Recent de-convert saturated by religious community; advice?

I get better results with emotional rather than intellectual points, as long as the emotional points are framed in a nonconfrontational and nonchallenging way.

Huh, interesting. I'm going to have to try this more.

In a Philosophy class I'm taking, a popular counterargument to positions like materialism is just that it feels wrong. My best response so far "Its kind of like drinking milk -- if you think about it its really really weird, but you just get used to it".

If people don't understand why milk is weird, just explain the industrial process by which a fluid comes out of a domesticated cow's udders and into your mouth.

I was going to suggest trying to find ways of shutting down in person conversation and this seems like a good one.

I was going to go with excuses such as "I don't have time to discuss this at the moment, I busy doing activity that Christians would approve of"

I have had some success in writing very long and complete essays...and putting it on a blog or website.

Good to know. I have been entertaining that idea as well and started trying to make it real at my blog.

Then when someone asks why I believe X, I just tell them I'll send them a link to the essay.

This is extremely appealing. While further debate might arise later, I think this would quite defuse the situation and avoid the pitfalls of on-the-spot debates (especially since person-to-person discussion almost always lacks the ability to provide sources).

I have had good experiences with religious people by confounding as many atheist stereotypes as possible...

Interesting tactic! I'll have to ponder this one. In my circles, the Lewis trilemma is still thought to hold and they don't think very fondly of the Jesus-as-great-teacher crew.

...not bringing the issue up but having a few overwhelmingly strong points that they will agree with when it is brought up...

Could you expand on this? I'm not sure I understand what overwhelmingly strong points you might bring up that your opponent might agree with. Would this be something like priest scandals? Or not having your prayers for understanding answered?

I also find that if my goal is just to end an argument without losing too much social capital or coming across as confrontational, I get better results with emotional rather than intellectual points...

Another interesting strategy I'll think further about. I'm tempted to think I've already adopted this sort of strategy, though more so through being overly "hazy." Earlier, I would go into far more details, whereas now I've found that if I just say that "I'm not convinced," and offer as few supporting details as possible, I do end up at your example destination: person shrugs, presents puppy-dog stare of pity/compassion (fine line...), and says they'll pray for me.

Thanks for the response; there are some great points to ponder here and perhaps this is the encouragement I need to finally write my "summary of non-belief."

This seems like a particularly good idea if they're already trying to foist works of apologetics on him; it seems that it would encourage them to believe that the fair arrangement is to suspend the conversation and read each others' material.

As for the community: keep being an ethical person to deal with, behave like a good person. Honest, helpful, loving. People will in fact eventually realise they prefer, given the option, to deal with a decent atheist than a religious asshole.

I'd imagine this will work better for outsiders interacting with the community than for formerly religious members of the community. The still-religious community members might see it as a threat to their identity to accept that one of their own could still be a good person after no longer observing their tenets. There's less cognitive dissonance involved in dealing equitably with outsiders with questionable beliefs.

I disagree about Dawkins here. Andrew Rilstone, one of my favourite bloggers and a devout Christian, did read The God Delusion, and did disagree with it, for reasons which you may well disagree with but which definitely don't amount just to 'butthurt': http://www.andrewrilstone.com/2007/04/where-dawkins-went-wrong-most-leading.html

http://www.andrewrilstone.com/2007/04/2-some-more-of-dawkins-greatest.html

http://www.andrewrilstone.com/2007/04/3-final-and-clinching-proofs-little.html

http://www.andrewrilstone.com/2007/05/4-who-is-this-dawkins-person-anyway.html

http://www.andrewrilstone.com/2007/05/well-that-just-about-wraps-it-up-for.html

http://www.andrewrilstone.com/2007/09/everything-you-never-wanted-to-know.html

http://www.andrewrilstone.com/2007/09/everything-you-never-wanted-to-know_24.html

http://www.andrewrilstone.com/2007/09/everything-you-never-wanted-to-know_27.html

And so on... (Rilstone's whole book, Where Dawkins Went Wrong, is to my mind essential reading especially for atheists, because it's a set of actual good arguments against some bad arguments from the atheist side.)

Thanks for the link; I'll check both of those out shortly.

I did like part of The God Delusion, though perhaps I should re-read it. I don't recall much of it being particularly forceful... though I did have a fantastically "spiritual" experience reading it late at night on the crapper. More HERE.

As for the community: keep being an ethical person to deal with...

Indeed. Though, I think I'd also like to build up a wholly separate group of friends. I have probably five that are still close. We enjoy spending time together and pretty much just don't talk about religion. I think it's better that way, frankly. I think it's going to be important to rebuild, in a way, my close confidants. I try to avoid going to large events with the community as much as possible... but being married to a very active member of it doesn't help :)

This is quite helpful. If you the "current you" could go and tell the "past you" something in the midst of your "questing," what would it be?

Eventually though, I came to realize that I had no reason to commit to further searching, that I had more than enough evidence to treat the question as settled, and that my probability estimate of being wrong wasn't remotely enough to justify expending further effort.

I think I could roughly define my view of the matter like this, but it doesn't feel like that. Where Catholicism of theism in general to be true, I have so many objections and things that remain unexplained about how that works, that I, also, would say that my current estimate of all of them being wrong (and, thus, theism actually being true) is extremely low.

It's also possible that it's true but just not discernible as such. In that case, I'm not sure whether it matters -- one lives life as if it's not true until it does become discernible. Though the Pascal's wager advocates would say otherwise.

Re. the doubt/humility points, I'll definitely think on this further. And, yes, it's quite possible that there's some doubting-as-virtuous going on. There might be some genuine uncertainty, but like I said in the post, it's probably irrational that I give sooo much weight to this one uncertain area and so little to all the other topics I'm also uncertain about.

but hopefully with a faster turnaround time than I had when I thought it was more respectable to be trying to answer the question than to be decided.

Are you distinguishing between "answered" and "decided about"? That's how I'm reading this and it would be great if you could add a bit more about it.

and the remaining religious community is being selected for people who don't listen to such arguments, no matter what. So I'm not sure if elevator pitches are going to work very well.

Good point. This is probably the state of my wife, actually. If we "get into it" about religion (which I pretty much try to avoid) and I bring up anything in opposition, or worse, cite an eminent scientist working a field that could one day conclusively eliminate the remaining areas where the god hypothesis is invoked, a fairly standard response is: "It doesn't matter. I don't need to understand or explain everything."

Her strongest [verbalized] reasons for believing rest on the love she sees in the people in the community, times when she's felt some sort of transformation or insight result from prayer, and the fact that she sees her current lifestyle as having a "purpose higher than herself" coupled with an improvement from what she would say were shallow aims of her high school/early college/"pre-conversion" times.

So... yes, there's probably a good subset of those who will remain unconvinced. I was more looking for "elevator pitch" with respect to length, not necessarily with respect to its ability to convince.

In other words, a short conversation that begins and ends smoothly, briefly, and allows both parties to go on their way rather than the typical open-ended discussion/debate that follows. Think of it as a way to make my "pitch" that expresses 1) my clear non-belief but 2) doesn't lead into a back-and-forth pointless banter that I know ahead of time will not sway either of us.

I think Yvain's comment above about writing up a summary and then sending a link later on might be the best suggestion thus far (though I haven't caught up to all the comments below yet).

Thanks for the response.

I'll have to check out the podcast -- I think I've watched some of their youtube videos.

I did read SarahC's comment when she posted her reflections and loved it. I think I doubt at a different level -- almost wondering whether I've looked well enough with my eyes and mind or am concluding prematurely.

I could certainly apply her comment with respect to any feelings of being "broken" or "defective" somehow, though.

You might consider emphasizing that you are still a good person; that you still love the people around you; that you don't reject the people around you just because your reject their belief.

Thanks for that. I will.

15 months from devoutly religious to atheist and rationalist is rather impressive speed. I wish you good luck.

Well, aspiring rationalist at least. I was, after all, the one voter who said he'd not read the sequences...

As I mentioned above, I like to think I was already an analytical, rational-esque type, just perhaps not with eyes opened to religion. Some thoughts on that HERE.

When doubt arose about Christianity, one of my very first thoughts was that an objective test would be to suspect its falsehood and attempt to prove it back to myself. I even thought this with faith -- if god is real and true, there's no way I could end up at a conclusion of "not god."

For whatever reason, believers didn't think this was a good approach...

Or that they would probably not appreciate someone doing the same thing to them.

Great, simple, suggestion. Perhaps I've been running imaginary and overly-extravagant conversation paths in my head and it could be as simple as this. Perhaps this, combined with Yvain's comment (having an online/file "statement/summary" available) is the best way forward.

A priori, maybe not. But it could be stifling and unpleasant, it could contradict a sense of truth, and it certainly is not how I would want to live my life.

.

I would add to magfrump's points above (with which I entirely agree) that, in so doing, I would also be contributing to the difficulties of other people in my same position.

Basically, by remaining closeted, I'd be defecting in a Prisoner's Dilemma.

One can debate whether that's a rational choice or not, but leaving that aside: if it is a rational choice, then I have important values other than rationality.

It's damn difficult to separate what you believe from what you're pretending to believe at the same time as updating a major chunk of your beliefs. This is really unrealistic for most humans.

Is he going to be comfortable lying to his wife? Will his wife agree to lie with him? Plus, long term lies are difficult. They're not impossible, I've done it occasionally, but they can cause problems, not the least of which is that you can start to slip into doublethink.

If you're more comfortable putting on a facade all the time and never being able to be honest about matters touching on your position, then yes, but if the cost of any path is social discomfort, it's best to determine which would entail the least, and for most people that would cause no small measure.

Sorry, but my reaction to this was a big, "Ick." More below where you've asked a more specific question.

I concur. Religion is a social signalling mechanism. There is no reason you must cripple yourself with respect to sending (possibly) rational signals just because you lie outwardly rather than inwardly.

Absolutely. Her typical response has been that I shouldn't feel that way. Our counselor suggested that reassurance and empathy might help more than telling me why I shouldn't feel apprehensive about being in those situations; she now does that a lot more and I think it's helped.

Were I still single... I probably would move. Not sure that it's much of an option at this point unless she deconverts.

Wow -- I missed this comment completely! Thanks for sharing.

Much of what I tried at first, you've already done. I talked to other Christians. I read some books. I discovered there are atheists on the internet.

Yup. Read those blogs daily except for two. I should check out Leaving the Fold; I've heard it mentioned quite a few times.

That retreat sounds awesome. Too bad I'm in the midwest. Seems like everything cool is happening in CA. My brother is out there; perhaps I could time a visit when that's going on...

Making new friends is another great suggestion. I've kind of done this via the local Minnesota Atheist meetup groups... but my participation probably isn't regular enough to really form friendships yet.

Then there came a time when I decided. Enough with the books. I was done.

Yes -- this is what I'm waiting/hoping/working toward. I think that finishing my book list and writing out my cumulative case will help greatly toward me finally "letting go."

Woodworking has already become a new passion for me. It's been far more rewarding already to work on that vs. read apologetics!

I think our counseling is helping, but am not sure, either. I wonder what will solve our issue about how to raise out children. This seems to be the biggest sore spot. I also have a huge issue with the fact that my wife constantly refers to my non-belief as some sort of choice or willed thing. That allows her to make indirect comments that imply that I've "hurt her by my actions." I'm find with the first part.. but it adds a lot of turmoil to think that she sees me as "having done something to her" rather than seeing as me having gone through something tumultuous and, as a result, she is hurting/grieving as well.

I guess I'd rather have her see this as analogous to me having been diagnosed with cancer vs. seeing as me binge drinking in front of her everynight while she sobs. Does that make any sense?

Even better would be for her to see it as me finding food x extremely tasty while she doesn't like it, but I'll take what I can get. i understand that, to be consistent, she perhaps needs to see this as an undesirable, but at least she could see it as me being "sick" rather than me "intentionally f-ing up our lives."

Thanks again for sharing. I'll keep the counseling resource in mind, though it seems a bit pricey for me at the moment and I wonder if there are other ways to bring about the desired effect for free. I also quite prefer person-to-person interaction and, thus, if I were closer I'd definitely be looking into the retreat, regardless of it's $500ish cost.

Thanks again for sharing.

Thanks for the reply. Glad I found it. I pretty much agree with two added counter-points:

1) My wife might very well prefer that I say approximately... nothing. I don't think that's necessarily the case, but it might come up more and more. For example, I objected to her singing my daughter praise and worship songs that claim that Jesus will come back "riding on the clouds at the trumpet call," since my daughter has no way to question whether someone can actually "ride on clouds," whether that's how the end days would happen, etc. My wife responded that it's just "an upbeat, celebratory song," and that she sung it at my daughter's request. I then made up a song on the spot with a catchy sing-song melody about god being a figment of the imagination that people just make up because it makes them feel good and asked if I could sing that to her. She didn't like the idea. In other words, she'd like to have the freedom to pray with my daughter and openly express beliefs but would prefer I kept my opinions out of it.

2) My wife really does actually believe, or thinks she does. Whether my daughter will one day see through this... I'm not sure. My wife does think that miraculous things happen as a result of prayer, but considers god's will as to who and when a mystery -- "he knows best." So... it's not like being raised by "cultural Catholics" -- my daughter is in a house with a flesh-and-blood full believer who raises hands to praise and worship, gets up at 6a to pray the Liturgy of the Hours, prays "in the spirit", etc.

Hope that offers some clarifications about the situation! My oldest has been staying home with me on Sundays while my wife takes our youngest (7mos) to Mass with her.

I'd be fairly surprised if that hasn't been covered by most reasonably clever apologists. The argument I get by pattern-matching it against my internal model of a Christian apologist goes something like "physical evidence is in itself evidence of a creator, and why yes I haven't bothered to think of a First Cause other than the Christian God", which of course leads immediately to further questions, but I'm sure there are more sophisticated ones out there.

Really, the problem here isn't lack of explanation; there's a two-thousand-year-old history of Christian theological explanations for just about everything. The problem is that those explanations are unconvincing to outside observers, but seem very convincing to insiders thanks to motivated cognition; I've long since lost track of the number of times I've been told to read Thomas Aquinas.

Wow -- missed this comment! I do tend to give various evidential reasons, but when discussing this topic at all (like Nornagest suggests), there's always an out. PoE, why religious diversity happens to be so geographical, etc. There's always an answer.

When I suggested to a theology professor (that a friend suggested I speak to) that I found it odd that if there was one true god, the world wouldn't have figured it out by now, he responded in a completely unsurprised way and simply said that Jesus never foretold that Christianity would be a world-wide religion.

In fact, he said, the picture of the world is exactly how he would have expected. Yeah right. Anyway, there does tend to be a response to everything.

Re. god not showing up... he won't override your free will, or he does but you need "eyes of faith" to see it, or it's because your heart is hardened.

Perhaps this reply has helped me understand why the best mode of response is just not to engage. As long as there's nothing that would change a believer's mind... there's nothing that would change a believer's mind.

And if there is something that will... it probably won't be from me, or at least not in direct conversation.

The ticket is probably to say something like you've said, but then simply "broken record" the rest of the conversation with, "My research has convinced me. I'm still open, but I believe my current stance to be rationally reached and based on a wide range of currently available evidence."

Thanks for the comment -- I haven't really tried to "brute force" many others at all. I might have written my post in an unclear manner. My fears actually stem from the fact that so many don't know, yet I still participate in events now and then where I see a lot of the "uncritical nodes."

I think we're generally on the same page. Close friends know where I stand, but we keep our discussions to the "meta-level" (how it affects life, my wife, etc.) and things generally go pretty darn well.

Good point re. the children. I think my wife is considering my suggestion to educate them about religions rather than teaching her a specific one as literal truth, and teaching only as fact those things which are universally accepted. She's not a huge fan of it, but at least she's understanding my hesitancy to simply jump in and teach her Catholicism from the get go.

Side note: It just occurred to me this morning that first communion age is 7. It really struck how unlikely it is that a child that young can have much if any comprehension of the subjects, arguments, evidence, etc. that would be required to profess assent to a wafer being the literal body of god incarnate. But that's the age set for this.

For practical purposes, I would say that it makes sense to regard an argument as refuted if impartial observers of the debate feel that you have properly dispensed with it.

Since they tend to be less emotionally invested, there's often more point in carrying on a debate for the sake of observers than for the other participants.

Good point. I'm not sure I intended my article to emphasize that I necessarily want to "refute" anyone, but perhaps that's what you're getting at by introducing the idea of "rejecting" an argument.

I mainly want a way to "defuse" conversations about religion specifically so that they don't turn into pointless debates that just waste time and inflame emotions.

Part of this will depend on your wife. If she won't support you, your life is going to be more difficult.

Hell yes. This has been the most challenging part. I think my emotional satisfaction would dramatically increase if she were to deconvert. Perhaps that's not even necessary... maybe if she just saw more merit in my "quest" or would say that I've done a good job at researching. Instead I think she doesn't think she can say these things because it's "not okay" for me to be both "right" and a "non-believer."

Thus she echoes things she heard from who-knows-where about me not reading the right things, that "these atheist scientists are so obsessed with figuring everything out," etc.

Find other things to talk about.

Indeed, and this is where things have settled with my closer friends. The problem is that I've explicitly told perhaps 10-20 individuals... but there are about 2-300 who I know as acquaintances who don't know or may know via another party. Just telling the first group was taxing because I had to retell my story of doubt over and over. I can't imagine doing that with the remaining group individually in order to get to the point where everyone knows and we can move on to talking about "other things."

Thus, perhaps the widespread "coming out" via a publicized summary of my story/non-belief is the best route for those.

So why should "If everything has a cause, then what caused god?" bother a theist?

My preferred take is "why should we suppose that anything that's exceptional in its not-needing-a-causeness resembles an anthropocentric conception of God?" Provided that the universe began a finite time ago, there was some event that wasn't caused by earlier events, but that's in no way an argument for theism as we generally understand it.

You might find that the sense of bother never quite goes away. In my experience, there are some (bad) arguments which will always feel right, and some great arguments which will always feel wrong.

I get this with money. "Money is just funny looking paper. Why will people accept it in exchange for anything in this vast cornucopia of real goods and services?" I know the reasons, and one argument for it is even intuitive: "Don't I accept money as payment? Do I have any reason to think I'm unusual in this regard?" But every time I think about it anew, the "funny looking paper" argument seems convincing and I have to replay the counterarguments to get myself to disagree with it.

You might find that the sense of bother never quite goes away.

Hadn't considered that quite as much, but admit it could be a very real possibility.

So why should "If everything has a cause, then what caused god?" bother a theist?

Point taken, but it actually bothers me that theists don't seem to be bothered by anything. Now that I'm on "the other side," it is just astounding that the world is so religiously divided. I think it would bother me as a Christian that my god made the most important thing in all of existence so subtle with respect to discoverability, that billions of people all over the world are well aware of the bible and toss it aside with ease in favor of theology-as-revealed-by-golden-plates or humans-as-non-functioning-thetans.

One possible trick to help build your confidence is to notice when you do things that are known to be wrong.

This seems worthy, but could you connect that practice to how you "gained an understanding for why you were uncomfortable with losing your religion"?

Absolutely, and I've had to wrestle with that, as well. This was even more challenging for me than simply having "been wrong" -- I had to be willing to "rewrite" my story, something I've been claiming as true about myself and what happened to me for 9 years (a long time).

Edited 10/2011: Removed some details I decided to try and purge from passer-by readership.

I would heavily credit the strong relationships and intimate sharing fostered by my religious participation with the development of proper methods of dealing with life's ups and downs, though. This is not something unique to religion, but perhaps had I never been religious, I wouldn't have experienced the tremendous benefits that such practices bring about.

As such, I'd really, really, really like to find local "rationalists" interested in social support and remedying deficiency since I'm no longer receiving such support via a religious equivalent.

Why Darwin? I'd expect you'd use an atheist at least.

I'll keep this in the back of my mind just in case the need arises.