Convincing in a believer vs. nonbeliever debate

Valjean said:

Religious belief is usually faith-based, ie: unevidenced. It's unlikely to have been adopted from a critical analysis of observed or tested facts, and pointing this out will rarely change the mind of a believer. The basics are installed long before a child learns to evaluate or analyze evidence. It's hardwired.

Facts and reason didn't install these beliefs, and facts and reason will rarely change them.

Non-believers may lack belief for many different reasons. Some open to facts, some indifferent to them. On the whole, however, non-believers are less emotionally invested in their disbelief than believers are in their belief. Changing a belief, or adopting new beliefs isn't a matter of ego-identity.
Good luck with proving morality. Beliefs, though, are often fact-based, and open to disproof, or to proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

How are you defining belief? Can't a belief be fact or fantasy; evidenced or imagined?
A belief is anything you hold to be true. It doesn't matter why you believe something, it's still belief, true, false or undetermined.

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Does critical analysis have a limit? Do facts have a limit?

I mean if you through critical analysis arrive to the conclusion that what is going on, is not a fact, then what?

Valjean said:

Religious belief is usually faith-based, ie: unevidenced. It's unlikely to have been adopted from a critical analysis of observed or tested facts, and pointing this out will rarely change the mind of a believer. The basics are installed long before a child learns to evaluate or analyze evidence. It's hardwired.

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Religious belief is faith-based but ideally it should also be evidence-based. There is evidence for religious beliefs. Ideally a religious belief is adopted from a critical analysis of this evidence.

I am not saying that there are any observed or tested facts because if religion was a fact it would not be a belief. Nobody can ever prove that a Messenger of God received messages from God since nobody can ever prove that God exists. That is the part of belief that requires faith.

Not all believers had their beliefs 'installed' in childhood. I had no belief in God or religion growing up, I became a Baha'i during my first year of college.

Valjean said:

Non-believers may lack belief for many different reasons. Some open to facts, some indifferent to them. On the whole, however, non-believers are less emotionally invested in their disbelief than believers are in their belief.

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On the whole I think you are right. Non-believers are less emotionally invested in their disbelief than believers are in their belief. After all, what is there to be emotional about? On the other hand, not all believers are emotional about their beliefs. I am not emotional at all, I just believe that my religion is true and God exists. It was an intellectual acceptance, not an emotional one.

Valjean said:

On the whole, however, non-believers are less emotionally invested in their disbelief than believers are in their belief. Changing a belief, or adopting new beliefs isn't a matter of ego-identity.

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That's comparing apples and oranges though.

In general, the irreligious are equally emotionally invested in their ideology/worldview and changing deeply held beliefs is very much a matter of 'ego-identity'.

For example, many irreligious folk are emotionally invested in the idea that they are highly rational, sceptics and critical thinkers. They think because they apply reason, scepticism and critical thinking to the truth value of religion/existence of god, that they are, in general, rational, sceptical critical thinkers who arrive at all of their deeply held opinions this way.

This makes many of them as impervious to attitude change as the average fundamentalist, even while paying lip service to the conceit that, unlike the childlike believer, they follow where evidence and reason takes them rather than being stubbornly attached to what they want to be true.

Augustus said:

That's comparing apples and oranges though.

In general, the irreligious are equally emotionally invested in their ideology/worldview and changing deeply held beliefs is very much a matter of 'ego-identity'.

For example, many irreligious folk are emotionally invested in the idea that they are highly rational, sceptics and critical thinkers. They think because they apply reason, scepticism and critical thinking to the truth value of religion/existence of god, that they are, in general, rational, sceptical critical thinkers who arrive at all of their deeply held opinions this way.

This makes many of them as impervious to attitude change as the average fundamentalist, even while paying lip service to the conceit that, unlike the childlike believer, they follow where evidence and reason takes them rather than being stubbornly attached to what they want to be true.

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Yep. You can see that in political debates. But it's not that religious people are less opinionated in those cases. The irreligious at least (should) have experience with applying critical thinking as they already did with faith matters.

I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the heart's affections, and the truth of the imagination.
- John Keats

Snow White said:

Is it just me, or is convincing someone of something in a believer vs. nonbeliever debater generally not possible because:

Belief-claims aren't wrong or right to the believer.

To the nonbeliever, a claim should be wrong or right.

Belief-claims however, can only be proven moral or immoral, if that, or orthodox or heretical.

If it can be proven or disproven, it's not a belief at all.

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Sorry Snow White, your post is incoherent. But that's from mu perspective so I could be wrong.

Whats your ultimate point? If you have time you could give a synopsis.

Cheers.

firedragon said:

Sorry Snow White, your post is incoherent. But that's from mu perspective so I could be wrong.

Whats your ultimate point? If you have time you could give a synopsis.

Cheers.

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I'm trying to think of a different way of summing it up. I'll try this...

Atheists/agnostics tend to want to focus in a religious debate on the starting point of whether a belief is true. Such beliefs can often only be proven or disproven based on personal experience, and everyone has different personal experiences. However, this won't satisfy an atheist/agnostic for purpose of debate. They want concrete proof.

When a religious person debates, they often, I find, act like they are well beyond that subject, they want to discuss the meat of their beliefs.

So discussions often get halted because the religious person often doesn't want to debate concrete examples with a nonbeliever of proof of a God or gods, while the atheist/agnostic doesn't want to talk anything about the actual beliefs and whether they are relevant - they often just want to debate "Is there a God?"

And this often brings any chance of debate to a halt.

Snow White said:

I'm trying to think of a different way of summing it up. I'll try this...

Atheists/agnostics tend to want to focus in a religious debate on the starting point of whether a belief is true. Such beliefs can often only be proven or disproven based on personal experience, and everyone has different personal experiences. However, this won't satisfy an atheist/agnostic for purpose of debate. They want concrete proof.

When a religious person debates, they often, I find, act like they are well beyond that subject, they want to discuss the meat of their beliefs.

So discussions often get halted because the religious person often doesn't want to debate concrete examples with a nonbeliever of proof of a God or gods, while the atheist/agnostic doesn't want to talk anything about the actual beliefs and whether they are relevant - they often just want to debate "Is there a God?"

And this often brings any chance of debate to a halt.

Click to expand...

And I think this is fine.

The "meat" of a religion will usually take as given that a whole basketful of factual claims are true. If it's not clear to everyone in the discussion that those claims really are true, then it's poor form to go on with the discussion as if they're true until it's established that they really are true.

The fact that theists are almost universally awful at explaining why they think belief in their god(s) is correct is really on them (and kind of telling, IMO). If they want conversations involving mixed audiences of all beliefs to go smoothly, they should figure out how to properly defend the core claims of their belief system that they know will be challenged.

The starting point for a reasonable discussion is what everyone in the discussion agrees on coming into it. I think this principle is behind a lot of the "why is an atheist on RF?"-type comments: if a person manages to exclude the right people so that the conversation only involves those who have jumped to the same conclusions they did, then this lets them avoid thinking about questions they don't have good answers for.

Edit: asking "is there a God?" only brings the conversation to a halt when nobody in the conversation has a good answer to the question.

But shouldn't someone who's built their life around a belief system that relies on and is founded on God be able to give a good answer to this question easily? If they can't, isn't this a bit of a bomb dropped on the conversation that demands attention? I think the only reason that we don't focus on how monumental it is that someone has no real justification for the foundational core of their belief system is that it happens all the time, so it seems normal. It probably shouldn't seem normal, though (IMO).

Snow White said:

Is it just me, or is convincing someone of something in a believer vs. nonbeliever debater generally not possible because:

Belief-claims aren't wrong or right to the believer.

To the nonbeliever, a claim should be wrong or right.

Belief-claims however, can only be proven moral or immoral, if that, or orthodox or heretical.

If it can be proven or disproven, it's not a belief at all.

Click to expand...

Thousands of years ago, God gave psychic Revelation to His (God's) prophet, St. John the Divine, so that he could write Revelation (a chapter of the New Testament bible). It said that if we attack Iraq, we will face God's wrath. Revelation 15 says that we will have seven plagues (do those include the new monkey pox that is spreading through Europe, or is that just the various mutations of covid?).

Because most people lack faith in God and lack faith in the bible, they don't believe everything in the bible. They cherry-pick what they want to believe. They take some obscure part of the bible, such as (God doesn't want people to be Gay), and they take away Gay marriage (along with child custody and inheritance rights), rather than focus on the far more important issue of defying God by attacking Iraq.

As a last ditch effort, God sent more revelation to his modern day prophets. I knew many of them. They had been among the world's greatest psychics. One had been hired by the CIA to locate a sunken Soviet nuclear submarine (and they did locate it). It was God's idea to reiterate Revelation, so they were given the exact words of the the bible, and tried to tell everyone that God wanted them to not attack Iraq.

In addition to modern day prophets, God appointed helpers on earth. God knew that the world has to be prepared for Christ's 2nd coming. In this day and age of the Cancel Culture, when Christ comes (as the bible says, with a tongue like a sword), verbally lashing out at all of us for wars, torture camps, homeless (while cutting taxes for the rich), debt (putting the burden on future generations), disease, droughts, starvation (yet to come), etc., Christ will speak out against the actions (and inactions) of churches. This will be perceived as talking against the churches and against Christ. So, Christ will be accused of being against Christ (antiChristian)--accused of being the antichrist.

People, today, are awfully confused. They think that the Religious Right candidates have to support gun rights and the National Rifle Association (NRA). By the way, the pope is on the enemy list of the NRA because he opposes gun violence. People today, scared by terrorism, support wars, killing, and torture camps (remember, Satan rules by fear, greed, and deception). Lies were told to get us to fight....false intelligence....Colin Powell flat out lied....Condoleeza Rice lied.....W. Bush lied....Cheney lied....Rumsfeld lied...and Ashcroft (who wrote a book about it....Never Again), also lied, and he is a devout Christian. W. Bush appealed to our patriotism and courage...double dog daring us to go to war...."don't cut and run"...."these colors (red, white, and blue) don't run. Phony orange alerts were issued to scare America into war with North Korea. Wilson was sent to create a lie about Niger selling yellow-cake Uranium to Iraqi terrorists (to justify a war against Niger, and the war against Iraq). We all trusted CIA intel, but that intel was blocked from the American people, because the liars were in charge, and we were given false intel that led us to war and torture. In this confusion, people sided with Satan's violence, greed, and lies, and that is why the world is such a mess right now.

We are in the end times. God will destroy the world because W. Bush openly defied God and attacked Iraq. Iraq held a special place in God's heart, since it was where the Tower of Babel was, and Eden is in Iraq between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Horribly sad, God looks at the bombed out regions, where shards of pottery are run over by tank tracks, and the ground is pitted with bomb craters, and bleached bones are strewn in the sand.

In these end times, God's helpers are supposed to strengthen faith. No longer are God's people supposed to believe in killing (thou shalt not kill). No longer are God's people supposed to have lame reasons for believing in God....God won't permit it. God sees the future, and knows that their faith won't survive the rigors of starvation and plagues. God sees the future, and knows that people will be turning away from faith in droves unless they can be persuaded to get stronger faith.

So, God has tasked his helpers (who are not the same as His Prophets, who have been tasked to warn us about war in Iraq), to shake weak beliefs and install a stronger and more robust system of beliefs. People will mistake them for atheists, and think that they are fighting the churches and blaspheming God if they suggest that priests shouldn't rape little boys. But is the rape of little boys a standard funciton of the church? Is it a practice that must continue to assure the survival of the Christian faith? Or is the rape of little boys against the wishes of God?

God's messengers and God's prophets are not allowed (by God) to reveal themselves. To reveal themselves would mean that many would revere them as God's helpers, and some would worship them. God insists that only He (God) shall be revered. So, God's prophets and messengers must work in secret.

Most of God's helpers, down through the years, have been considered nuts. Noah built an ark in the desert....what kind of nut would do that? But, Noah was tasked by God to do this, and he didn't have God show the world miracles to indicate that Noah was doing God's work.

Thus, God's helpers are seen as atheists and nuts. This is the burden that they must bear if they are to serve God.

So, God wants people to have faith in the bible, and faith in Him (God). Don't be discouraged if people try to shake your faith by showing that your proof of God is insufficient. God wants them to shake your faith and get you to find stronger reasons to believe. This is why God sent the messengers.

9-10ths_Penguin said:

And I think this is fine.

The "meat" of a religion will usually take as given that a whole basketful of factual claims are true. If it's not clear to everyone in the discussion that those claims really are true, then it's poor form to go on with the discussion as if they're true until it's established that they really are true.

The fact that theists are almost universally awful at explaining why they think belief in their god(s) is correct is really on them (and kind of telling, IMO). If they want conversations involving mixed audiences of all beliefs to go smoothly, they should figure out how to properly defend the core claims of their belief system that they know will be challenged.

The starting point for a reasonable discussion is what everyone in the discussion agrees on coming into it. I think this principle is behind a lot of the "why is an atheist on RF?"-type comments: if a person manages to exclude the right people so that the conversation only involves those who have jumped to the same conclusions they did, then this lets them avoid thinking about questions they don't have good answers for.

Edit: asking "is there a God?" only brings the conversation to a halt when nobody in the conversation has a good answer to the question.

But shouldn't someone who's built their life around a belief system that relies on and is founded on God be able to give a good answer to this question easily? If they can't, isn't this a bit of a bomb dropped on the conversation that demands attention? I think the only reason that we don't focus on how monumental it is that someone has no real justification for the foundational core of their belief system is that it happens all the time, so it seems normal. It probably shouldn't seem normal, though (IMO).

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The meat of Christ are soda crackers, and the blood of Christ is sweet wine. It seems ghoulish to think of eating a human, especially Christ. Maybe that's why people seem shocked when I shout...."I have dibs on the gizzard."

"If they want conversations involving mixed audiences of all beliefs to go smoothly," Their new method is called the "Cancel Culture." People can be shadow banned (they think that they are writing, but no one can see their posts). People (like President Trump or Mike Lindell (the My Pillow guy)) were banned from Facebook and Twitter. The richest man in the world, Elon Musk (of Paypal, Tesla, Boring Project, and Space-X fame) just bought Twitter to assure that we have free speech. Odd for a South African to embrace America's freedoms while America eliminates them (right of redress of grievances--right to sue HMOs, no longer exists, and privacy rights are gone.

The FBI just got permission to break into private computers without consent so it can fight hackers

The FBI was just given the right to hack everyone's computer, without consent or knowledge, and delete software. (Website above).

"But shouldn't someone who's built their life around a belief system that relies on and is founded on God be able to give a good answer to this question easily?" You make it sound as though religion only affects the religious. What about the holy jihad that W. Bush had against Iraq (lying us into war and sneaking torture camps)? Remember, W. Bush was the candidate of the Religious Right. He was elected to be president of the US (not of the world, and attack peaceful nations, hold them hostage, and tamper with their elections so that they could not vote for anti-American leaders. The vacuum created by pulling back troops resulted in a take-over by their real choices for leaders.

This isn't just about a person's individual belief. It is about toppling the government of the United States by a group that believes in taking away the separation of church and state, and selling public schools to churches and teaching christianity in schools, leading kids in group prayers to their God and their bibles. It is about depriving Gays of rights of marriage, inheritance, and child custody. It is about battling science (perceived as evil and fighting religiion), so preventing science from being taught in schools, and instead teach creationism. It is about stopping abortion. It is about appointing supreme court justices that will continue to make religious right decisions long after the presidents have been replaced. If any other organization plotted to topple US leadership, there would be mass panic.

Snow White said:

I'm trying to think of a different way of summing it up. I'll try this...

Atheists/agnostics tend to want to focus in a religious debate on the starting point of whether a belief is true. Such beliefs can often only be proven or disproven based on personal experience, and everyone has different personal experiences. However, this won't satisfy an atheist/agnostic for purpose of debate. They want concrete proof.

When a religious person debates, they often, I find, act like they are well beyond that subject, they want to discuss the meat of their beliefs.

So discussions often get halted because the religious person often doesn't want to debate concrete examples with a nonbeliever of proof of a God or gods, while the atheist/agnostic doesn't want to talk anything about the actual beliefs and whether they are relevant - they often just want to debate "Is there a God?"

And this often brings any chance of debate to a halt.

Click to expand...

Okay I understand what you are saying. I am sorry I had to trouble you for clarification, and truly appreciate your patience.

It's true. A so called "believer" does not really delve in the existence or the non existence but has already moved on. Yet also I do note that the so called "non-believer" also does not delve in the same topic. They also have moved on to non-existence and when they do look at a debate on the topic its like "you are being silly". Vice Versa.

The problem in this wide divide are the audiences one has to cater to, the self value one has to worship, and the scripts that are already available on the internet.

If you ponder over them, I think you will get what I am speaking of.

Thanks again.

9-10ths_Penguin said:

The fact that theists are almost universally awful at explaining why they think belief in their god(s) is correct is really on them (and kind of telling, IMO). If they want conversations involving mixed audiences of all beliefs to go smoothly, they should figure out how to properly defend the core claims of their belief system that they know will be challenged.

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Believers do not challenge one another on the existence of a god or Gods. Conversations involving mixed audiences of all beliefs do not go down as per your imaginings.

9-10ths_Penguin said:

But shouldn't someone who's built their life around a belief system that relies on and is founded on God be able to give a good answer to this question easily?

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The key here is a "belief/faith" system. Not verified and tested. You don't verify and test God, verily He *will* test you.


Q: "Does a God exist."
A: "Yes."
Q: "What's your evidence or proof?"
A: "Existence."

mikkel_the_dane said:

Does critical analysis have a limit? Do facts have a limit?

I mean if you through critical analysis arrive to the conclusion that what is going on, is not a fact, then what?

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Whataboutism.

Snow White said:

Is it just me, or is convincing someone of something in a believer vs. nonbeliever debater generally not possible because:

Belief-claims aren't wrong or right to the believer.

To the nonbeliever, a claim should be wrong or right.

Belief-claims however, can only be proven moral or immoral, if that, or orthodox or heretical.

If it can be proven or disproven, it's not a belief at all.

Click to expand...

The difference is, believers just believe things.

Atheists need a reason.

You got it backwards about right / wrong.
God- believers are typically, characteristically
binary thinkers.
"Moral or immoral ". No nuance or
shades of grey.

If it can be proven or disproven its
not a belief??
What is it then when people insist on Noahs
ark when The Flood Is so thoroughly proved to
be a non event.

You actually are not too far off in your ideas
you just got them backwards.

Trailblazer said:

Convincing someone of something in a believer vs. nonbeliever debate generally not possible because a believer sees evidence for God and their religion so an nonbeliever is not going to convince that person they are wrong, whereas a nonbeliever does not see evidence for God or a religion so a believer is not going to convince a nonbeliever that God exists or a religion is true.

That is what I have learned from nine years of posting to atheists on various forums.

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This is why we keep going on about faith being unevidenced belief. So much of the 'evidence' the various religious beliefs rely on is problematic in some respect.

Clara Tea said:

The meat of Christ are soda crackers, and the blood of Christ is sweet wine. It seems ghoulish to think of eating a human, especially Christ. Maybe that's why people seem shocked when I shout...."I have dibs on the gizzard."

"If they want conversations involving mixed audiences of all beliefs to go smoothly," Their new method is called the "Cancel Culture." People can be shadow banned (they think that they are writing, but no one can see their posts). People (like President Trump or Mike Lindell (the My Pillow guy)) were banned from Facebook and Twitter. The richest man in the world, Elon Musk (of Paypal, Tesla, Boring Project, and Space-X fame) just bought Twitter to assure that we have free speech. Odd for a South African to embrace America's freedoms while America eliminates them (right of redress of grievances--right to sue HMOs, no longer exists, and privacy rights are gone.

The FBI just got permission to break into private computers without consent so it can fight hackers

The FBI was just given the right to hack everyone's computer, without consent or knowledge, and delete software. (Website above).

"But shouldn't someone who's built their life around a belief system that relies on and is founded on God be able to give a good answer to this question easily?" You make it sound as though religion only affects the religious. What about the holy jihad that W. Bush had against Iraq (lying us into war and sneaking torture camps)? Remember, W. Bush was the candidate of the Religious Right. He was elected to be president of the US (not of the world, and attack peaceful nations, hold them hostage, and tamper with their elections so that they could not vote for anti-American leaders. The vacuum created by pulling back troops resulted in a take-over by their real choices for leaders.

This isn't just about a person's individual belief. It is about toppling the government of the United States by a group that believes in taking away the separation of church and state, and selling public schools to churches and teaching christianity in schools, leading kids in group prayers to their God and their bibles. It is about depriving Gays of rights of marriage, inheritance, and child custody. It is about battling science (perceived as evil and fighting religiion), so preventing science from being taught in schools, and instead teach creationism. It is about stopping abortion. It is about appointing supreme court justices that will continue to make religious right decisions long after the presidents have been replaced. If any other organization plotted to topple US leadership, there would be mass panic.

Click to expand...

Wait... Why would the group that has control want to topple themselves for control? While there are zealots, and unfortunately the senate and congress are overfilled with them, they represent the fringe/zealot/extremist portion of the religious populace. Anyone who thinks any substantially populated group/s they claim allegiance to is without its own 'fringe/zealot/extremist' portion... They're simply not a high enough rank and deep enough in the underbelly, that or they're a token member in denial.

Augustus said:

That's comparing apples and oranges though.

In general, the irreligious are equally emotionally invested in their ideology/worldview and changing deeply held beliefs is very much a matter of 'ego-identity'.

For example, many irreligious folk are emotionally invested in the idea that they are highly rational, sceptics and critical thinkers. They think because they apply reason, scepticism and critical thinking to the truth value of religion/existence of god, that they are, in general, rational, sceptical critical thinkers who arrive at all of their deeply held opinions this way.

This makes many of them as impervious to attitude change as the average fundamentalist, even while paying lip service to the conceit that, unlike the childlike believer, they follow where evidence and reason takes them rather than being stubbornly attached to what they want to be true.

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Believers love to tar with their own brush.

Aka psychological projection.

Snow White said:

Is it just me, or is convincing someone of something in a believer vs. nonbeliever debater generally not possible because:

Belief-claims aren't wrong or right to the believer.

To the nonbeliever, a claim should be wrong or right.

Belief-claims however, can only be proven moral or immoral, if that, or orthodox or heretical.

If it can be proven or disproven, it's not a belief at all.

Click to expand...

I don't think that it is usual for these matters to be discussed in quite so ambitious and rational terms, even in formal debate environments.

My impression is that most speakers on behalf of theistic belief only rarely gravitate significantly far from appeals to emotion. Variations of claims of some form of need of deities to enforce justice, purpose, meaning or confortable answers to questions that some find unconfortable are the bread and butter of it.

Sometimes you also find appeals for unity under the banner of the True Believers, which can be surprisingly effective for people plagued by uncertainty and insecurity.

mikkel_the_dane said:

So let us play facts, two non-religious people:
One: It is a fact that the universe is natural.
Two: No, it is not a fact.
See, one of them could end up in the same situation as with religious beliefs.

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But beliefs one and two are conclusions. Evaluating them is a question of assessing the evidence on which they're based.

Valjean said:

But beliefs one and two are conclusions. Evaluating them is a question of assessing the evidence on which they're based.

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Yeah, but one of them is not a fact. Yet it has nothing to do with religion in the standard sense.
The idea the worldviews can contradict each other is not limited to only different religious world views. Or that only religious worldviews are special in that they have no positive evidence.