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Old 01-09-2007, 05:18 AM   #96 (permalink)
Adam
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Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Logan, UT
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Who were you trying to convince that Christianity is absurd? Those who don't follow it will agree with you, and those who do follow it will not agree with you. That is one of the hard truths about dealing with religion.

While I agree with many of your points, I do not agree with your methods. If your goal was to awaken people to absurdities in religion, then you were practicing futility, as religious people would see your point as being either satanically inspired, or as a direct attack against their beliefs.

The most effective way of telling people that they are wrong is to avoid telling them that they are wrong. Tell them what is right instead (or rather, what you believe to be right). If they decide to believe you, then unless they have the mental capacity/insanity enough to hold two conflicting beliefs as Steve Pavlina has, then the old belief will disappear. Do not force people, or they will only fight against you, no matter how good your intentions are. Also, an ounce of humility goes a very long way. Setting yourself up as an expert only invites people to prove you wrong (despite what my farcical blog post claims).

And most important, please always be tolerant. Just because someone is intolerant of you is not an excuse to be intolerant of them.

I do have to say that this was a fun debate. I really enjoyed it, and learned a lot from it. Thank you, Radical. Despite some of your radical arguments, and some of the borderline inappropriate posts by a few people participating in this thread, I think that, overall, this was constructive, even if some people failed to absolutely prove their points (myself included).
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