So why do so many people assume this never happens — to the point where they not only refuse to try, but work to persuade other atheists out of trying?
I think there are couple of reasons for this pessimism. The first is overly ambitious expectations. Yes, arguments against religion can — and do — persuade people out of their beliefs. But they rarely do so right away. I get lots of emails from people saying that my blog helped persuade them out of religion. But I’ve never argued someone out of their beliefs in the course of a single conversation. And I’ve never talked to an atheist who has. In fact, let’s go back to your local atheist meeting or your online atheist forum, and ask for another show of hands. Ask people to speak up if they had their religious beliefs partly talked out of them by arguments against religion. And then, ask people to speak up if they were persuaded into atheism in the course of one conversation, by reading one atheist book, reading one atheist blog post, watching one atheist video, etc.
The first group is pretty big. The second — not so much.
A single argument is probably not, by itself, going to convince someone that their religion is mistaken. Religious beliefs are often deeply held. People usually do have them for emotional reasons as well as intellectual ones. Many people have never seriously questioned their religious beliefs, or even thought about them carefully. And letting go of them can be scary. It can be emotionally scary: you have to think about life, death, meaning, your place in the Universe, in radically different ways. And it can be scary in more practical ways. It can mean alienating your family, your friends, risking your job, maybe risking your safety. For most people, letting go of religion is a process. It takes time. And while other people can help with that process, ultimately it’s something people need to do on their own.
So if you’re expecting to persuade someone out of their beliefs in a single conversation, you’re going to be disappointed. Don’t let that discourage you. Don’t think of it as winning or losing an argument. Think of it as helping someone along, helping them move a little further along their path. Think of it planting the seeds of doubt.
Or as nurturing seeds of doubt that are already there. This is a point that helps me be a lot more patient when I’m arguing with believers about religion. If someone is visiting an atheist blog or podcast or online forum, if they’re attending a debate between an atheist and a believer, if they’re visiting an atheist group and wanting to argue with you… chances are they’re already having doubts. People don’t visit atheist blogs or groups or debates or forums if they’re not already a little curious about atheism. You probably won’t demolish their faith in one dramatic explosion — but you may put another crack in the foundation.
I had a hard time grasping this concept in my early blogging days. I’d get into a debate with someone about their religion, and they’d seem reasonable and honestly willing to re-consider their beliefs, and I’d be positive that I could pry them out of those beliefs just with the power of my brain. I hadn’t yet encountered the slippery excuses, the moving goalposts, the awesomely bad apologetics, the contorted logic, the flat-out denial of evidence, the flat-out denial of the idea that logic and evidence should matter when you’re trying to decide what’s true, the “I just feel it in my heart and that trumps any evidence you might show me” crap, the shifting of the debate from “Does God exist?” to “Why are atheists such jerks?” It was frustrating. To put it mildly. It’s going to be frustrating to anyone who gets into these debates. And it got me wondering whether what I was doing had any point.
But then I started getting the emails, from people saying, “You helped me become an atheist.” I started getting emails saying, “Your writings, your arguments against religion, are a big part of why I stopped believing.” As my blog gets more widely read, I get more of these emails all the time. And it made me realize: Oh. This does work. It just doesn’t always work right away.
So that’s one reason many atheists are pessimistic about arguments against religion — they’ve never seen it work in the course of one argument, so they assume it never works at all. But I think there’s another reason. I think many atheists convince themselves that arguing against religion is worthless because they, personally, don’t want to do it. They don’t like confrontation, they’re afraid of alienating people, they want to avoid scenes.
And you know what? That’s fine. If you, personally, don’t want to argue people out of their religious beliefs, then don’t. There are lots of ways to be an atheist; there are lots of ways to be an atheist activist; and we all have to go about it in our own way. If you choose to focus your arguments on things like anti-atheist bigotry or separation of church and state, instead of on whether religion is true? Or if you choose to not argue at all, about anything, if you choose to simply to be a positive model of happy, meaningful, ethical atheism? That is great. Knock yourself out. I am entirely sincere about that. That’s all worth doing, and we need people to do that. If we’re going to pry people out of religion, we need to give them a safe place to land when they fall — and I applaud people who are doing that.
But take responsibility for that choice. Don’t say, “I don’t argue about religion because it’s always a waste of time.” That’s a cop-out. Say instead, “I don’t argue about religion because I don’t want to.” As you start saying that instead, you may find yourself re-considering your choice — or you may not. But take responsibility for that choice. And don’t get in the way of other people who are making the other choice. We are having an effect. What we’re doing works.
Okay. That mini-harangue is over. Persuading people out of religion can work. So let’s talk strategy. What, precisely, works? If persuading believers out of their beliefs isn’t a waste of time… which arguments should we be making?
I’ve actually looked into this question. I’ve done a survey on my blog about which ideas convinced former believers to become atheists. And here are some of the themes that cropped up.
The historical or scientific inaccuracy, internal inconsistency, lack of evidence, or just plain absurdity, of religious beliefs.
The immorality, unfairness, or other troubling aspects of religious beliefs.
The diversity of religious beliefs: different faiths with incompatible views, with no way to resolve those differences, and no reason to think one is more likely to be true.
The similarity of the Christian myth to other myths.
The lack of good evidence or arguments for religion, the failure of religion to make its case, and the bad arguments that get made for religion.
Seeing religion as rejecting intellect, reason, and reality.
Seeing science as a better explanation for X — consciousness, life, religious experiences, whatever — than religion.
Seeing that religion is more likely to be a human creation than a divine one.
Dishonest, hypocritical, or other bad behavior by religious believers or leaders.
Exposure to general skepticism, critical thinking, and the scientific method.
Exposure to specific scientific or historical ideas that contradict religion.
Simply knowing, or being exposed to, atheists or other non- believers; realizing that non-belief was an option.
Seeing that atheists not only exist, but can be happy people with moral, meaningful, non- guilt- ridden lives.
Realizing that “I only believed because it’s what I was taught or what was expected of me.”
Not getting good answers to questions about religion, or questions getting shot down.
Religion just seeming ridiculous, stupid, or pointless.
Seeing religion as based on logical fallacies or cognitive biases.
Seeing the harm done by religion.
Seeing the bad consequences of believing in absolute right and wrong.
Seeing bad things happening, which isn’t consistent with a belief in a good god.
Seeing that morality is possible without God or religion.
Seeing religion as no differe
nt from other superstitions or gullible beliefs.
Not seeing religion as necessary.
Not seeing any reason to treat God as any more likely than any other implausible hypothesis: the invisible pink unicorn, Russell’s teapot, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, etc.
The insufficiency of religion to offer comfort or other things it promises.
Realizing that they were cherry-picking: picking the tenets of their faith that they liked and rejecting the ones they didn’t, purely on the basis of their own feelings, with no evidence about what God wanted.
Failed prophecies.
The factual and scientific impossibility, implausibility, and inconsistency of religious claims and texts.
Learning that Jesus might be a mythical figure, and that the historical Jesus might not be real.
Seeing religion as being just like other fraud or trickery.
Seeing how cognitive biases generate and support religion.
Seeing better evidence for evolution than creationism.
Seeing God as an unnecessary hypothesis.
Seeing that if one part of their religious text is inaccurate, there’s no reason to believe any of it.
Seeing the internal inconsistency of their religion.
Seeing the inconsistency of their religion with human reality.
Seeing that atheism is potentially falsifiable, but most religions aren’t.
Seeing how human behavior is like the behavior of other animals.
Seeing religion as no fun.
The “god of the gaps”: the tendency of religion to say that any unexplained phenomenon must be explained by God, and the readiness of religion to jump to the next unexplained phenomenon when the previous one gets a natural, scientific explanation.
Realizing that religion didn’t make people moral or special.
Realizing that “you don’t choose your beliefs” — that beliefs need to be based on what you genuinely think is true and not what you want to be true.
Realizing that believers disbelieve in a lot of gods, too, and atheists just disbelieve in one more.
Realizing that intuition or feeling is not a good argument.
Realizing that the argument from popularity is a bad argument, and that the fact that lots of people believe something doesn’t make it true.
Realizing that many religious apologetics are outright lies.
Seeing religion’s unreasonable demands for unquestioning loyalty.
Seeing the importance of supporting your ideas with good, carefully gathered evidence.
Beginning to think independently in other ways, and questioning religion as part of that process.
Seeing religion mocked, blasphemed, made fun of, or made to seem silly.
Seeing terms such as “atheist” or “agnostic” accurately defined: realizing that it’s possible to be both atheist and agnostic, and that atheism doesn’t mean absolute certainty.
Leaving their church or other religious group, and realizing that their life got better or didn’t get worse.
Encountering atheism or other non-belief and realizing, “Yes, that’s me.”
Emotional support from atheists.
And there are more that I don’t have space to get into here.
All this may seem daunting. That’s a lot of arguments to master. But the point is exactly the opposite. The point is that there’s no magic bullet, no one argument that’s going to convince everybody — so you get to make the arguments you know, the ones that resonate with you, the ones you’re comfortable with.
So what’s our game plan? If we’re going to try to persuade religious believers out of religion — how, precisely, do we go about it?
Come out. This, by an order of magnitude, is the single most important thing atheists can do: to persuade others into atheism, or simply to create more acceptance of atheists. Often, just encountering atheists and atheist ideas can be a big factor in deconversion. And knowing about the existence of other atheists — especially other good, happy atheists — can help people feel like they have a safe place to land once they take that step. (The analogy with coming out as gay /lesbian /bi /trans is inevitable.)
Don’t expect your arguments to deconvert anyone overnight. This rarely happens. So be patient. Don’t think of yourself as dynamite under the foundations. Think of yourself as water wearing away the rock.
Don’t expect to deconvert a strong true believer. Meeting atheists, encountering atheist ideas and arguments… these things can have an effect on believers. But they tend to have an effect in the end stage of deconversion — not at the beginning. The initial cracks of doubt typically come from within: from people considering their beliefs, and having doubts about whether those beliefs are moral, or consistent with reality, or even consistent with themselves. We can help widen those cracks… but we rarely make them happen in the first place.
That’s not to say you shouldn’t engage with strong true believers. The engagement can help strengthen your own arguments and clarify your own thinking. What’s more, if the engagement is happening in any sort of public setting — an online discussion thread, say — it may have an effect on other people following the argument… even if they’re not saying anything. And sometimes strong true believers do come around to atheism. Just don’t count on it.
Remember that arguments can have an effect. I know how resistant to evidence religious belief can be. I know how frustrating it is to debate believers who don’t seem to value reason. But lots of non-believers say that encountering atheists or atheist ideas was an important part of their deconversion process, and that they were at least partly persuaded by specific atheist arguments or ideas.
Again: We often come in at the tail end of the process, instead of at the beginning. But that’s an important part. Don’t dismiss it.
On the other hand, no one argument is going to convince everybody. We’re not going to find a magic bullet, the One Good Atheist Argument that convinces everyone to deconvert. Different people find different arguments and ideas compelling. We have to keep presenting all of them.
Be willing to argue in public. Remember all those emails I get from people saying, “Your arguments helped persuade me out of religion”? There’s a very important point about those emails: They didn’t come from the people I’d been debating. They came from people who’d been lurking. They came from people who’d been following the arguments. It’s possible that one of the people I tangled with is now a full-fledged atheist because of our debates… but if they are, none of them has told me about it. It’s the onlookers who were persuaded.
So remember that. The people you’re trying to convince? They aren’t necessarily the people you’re arguing with. They’re the people who are looking on, who are following the comment thread or listening to the argument in the bar. This is true for big public debates, and it’s true for little arguments on Facebook and in online forums and so on. So be willing to challenge the social convention. Ask questions about religion, contradict people about it, have debates about it… right out in the open, where other people can hear.
Expose people, not just to specific arguments against religion, but to methods of skeptical, critical, and scientific thinking. While specific arguments do help people deconvert, people generally need to begin the process on their own. But having critical thinking skills can help that process begin — and can help it come to its conclusion.
Encourage people to read the Bible or other sacred text of their religion. For lots of people, the loss of their belief started by examining more closely what they supposedly believed, and being either intellectually baffled or morally repulsed. (See Julia Sweeney’s performance piece, “Letting Go of God,” for a beautiful and hilarious example.) To put it more bluntly: For lots of people, the first step to losing their religion is reading the Bible or the Koran or what have you, and going, “It says WHAT now? Are you fucking kidding me?” Let’s encourage more people to do that.
Build community. For many people — maybe eve
n most people — the reasons they hang on to religion have nothing to do with theology. When you ask religious believers why they go to their church, synagogue, mosque, coven, etc., most say it’s because of community. They want the social connection, the emotional support, the practical support, the feeling of belonging, the shared activities, the shared purpose. And when people start questioning their religious beliefs, letting go of all that is often one of the scariest parts. Letting go of religion often means alienating friends and family. Especially in parts of the world where religion dominates social life.
So atheists need to do more than just pry people out of religion. We need to give them a safe place to land when they fall. We need to develop secular and atheist communities, to replace the ones people often lose when they let go of their religion. (If you want to know where to look for these communities, see the Resource Guide at the end of this book.)
Finally, and most importantly:
Don’t despair.
What we’re doing can work. It is working.
What we’re doing can feel frustrating to the point of futility. Religious belief is stubborn. It is resistant to reason and evidence. It is shielded with a wide variety of armors against criticism… and indeed, against the very idea that it can and should be subject to criticism. Trying to persuade people that their religious belief is a mistaken hypothesis about the world — even trying to get people to see their religious belief as a hypothesis at all, one which should be able to stand on its own against other hypotheses — can feel like shouting into the wind.
But what we’re doing can work. It is working. Rates of non-belief have been going up dramatically in the United States and around the world, even in just the last few years. And in some parts of the world — specifically in Europe — non-belief is now so common that in some countries it’s more common than belief.
And again — ask around in the local atheist group, the atheist blogs, the atheist online forums. Ask people why they’re atheists, and what made them change their minds. And see how many people give a long, complex narrative… ending with the word, “Finally.” “Finally I was persuaded by The God Delusion.” “Finally I was persuaded by Daniel Dennett.” “Finally I was persuaded by something my sister said, or my uncle, or my best friend.” “Finally I was persuaded by something someone said on an internet discussion group.” “Finally I was persuaded by something I read on this blog.”
Why Are You Atheists So Angry? 99 Things That Piss Off the Godless Page 13
