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Discussing atheism with religious people (I)

© Francois Tremblay

We all know the intellectual reasons to be an atheist. Atheism is the most rational position on the question of gods, to the extent that such a question is meaningful at all. There is no objective evidence that gods exist : all that we have in support of the concept are personal experiences and fallacies. On the other hand, we know enough about the universe to disprove the idea of a god.

God-belief is the product of our instincts, our inborn desire for protection, meaning, and purpose. This instinct has expressed itself in various ways throughout history, from the pantheons of Antiquity to today's "New Age" impersonal forces. Indeed, most people fear, perhaps with good reason, that their lives would crumble like paper tissues if they did not believe in gods - if they lost the *faith*. Aye, there's the rub.

For we know that epistemic views are exclusive - someone who holds emotion as his standard of evidence will not be moved by rational, clear-cut explanations. Reason begets reason, faith begets faith. Therefore, someone who already holds christianity as an absolute truth will not be inclined to reconsider his experience as metaphysically irrelevant. For example, someone who holds his emotional attachment to religion as a standard, then trying to give him rational arguments will not work : it will have no emotional resonance for him, and therefore will be unuseful for his own worldview. This is not to mean, of course, that this worldview is correct, but that he thinks it is correct.

Therefore, if you are inclined to talk to a religious person, or any kind of person who values emotional or traditional propositions over reason, you have to appeal to their own standards. To an angry or sad man, soothsayers are not useful. In the same manner, you have to talk to a person's cognitive level (his epistemic views and culture as much as his level of intelligence) in order to get him to really understand what you are saying.

This is fairly intuitive. You don't talk to a child the same way than you do for most adults. In the same way, you cannot talk to an intellectually regressed person the same way than you talk to a mature, rational person. Unless the religious person you are talking to is really honestly searching for truth and simply had a bad education, he will fall in the "magical thinking" category.

Note that you might not necessarily be out to convert someone. Maybe someone is harassing you at home, or at work, about your atheism. Or you might be discussing the matter with your friends or family, and be confronted with incomprehension. In more religious countries like the United States, this is understandable.