The Gaming Den

I had to truncate the title, because we apparently don't allow titles longer than like 40 characters...


My wife and I were talking about the Den yesterday. She normally drones out when I bring up roleplaying mechanics or fixing the game. She believes in all of that. She just doesn't want to take part in that activity. So, The Den has gotten associated with droning for her mostly because I used to only bring up conversations from the RP forums than this one.

She apparently got accosted by a nut yesterday. She was just sitting in one of her school buildings working out code on a piece of paper and he comes up and starts up conversation on programming and suddenly he pops the question (I mean the nerve, she's got a ring on her finger, and a Hindu Thali << more obscure >> on her neck). So what do you think of religion or some such?

She sighs and asked him if that was the main reason for him to come to talk to her. He probably weaseled some sort of answer that resembled a yes. I'm insulting the weasel here, it's that man's fault.

So we got to talking and I started telling her that I need to school her on quotations. I mean she's read her OT & NT and thus is somethign of an agnostic but she isn't well-versed enough to go quoting.

So she brings up the point that if you outthink them and out-debate them then they aren't going to come to your side. They clam up. They say that well if I don't have the answer for this it's because I'm not well-read. somebody else must.

if you treat it like a debate and point that out to them and point out that you have at least won on the material forum and haven't found a convert, they walk off in a huff.

So as I've pointed out before, we're just prattling on to ourselves like intellectuals. nothing wrong in being intellectuals. But aside from saying Christianity bad. Islam bad. Judaism bad. Hinduism bad. protection racket. protection racket. What the fvck are we really doing? This goes back to a post that Crissa made a while ago wondering about why we talk about these myths at all.

So going back to the title of the topic. Do you talk to the religionist aka the believer? With the purpose of debate, what do you do it for? I don't do it for the purpose of conversion. That's a good afterthought. if it happens it happens. but what is the prattle all about.

A_Cynic wrote: So going back to the title of the topic. Do you talk to the religionist aka the believer? With the purpose of debate, what do you do it for? I don't do it for the purpose of conversion. That's a good afterthought. if it happens it happens. but what is the prattle all about.

Some of my coworkers are ignorant bible-thumpers. Usually I'll let the religiosity slide because I'm not an argumentative prick and since I don't want them preaching at me, I won't preach at them. I only pipe in for rebuttal if they say something offensive to me, or factually Wrong that they would do well to have corrected.

So far it works out alright.

Have you ever tried just asking them "Have you ever really take a good look at the beliefs you are professing, then tried to reconcile them with the world you live in?"

It might not work, but trying to get them to think about their own beliefs from an objective standpoint is worth a shot. Don't even bother trying to argue - just place a question before them and wait. The people worth bothering with will try.

As my friend John, author of God vs the Bible, says:

"If you won't question the morality of the God you serve, how do you know you aren't unwittingly serving the Devil?"

Personally, I agree with clickml for the most part...my philosophy is "do whatever you want as long as you don't hurt/force your belief on others" (specifically, me). I have ultra-Christian friends and I don't attack their beliefs because they're good people and I don't want to get in a fight with them. I've had people assume I was a Christian and I let it go because I say no point in arguing about it.

So, yeah. Do what you want and I'll leave you alone, but if you want to debate religion, spout off utter nonsense, or actively try to convert me, I'll happily tell you exactly what I think.

If you want to plant the seeds of doubt in a religious person, try for a subtle emotional appeal that is also logical. Whatever you do, don't smash them with your atheist hammer. I'm not very good at that, so I won't give an example.

If you want them you leave you the fuck alone, go for a full frontal assault that isn't an opening for debate. "I can't be Saved, I've been excommunicated from the x church" can work sometimes, if you choose the right denomination. It's worked on followers of Mormoni, anyway.

I love discussing religion (and the concept of belief in specific) with believers. I don't hate religions, but they are things that should be heavily monitered. I've made a good number of people stop believing with my questions on why they do it.

A_Cynic wrote:So going back to the title of the topic. Do you talk to the religionist aka the believer? With the purpose of debate, what do you do it for? I don't do it for the purpose of conversion. That's a good afterthought. if it happens it happens. but what is the prattle all about.

Why do you think I'm in favour of taking over the education system?

You can't logically disprove faith. Thats the whole point of faith. You will not be convincing a true believer and anyone evangelising probably does have a lot of raw faith.

A_Cynic wrote:I had to truncate the title, because we apparently don't allow titles longer than like 40 characters...

Why didn't you just call it "Hear No Evil".

People never put the time into picking a really snappy thread title.

Oh yeah, and I've done some atheistic preaching to the unconverted (er, religious, whatever). Only the total psycho's are beyond reach.

People want to listen, they want to reach a compromise, they want to be reasonable they are at least mildly intelligent and have an ingrained bias toward facts and provable reality. These are natural traits of just being a normal human and just being exposed to post enlightenment social upbringing at all.

Only individuals who's rejection of such traits amounts to a fairly obvious mental illness can't be reasoned with. And they aren't altogether that common.

Mind you around here individuals who so much as self identify as regular church goers or part of a church community are a rare and untrusted minority. I mean heck, my village has two churches. I'm pretty sure only one of them is used for religious services, and only very very rarely by very very few people.

You might have a harder time up in the hills where there are Seven Day Adventists who don't let their kids watch regular broadcast television. I went to primary with some of those kids, more than a few had webbed or fused toes.

Hey, here's an indication of the local religious attitudes. Our backwards local primary school enforced attendance to regular scripture classes. Seven Day Adventists and Jehovah's Witnesses had one class, Catholics had another and Anglicans had the last.

Atheists and Agnostics were considered somewhat confusing. Since they started with A they were treated as a kind of Anglican and sent to the Anglican class. About half the class was faithless. It was a riot, we gave that priest hell.

And you know. As fricking 11 year old kids we could argue the trained priests who taught the class to the point of surrender. That's how weak faith really is.

While what people believe in can be interesting, most of the time, I'm more interested in why and how people believe what they do. And it doesn't particularly matter whether the subject is religion or not. I just happen to like religion because it's so obviously present or absent in people's lives. It shows up especially in the arts - stories, artwork, etc.

PhoneLobster wrote:

A_Cynic wrote:I had to truncate the title, because we apparently don't allow titles longer than like 40 characters...

Why didn't you just call it "Hear No Evil".

People never put the time into picking a really snappy thread title.

I'm not concerned with being snappy. And "hear no evil" means that I consider religion evil. :-P

A_Cynic wrote:I'm not concerned with being snappy. And "hear no evil" means that I consider religion evil.

No no, the hear no evil monkey, ie Religionist chooses to hear no evil by making itself deaf. It's a near perfect metaphor for your initial post.

And it doesn't call religion evil, though it does suggest the Religionists are monkeys.

A_Cynic wrote: So she brings up the point that if you outthink them and out-debate them then they aren't going to come to your side. They clam up. They say that well if I don't have the answer for this it's because I'm not well-read. somebody else must.

if you treat it like a debate and point that out to them and point out that you have at least won on the material forum and haven't found a convert, they walk off in a huff.

She's absolutely right.

See religious people work on a conclusion first basis. They're not objectively asking stuff like "Is there a god." Nor are they open to the idea that they may be wrong.

You really can't debate with them and shouldn't even bother trying, because religious people aren't searching for the truth. Religion isn't based on the scientific method, it's based on blind faith, which pretty much means: "I make up stories to make the world seem like a better place to me and give me some purpose."

RC wrote:See people work on a conclusion first basis. They're not objectively asking stuff like "Does the fighter suck." Nor are they open to the idea that they may be wrong.

Fixed.

Maj wrote:

RC wrote:See people work on a conclusion first basis. They're not objectively asking stuff like "Does the fighter suck." Nor are they open to the idea that they may be wrong.

Fixed.

;)

-Snark-

Welcome back.

How's motherhood?

A_Cynic wrote:-Snark-

Welcome back.

How's motherhood?

Not nearly as hard as I thought it would be.

Thanx.