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Originally Posted by Matthew Shea  While I agree that most people are reasonable about most things, we all tend to have our little sticking points. In other words, everyone has certain beliefs they hold sacred. People like Steve, who won't think twice about challenging any belief, are pretty rare. It can be very tricky indeed to overcome emotional attachments. The first thing you have to do is disarm the person, which most people are entirely unskilled at doing. |
That's not a bad thing.
Disarming people is the first thing a religious evangelist does, too, and taking potential converts on a wild emotional ride is par for the course in Christian and Islam. I personally converted to Christianity based on logic, precisely because such emotion-based reassessments don't work on me.
In the case of convincing someone to leave a religion, you must first make them open to logic. Which, while certainly not easy, is rarely impossible. As you said, it's a skill, and skills are learned, trained, and practiced. The absolute worst tactic is to do what Akashic Librarian is doing: beginning with the declaration that "You're stupid for believing what you do, and I'm better than you." I get a picture of a thug with a billy club staring at you with a fat grin on his face. I mean, what would you do? Yeah. Start praying.