Back when I was still going to church, but starting to read Dawkins and Harris, I got to a point where I no longer trusted the references my pastor was giving me. So I said, no, I’m not reading any more of your books, how about you read one of mine, and we’ll talk about that. He shook his head. Recently a fundamentalist cousin of mine offered to help me find Jesus, I said fine, if you spend an equal amount of time discussing logic and learning terms like “Pascal’s wager”. He declined.
Now I’m dying to try this out on everyone I know. It’s doesn’t convince anyone of anything, but it shows that they are the closed minded one.
Anybody ever done something similar?
Back in my youth my then best friend told me I wasn’t thinking for myself, I was just repeating what I had been told in church. He also said that any system of beliefs which could not withstand rational scrutiny was not worth believing and challenged me to read The Descent of Man From the Apes. I read that and Sagan’s The Gardens of Eden and quit seminary and started reading all the science I could get my hands on. Many Christians fear education for this very reason: it leads people away from faith. I have heard sermons on that subject. Willful ignorance is essential for maintaining faith.
No, I have not tried that angle. But I find people are not only closed minded on discussions but they are open minded when it comes to the Pack Mentality thinking of religious belief. One of my best friends is a minster and I help him and his church out a lot. We argued for years about finding Jesus and a thousand other related religious subjects. We are still best friends, but he does not push religion with me anymore. The biggest problem I had with him, was to identify the subject of discussion, then stay on that subject and not jump around. Another problem was keeping the subject and related discussion material in the same time frame of history. There is no question he knows more about the bible than me. But he knows very little about religion as a part of mankind’s whole history, and he does not want to learn about religion outside of the bible because it dilutes the bible as the only source of religious information.