be at least a good approximation to the truth (like evolution), instead of one we can be 99% certain is wrong (like creation).
Fundy: You may say that but because you have no moral basis for your views they are really arbitrary. Without God to guide you and tell right from wrong, how can your views be taken seriously?
Me: Well this gets back to an old question in philosophy regarding the goodness of god. But first, let me say that using a god who probably doesn't even exist as the basis of your morality seems worse than admitting that we really don't even have a basis. And even if we pretend that your god does exist, how do we know he is good? Is it because he says so? And if your god is good, is he good because he's god, or is he god because he's good? In other words if we know he's good then there must be some external criterion to judge that against, in which case why do we need a god anyway? And if whatever he does is good because he's god then that seems a dangerous view to take because any dictator could make that claim.
Fundy: Wait, what? We know God is good because that's one of the reasons we know he's the one true God. Can you not see the logic in this?
Me: All I can see is a circular argument: God is good because he's God. How do we know he's God? Because he's good. How do we know he's good? Because he's God.
Fundy: You know, that is a ridiculous simplification of a position that theologians have been debating for centuries. Do you really believe you have the answer to such a deep and meaningful problem?
Me: Well, yes. I think it really is that simple. The only reason it becomes complex is because many people want to reach a conclusion that supports the existence of a god. If they just followed the evidence they would see that it's really quite simple: that there is no good reason to believe a god exists.
Fundy: The Bible talks about people like you who use false logic to try to lead believers away from the truth. You do realise that you are risking eternal damnation for your excessive pride and inability to accept the authority of God, don't you?
Me: I know that according to the narrative of the New Testament your god prefers to inflict people who refuse to accept his dominance with eternal torture. This is the same god who is advertised as being the "God of love" and who has a prophet (Jesus) who preaches understanding and acceptance. This seems somewhat contradictory to me.
Fundy: God gives you the choice of believing in him or not. If you don't accept his offer you deserve all you get. He sacrificed his son so that you could have this hope of salvation, yet you refuse to take it.
Me: It's not a choice I make. I simply cannot believe your god exists. Should I pretend to believe when I really don't? Would God not know that I'm not being honest with him? And if your god wants me to believe in him why doesn't he make his presence more obvious? Why do I have to rely on faith which I cannot force myself to do that?
Fundy: His presence is obvious to most of us. Why do you think that most people in the world are Christians?
Me: Actually, they're not. Only a third of the population identify as Christians and even then that is purely a matter of their societal norms. You are a Christian because that is the history of the country you were born in. If you were born in India you would almost certainly be a Hindu. If you were born in Iraq you would be a Muslim. It seems that the god you follow depends on your culture, not on which (if any) god really exists.
Fundy: Well you seem to have convinced yourself that these false beliefs are true. I have tried to show you the truth but your pride prevents you from accepting it. Don't complain when you end up in Hell.
Me: Am I a bad person? Have I been guilty of any terrible crimes? I donate to charities, I am a productive member of my society, I don't harm any other people. Why do I deserve eternal damnation from this "loving God" of yours?
Fundy: God is just, and he is only doing what you deserve. It is not for me or you to judge whether he is right or wrong - he is God and can do whatever he likes.
Me: So a person who spends his whole life torturing, killing, etc and then accepts Jesus as his saviour shortly before dying goes to heaven, but a person who spends his life doing good, but cannot accept the teaching of your religion because there is no evidence, suffers forever. If that is how your god works then, even if he did exist, I would not accept him.
Fundy: And there's the proof that you are evil.
Me: OK, let's leave it there. Thanks for the discussion.
As you can see, in the fictitious example above (but one based on real experience) the fundy isn't converted on the spot, but I would hope that amongst the points I made: that the evidence is against him, that logic is against him, and that an understanding of basic fairness and morality is against him; there might be something to make him a little bit less certain than he was.
Or, maybe, he might exhibit the backfire effect and just "double-down" on his beliefs because they are shown to be probably untrue. But the three pronged attack makes that less likely because I have found that the final argument (the unfairness of God's punishment) often gets through to people when the more rational points don't.
Whatever the end effect is, debating this way is fun, and any progress - no matter how small - is OK with me.
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