Quote:
Originally Posted by Michael Chui  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. |
As a Catholic myself, the way Evangelicals approach religious conversion makes me very uncomfortable. Yes the bible calls us to spread the good news, yaddah, yaddah, yaddah. I'm familiar with all those passages, but we shouldn't be forcing it down people's throats. My approach is much more geared toward leading by example and make God's word
available.
I completely agree about A.L.'s approach being entirely wrong. Starting off with the declaration "God is Dead" is going to do nothing but put anyone who believes in God on the defensive. I see a lot of other atheist proselytizing, too, that really makes me shake my head. Many of those who choose that belief apparently have only the most limited understanding of religion, especially Christianity, and fill in the blanks in their understanding with misconceptions, assumptions, rumors and falsities, which sticks out like a sore thumb to the more knowledgable among us. In the end, they just wind up preaching to the choir.