When he gets to the bit where he says "I find most logic and reason not logical at all" this is where his pretence of argument ends, along with much else if he were my friend. It would have been prudent to interject at that point and remind him that there are many unfortunate people suffering from mental disorders who would sadly agree with him there.

You ask what I think about the method with which he tried to appeal to you? Yet I see no method, and definitely no appeal - either to reason or emotion. If your quotations are verbatim and accurately represent his mental health then I would be one worried friend. The conversation as he conducted his part in it was only nominally concerned with religion, but was most definitely and fundamentally eloquent on the matter of his sanity.

Remember being a critical thinker is not a requirement for being an atheist.  They do help though...

Let me try to give you an example. This has intrigued me too for quite a while, and gradually I came to understand what this means for some theists. Or so I think I have.

1) First of all, it's based on the perception that I really share with them - if the world was completely atheistic up until now, it might even have been worse than what we see today. We might even have had to invent some kind of religion, just to start a spark of some idea of equality and social responsibility and bind it to a crazy idea of martyrdom in an organized fashion that can not be drowned in blood and fear.

In the light of this thinking, all arguments that go with "religion is bad" really sound like "bad people use everything they can, religion included". They don't connect with your thought that we would be better off without religion, and quite frankly neither do I. It's a butt-shit crazy idea, but it did and continues to do some important work on the organizing level, save all it's faults.

2) Second, they hear us advocate theories as facts. These facts are proven and by the way they mean your way of thinking is invalid - basta. To be perfectly honest, that is shitty skill with argumentation. One has to take audience into consideration when arguing for a case. Skill with argumentation is a quality of a reasonable society on it's own. People even tick me off calling this or that a fact, and I would cut God's balls off and wear them as a necklace, if I was to run into one in the afterlife. We lose credibility asserting definite knowledge, and this is not restricted to people choosing between faith and atheism. But if faced with the choice, it suddenly becomes less obvious, since both groups assert definite knowledge.

3) Third, some questions they pose we look at as less important, unanswerable, stupid or just plain already answered and proven meaningless as all the rest of it. They want meaningful answers. We are fine with our own answers. They want more than fine. Taking audience into consideration, we should not ignore those questions or the ways they were posed. But we do, so their questions go unanswered. More than that, we often leave an air of arrogant disdain for even being so bold as to ask. Being in touch with some holy book and this book being basically a prescription on human behavior, they get an authoritative way of sorting us into a box of ignoramuses, since arrogance and presumption of knowledge often is treated in that way in holy books. This grants immediate satisfaction, since they really dislike us for being ass-wipes about things they really are troubled with.

I can see how many times a guy like his friend might run into unsatisfying answers from people like us. This is unfortunate, because people that need answers elsewhere than in themselves are capable of much greater devotion to an idea, than someone who can make shit stick as he goes and is fine with things being fucked up in general. I think we are missing out on a lot of good human material, that luckily gets picked up by our unwanted friends in the religious environment.

4) Finally, in the light of all of the above, it's not too hard just to assert that atheism is cool, but atheists don't know what they are talking about. For some this realisation is a ticket to some religious gathering, like his friend there. For me it is very exciting, actually. It means that there might yet be hope for a reasonable world, since the most reasonable people really aren't all that reasonable yet.

I agree that it probably was no appeal as much as excited explanation. But as to worry about his mental health, I probably would not. Given the premises I wrote up above, his social experience of "Bible study" and historical impact of religious personalities present in his mind, it's not too hard to imagine a person like him would reject atheism with increasing strength, all the while persuing scientific work. Radiologist is not particulary scientific endavour by the standards of today, but even if it was, not a problem in his mind - Newton's largest work was theological in nature.

Based solely on how people on this site have discussed their atheism, it tends to be a place where you don't leave once you arrive. There seem to be far more theists-turned-atheists than vice-versa.

I didn't say religion was necessary for people to be good people, actually the opposite - good people are necessary for the existance of some existing religious practices. This doesn't mean that good people have to belong to some religion, although I might form an argument in which pretty much everyone alive is religious in some way. Don't answer this last bit, I don't feel like entering endless discussion of definitions.

More to the point - organized practice of approval of self-sacrifice establishes a culture of martyrdom. Martyrdom is ultimate resistance to opression, since the more you rip the martyr to shreds, the more exalted he becomes in the eyes of his community for their bravery, commitment and steadfast example. Even if he breaks under torture, he is praised all the more, because he submited himself to suffering no man can take. Jesus is the perfect example with "father why have you forsaken me" stuff. Even in his darkest hour of despair there is the establishment of a higher principle - a man is broken, but his faith remains. Namely, he doesn't say "there is no God", the thought that he might never even appears - he affirms his principle even beyond tolerance of human flesh.

This is not just a religious thing, you can easily see this in the communist resistance movement during the second world war and many others. I myself was named after a man from the resistance, a poet who was tortured to death by fascist colaborators in 1943, his story probably greatly exaggerated. To me all concept of religious piety is utterly foreign, but understandable - in extreme situations the cult of death protects meaningful life.

In extreme situations good people do come forward, but to stand up to significant risk of death, you need more than a pragmatical risk assessment. So they invent a bit of religious zeal. Religion just makes this human notion an official policy, establishing it beyond questioning glares of pragmatists, who at any point might call the martyr a fool and a lunatic. They can use a crazy story - any story will do for a person on the verge of doing a good thing in face of death, anything that would rebuke the perception of him getting it wrong and being a fool. And our human society supports it. This is what I was talking about, really. A lot of words for a small point

Not sure where to start. I don't think there is a science, a humanitarian movement or a socialist endavour that was not supported, initiated and/or led by religious socialists. The idea that all men come from a single father is astonishing in and of itself, establishing the idea of equality between men thousands of years before our secular government was fine with segragation, eugenics and social Darwinism (look that last one up, if you haven't already, a marvel of secular thought). Today you have these people running arond jungles, warzones, natural disaster areas, affiliated either directly or loosely with religious organisations, basically just dieing while trying to help ordinary people. In our own communities they are organizing, feeding the homeless and poor, picking up ex-convicts and generally people we have discarded as useless and reintroducing them into society. They are oganizing and staging actions against all kinds of social plights and they permiate every corner of everything we see, but we never really hear them speak. Partly because we don't llisten.

If you haven't yet had the time, make sure to put off like a month to go through Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky.

Here I define 'fact' as definite knowledge that rebukes the religious thought on the grounds of impossibility. Your response will not help solve the problem of us ticking people off by asserting definite knowledge in an arrogant and condescending manner. A religious person would look at you - "a category error? everything I build my life around is a category error?" While I might understand what you are saying, a religious person would not. In this case not even I understand how you got to that response.

This is argumentation not taking audience into consideration. You have to think like the person you are arguing with, if you hope to convince them of something, or at least reach a conclusion of some sort.

Here we go again - condescending. I can not stress enough how different your world would be without people who feel like they do - without the romantics, martyrs, meaning seekers, humanitarians and other 'weirdos'. You might have to do without the Red Cross and the Red Crescent, without the laws of mechanics, without the IFOR, without thousands of organizations and milions of idividuals that shape our reality free enough to support practicing atheists, sometimes at great cost to themselves. If we want more room for atheism, we should really support them, regardless of their belief system. Weird, huh?

Again, bullshit. Being good is not a requirement for martyrdom, as is made clear every day. Martyrdom is just as much a tool for oppression as it is for freedom. The brand of martyrdom used for oppression is almost exclusively religious. What say you to that?

Have you been living in a cave? Your telling me you have never heard of secular humanism?

Don't give me that social Darwinism shit. If anything, Darwin showed that all animals came from a "single father." I'm tired of you sidestepping the issue. The subject of this conversation is weather or not religion is required for people to be good, not weather secular people can be bad.

I'll look into it, can't promise anything.

That is exactly the problem. Certain religious ideas are flat out wrong. Anybody who believes in flat-earth, young-earth, global flood, or any other ridiculous notion should be looked down upon. I know that makes me sound like a dick, but frankly I don't give a fuck. These ideas are irrational and illogical, and as such need to be squashed. I don't care if the truth hurts their delicate sensibilities. You're really bringing out the militant atheist in me...

More bullshit. You're assuming one must be religious to have a sense of awe and wonder. This is a fallacious argument that doesn't even deserve a response, but I'll give one any way. Ever hear of Einstein? How about Sagan? I could go on forever.

I do have to agree with Zus to a certain extent. We would not be where we are without religion. That does not however mean that we still have a legitimate use for it.

Of course people should get credit for their humanitarianism whenever they show it, and praise for when they do so with fortitude, regardless of whether or not they are religious.

But is your point that one should never take such a person to task over their religious beliefs? What stupid guff. If a great humanitarian ascribes his or her actions to a devotion to a giant teapot in solar orbit somewhere around the asteroid belt then he or she is validating the same belief in all the other teapot-worshippers, including the sadists, the hypocritical adherents to teapotism, the ignorant and the plain lunatic amongst them.

If they hold an untenable position with regard to orbiting teapots then it requires to be exposed, and I would suggest even more in their case than with others, since the validation they provide through it not being challenged has the potential to undo everything they worked for.

You seem to be attempting to walk a middle line, but I would caution against it strongly as the line is one dividing realism and logic from sheer lunacy. Attempting to reconcile the two is worse than madness. One only has to look at religion's own attempts at the exercise to see the damage it causes.

By all means speak up for those who, despite their adherence to untenable hypothesis, managed to allow their humanitarianism to win out in the end. But ask yourself with equal vigour how many other great men and women have been silenced throughout history by the beliefs which you say motivated your heroes, how many great leaps forward have been restrained by those beliefs, and how much therefore we should see those few "heroes" as evidence of a potentially vast crime against humanity itself - one which has been instigated through ignorance, prosecuted through ignorance, and now is sustained by the wilfully ignorant?

Hope you enjoy the view from the middle ground - from where I'm standing it looks dangerously close to the other side's!

It is much more deadly than that, Spike, though your point is also true.

But if stifling imagination was its only crime then one could just about adopt a neutral view towards it, or simply adopt Zus's "leave the good ones alone" attitude of avoidance. However when you realise that the active interference of god worshippers in Tutu's own land is leading to the deaths of thousands from AIDS, or that the same delusion shared by the admirable Al-Haqq humanitarian organisation in the UK is also shared by those who think it right and just to stone a young rape victim to death elsewhere, then the debate is raised way beyond the level of an academic indifference to delusional views held by otherwise worthy people, and to the level where all which propagates such inhumanity, and especially that which is grateful for the validation it receives from the good works of a minority, should be exposed for what it is. If some great humanitarian worthy has to face the uncomfortable fact that they have inadvertently contributed to the very woes they thought they were eradicating then all the better.

Exactly!  That was why I was so baffled by his "I totally was an atheist, just like you!" to asserting to know about the validity of the Bible/Yahweh/Christ.  I would feel less insulted if he just said something like "I used to not be very religious, but now I am!."  I think it is a little offensive to assume that I merely haven't put forth the effort to understand/accept a certain religion and that I should take him as an authority because he claims he was in my position as an atheist.

Oh well....

Worst part of the whole thing is that it started with "I'd love to discuss this" to "You win, I don't have time."  He asked me to question him, yet runs away when he can't answer me...  I even took the time to link him some good videos to watch

I think you should offer him one of your free hugs - or at least an older, cheap one!

Don't adopt that attitude, 'cause it sucks. Don't avoid the issue, face it intelligently. Don't leave them alone, support them in redefining what it means to be religious in their communities and globally, support them in humanitarian work and anything else that is aligned with our interests. Attack directly anyone who does not fit the profile of what Nordmann calls "good ones" with accusation of being a closet-atheist and call them openly out for their ungodly ways.

Religious profile of man is not carved in stone, we can shape it into a tool for progress, untill such a time as the whole matter is made more or less harmless. This state will not be trouble-free or permanent, but so what? In the long term we will just have to fight for all the short terms it consists of.

What sucks is adopting attitudes which contribute to human misery. So let's analyse the "intelligence" behind yours:

Only the last bit there comes close to making sense, but your use of the word "support" is - like the rest of your viewpoint - vague to the point of stupidity. By all means support humanitarian work. I cannot think of a nobler cause. But what the fuck use is supporting the delusional prejudices harboured by the same humanitarians? Unequivocal support for individuals whose actions contribute indirectly to the undoing of any benefit they implement is not only stupid, it is anti-humanitarian in its final effect.

The first bit "support them in redefining what it means to be religious ..." is pure unadulterated bullshit. It goes without saying that I would help anyone who wishes it should they begin the often laborious and sometimes painful process of divesting themselves of their delusional state. But those who claim to have been inspired to do good by such delusional attribution to non-existent deities are hardly prime candidates for seeking such help, are they? Yet you seemingly want that delusion supported.

Hmmm.

That's just plain thick. What the fuck is a "closet atheist"? Why would I as an atheist attack another atheist for their "ungodly ways"? You're really not making any sense with this utterance either. Normally, when one finds that one has become totally nonsensical one has a straight choice, shut up or make even a bigger fool of oneself by becoming even more dipshit in what one says. You apparently choose the latter as your next comment reveals.

Heh? How is something dangerous rendered harmless by encouraging its use?  But wait - it gets worse:

What on earth are you gibbering about now? What "state"? What is  a "fight for all the short terms it consists of"? What do you think has been the general pattern of western society, for example, until now? Has it not been a series of incremental advances made despite rather than because of religion? Are you advising everyone simply to carry on as before? Do you like religion that much?

Hmmm.

You are obviously a person whose estimation of the intelligence of his remarks exceeds his ability to express himself. And that's fine - many peoploe are so afflicted. But please don't attempt to gainsay other people's arguments with the resultant gibberish. It's rude.

Hi, sorry for the late response

Of course, this is wrong, partly because of my less than eloquent formulation. Let's try the full sentence: "We might even have had to invent some kind of religion, just to start a spark of some idea of equality and social responsibility and bind it to a crazy idea of martyrdom in an organized fashion that can not be drowned in blood and fear."

I use religion loosely here, making a point that it is a manifestation of our human nature. In a time when every rational thread in us compels us to shut up and stay out of the way, zealotry of some sort can be a way out of the state of frozen. Promoting this anti-freeze in an organised fashion is a human way of dealing with a frozen situation. We don't need religion to do this for us, we ARE religion in this sense. We just call it forth in the time of need. I can exemplify this behavior with the rate of religious conversions in prisons. It's not that the reigion is available, it's that the need for something of the sort is present.

This is somewhat inconsequential to my point and I should probably have left the sentence out. But it is an interesting thing to look at in this context, now that we are here. I think it is a very positive human trait, that we can put perspective on dire suffering in such a way that we can go through it unscathed, even solidified. It also means that there is no way around this for us, other than eleviating human suffering, which is also a positive thing.

Religion does nothing - people do everything. If it appears that religion censors this or that, you should assume that the culprits really are human individuals and organisations grounded in interest. They use ideas as both deceit and a weapon. Now you could argue that carpet bombing everything that has anything to do with the ideas they hide behind is as good as anything else, but what you really are doing is facing off their human shields. If you prefere status quo, this is the way to go. You will piss people off, galvanise the support for the crooks even more, while the people making money on the conflict will support you in this endavour.

We have to wrestle the ideas out of their hands, so that they have to watch their language and actions a bit more closely with every day that passes, untill the particular idea is just no longer a viable solution due to huge resistance within and they go for something else. Social Darwinism, which you so dislike me mentioning, is just such an alternative idealistic construct that gives them space to operate in. And there are thousands of others, including freedom, patriotism, democracy, capitalism, socialism ... We have to follow them like flies on shit accross the whole spectrum of ideologies. Make it harder for them to operate on their own ground - give people meaningful and strong alternatives based on our interest, all the while discrediting our adversaries in the same community.

This has to be done through alliances formed with people in the world of these ideas.

Now I am inclined to believe I am misunderstood on purpose, at least when it comes to you. As for your retreat, fine with me.

Ok, so let the "kiddo" try something very short and unequivocal. Tell me if you agree with all or some of this:

1) Ideology is not separate from humanity, but is actually a manifestation of some human need or interest - therefore ideology cannot be fought on it's own and out of context.

2) Some ideologies can be easily used to galvanise support from the very resistance to them.

3) The ideologies that comply with 2) are best not faced head on, but gradually redefined from within to fit our views.

4) Propagators of ideologies that comply with 2) are best not affirmed in their martyrdom, but discredited instead.

5) The best way to fight a given ideology is accomplishment of 3) and 4), and lessening of influence of human needs and interests mentioned in 1).

I always retreat from ambiguity. It keeps me sane.

I would also offer some advice. If you find that those who misunderstand you are also those who you suspect do so intentionally, and that it includes almost everyone, then you have made the first tentative step to the inevitable deduction that you are most likely talking through your arse. The two vital clues to this deduction are a) most people couldn't be bothered taking the trouble to misunderstand you with intent, it's way too much work, even for a minority of them and b) if the whole world still misunderstands you then this either means that the whole world is stupid or that you are.

The whole world isn't dim.

That leaves you with a choice - assume you're dim or assume you've been too vague. Let your honesty and your ego battle it out over which is the case.

Bertrand Russell was once asked what he might reckon would prove the turning point with regard to religious adherence after which it would plummet into a sharp decline. For example, the questioner asked, would it be perhaps when global education improved to the point where most people on the planet would register in the top half of the IQ scale (thereby showing at once an unwarranted faith in education equating with intelligence, and a total ignorance of quotients in statistics).

Russell replied that the turning point would most probably be when the majority of people in the world could spell IQ.

That day may never come with our current education system and teachers unions.

The turning point will come when scientists and engineers develop non-invasive brain stimulation that provides greater anxiety relief than religion.

I think the end is near for religion. Jesus better hurry his ass up or their won't be any believers when he returns:

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory?id=6240358

Hi, sorry for the late answer, busy as hell lately.

The key to whole 1) is in the part you omitted: "[ideology] is actually a manifestation of some human need or interest ..."

I say nothing about how we create ideology, but that ideology is grounded in and can not exist without some human need or interest. Needs and interests can become weaker and stronger or change nature, and these fluctuations will manifest themselves in the scope, power and nature of the ideology, fundamentally defining it. If you attack a presumed static autonomous thing that is ideology, like a stated "logic" of the ideology, you will miss the target, because you are not addressing the fundamental (and mostly unstated) needs and interests that define, enforce and recruit for the ideology.

Is this agreeable?

Ok, so we are almost there with 2). Is this agreeable with respect to the cult of suffering/death kind of ideology as well? Like for instance the Quaker pacifists, who are only that more comfirmed in their belief the more they are suppressed, beaten and ousted from the community?

If this is agreeable, then it's a general accept that some ideologies can become stronger in their resolve as an effect of resistance to them.

I will suspend 3) for now, yell if you disagree.

Not just killing them, but basically anything that would affirm them in the eyes of their followers. This could be as little as a bad review of Pat Robertson in the New York Times - of course the gay-married elitist liberals would take a shot at our Messiah. Far from discrediting him, this actually shuts down New York Times as a source of reliable information about Pat Robertson to his community. It is still good to have reviews of Pat Robertson in the New York Times, but now any criticism that comes from New York Times will have little to no effect on the minds of his followers, which effectively is no longer meaningfully discrediting him. We need something to support these reviews withing the community of his followers.

Is this agreeable?

I suspended 5) for now as well, yell if you disagree.

Next part of this post is separate from my questions above and should not be considered a part of our little noobie dialectic/examination. Feel free to disregard it and please don't allow it to interfere with the questions above.

I think we have plenty of experience and we can use history as our best available lab environment. Rest of it is method: responsiblity for what is done, which will assure dialogue and caution; willingness to learn rather than to be superficially "right about things".

Yes. Education is also manipulating people, not necessarily all of it a bad thing.

I agree. This does not limit us to trial-and-error only, however. Our educational system, for example, functions assuming much more than the narrow cognitive psychology and is fairly successful at forwarding both explicit and implicit "knowledge" to generation after generation. Compared to this system, our method of confronting religion is extremely crude, for better and for worse. I advocate a third way that would take the best of both worlds, as far as this is possible.

Another benefit of attempting to organize, discuss and implement more consistent solutions is to ourselves. Experience of our own foolishness is best acquired in a rich environment capable of delivering constructive feedback.

If you look at the post above, the argument is down by two points and I have tried to make the remaining 3 as plain as day, or push them a bit further to see if I can get agreement on a broader level.

If the answer is still "I don't know", it's out. If the answer is "agree to this point", then that's common ground.

While it might be stupid, I don't see how it's not clear.