How Useful Is Dialogue with Religious People?

Minds might not get changed, but I reckon good dialogue will help reign in some of the excesses on both sides.

I encourage open dialogue. Sometimes it can be challenging. I think welcoming a distinction between something taken on faith versus other approaches is helpful.

If you can have someone acknowledge its faith, you together, realize an impasse. If they identify another source of discovery a dialogue is easier.

I agree that these conversations, no matter how well-intentioned, can be frustrating (I’m engaged in an in-depth debate via email even now).

But I think they serve to inform each side that we don’t live up to many of the assumptions we may have about each other. Just looking at much of the extreme commentary, you’d think both sides are crazy evil-doing haters, which usually just isn’t true.

Once you get past that, there is a lot of room to find some common ground and build tolerance on the issues Hemant mentioned, which both sides can benefit from.

The thing this post leaves out is listening. I support the effort to begin from things both sides can agree on. But I find that so many of these discussions aren’t actually discussions – they’re just two people talking next to each other.

In order for actual discourse, there has to be a question to answer. And both sides have to be interested in finding the “right” answer. Or at least an answer that both can agree on.

Just my 2 cents.

Peace

/Christian here. But the kind that listens.

I think it’s helpful if you blog your feelings so the whole world gets a chance to see what’s important to non-theists. Maybe it’s useless, maybe it isn’t. But the low cost of the experiment to put your thought train out for the world to stumble on added to the validation of being able to publicly ask certain questions has to be a good thing right?

I stopped talking with theists about important subjects unless we were both drinking beer. A lot of people say that the two things you shouldn’t talk about over drinks is religion and politics. I believe the opposite.

Even though it feels like, and often is, beating your head against a wall, there is the hope that one of two things already mentioned will happen. You’ll have an impact on a silent observer, or you could plant a seed.

I probably owe my own atheism to a debate I had with someone on Internet Infidels back in the mid-90’s. He did not convert me, but later when I did start thinking about my belief, his arguments resurfaced and I saw them in a new light. Those arguments helped me move toward unbelief because I saw the weakness of my own arguments. I know its rare, but it does happen. And now that is affecting the way I am raising my own children and will hopefully continue to reap benefits.

You may not even know you’ve had an impact, the guy I argued with certainly didn’t, but he was very successful nonetheless.

Think about it this way: if dialog with religious people is pointless because nobody will change their mind, how about dialog with other atheists? Surely that’s even more pointless, since nobody is going to change their mind either.

Nobody’s going to change their mind…
Neither side is going to compromise on beliefs.

I disagree. I’ve often have conversations about religious topics where I change my mind. Very rarely on the major stuff of course, but on smaller peripheral issues about *why* I take a particular viewpoint. A large part of having an open mind is being willing to test your beliefs against a different view point. Until you start going in circles it’s usually productive…

Whichever side of the discussion you’re on, my advice is the same; Don’t be afraid to speak, and also to listen.

We don’t have to agree. We don’t have to change minds. What matters is that we make the effort to understand each other.

It isn’t true that “nobody’s going to change their mind”. Some people will indeed never change their mind. But not everyone is like that. You do however have to be prepared for it, in most cases, to take a very long time.

Occasionally however it can happen quite quickly, as I have seen in several deconversion stories on the web. These were people who only really started digging into the details of their religion in order to prove the skeptics wrong – and discovered to their horror that in fact the skeptics were right.

Another factor to take into account is that most people dislike being shown that they are wrong. So even if someone does change his mind, that doesn’t mean he’s necessarily going to admit it – at least to you. And try not to get annoyed if, a few years later, someone says “oh, but I never believed that anyway”.

Throw them to the lions.

Oh, wait. That isn’t helpful. Um.

OK, you don’t have to be right, you just need to ask the right questions. What is it that people know the most about in the whole world and that they find most interesting? Themselves. Talk about what they think, about their experiences, how and why they reached the conclusions they got to. When something isn’t clear or doesn’t make sense then ask for clarification.

Don’t crow about making them stumble or stumping them. You may have introduced a doubt and it might take time to work through. Don’t be surprised that challenges to their views might well end up strengthening them. That’s how it works with me unless I get proven wrong.

Be prepared to admit that you are wrong about something because you just might be. It could be something minor or something major but there is always a chance that you might be wrong. Hopefully they’ll extend the same courtesy to you.

Keep your sense of humour. If you can laugh at yourself then you may not cause so much offence if you laugh at them.

Nobody’s going to change their mind? Tell that to the hordes of the de-converted. It does feel like you get nowhere. No worries! They feel the same way! People change their minds quite frequently. What doesn’t (usually) happen is people changing their ideas overnight. In the heat of a discussion, people tend to cling even harder to their beliefs, but if you are patient, persistent, and polite, people will often mull over the other person’s viewpoints later. What doesn’t work is pissing people off–studies show that in the course of heated arguments, people will begin to hang on to their beliefs much more tightly. And if you are rude, they will remember your rudeness later instead of your ideas.

What is important isn’t the last word–it’s the words you do speak. Even if they don’t swing over to atheism, good dialogue has a way of at least helping people modify what they think. Generally speaking, anyways. There are exceptions, many people in my family, for example . . .
There is a name for all of this in psychology, but I forgot the term. :S

Be very, very patient. You may have heard Pascal’s Wager – and debunked it – 25 times, but to the theist who brings it up, it’s the unassailable argument they’ve accepted since childhood.

It’s difficult for those who were never religious to understand how deeply held and deeply personal most religious beliefs are. Attacking them cruelly feels horrible to those who hold them – and makes atheists look like jerks.

Explaining patiently and introducing new ideas a few at a time is the way to go. That’s how I went through deconversion, just getting little bits of new ideas at a time. It’s impossible to mentally digest more than that because the shift in world view is so extreme.

I think that nobody will change their mind instantly, or during a discussion with you. But people do change.

I think a lot of people have had very good suggestions. I like what ChrisZ says about a non-debate.

This topic really hits home with me, considering recent events. Time for a bit of a story, folks!

So, for years, I’ve worked at my university’s writing center. For those of you who don’t know what a writing center is, it’s basically a place full of peer tutors who help students with composition and argumentation, and if those are good already, grammatical concerns. Most students don’t know what WCs do before going there (some still don’t afterwards), but we have big regional conferences for our work and everything.

I attended such a conference this past Saturday. Not only did I attend, I presented. Back when I was considering what I might want to present, I got to thinking what makes me unique among the ranks of the tutors at my school. Yeah, I’m an expert grammarian, but I’ve already presented about that years ago. What else? I’m an atheist. Okay. What does that have to do with the WC? Well, argumentation. I’m part of an ideological minority group in this country. And that makes me valuable to our WC, because a WC that lacks minority or unpopular ideas is at risk for becoming a safe haven for fallacious majority arguments.

So that’s why I should be doing it. But what did I do? Well, at first I considered a topic that addressed only religion, but then I determined that it wouldn’t be relevant or received very well. So, I decided to present about a concept I call “lines of argumentation”, that is, how far a person can rationally pursue an argument, or the point after which we have to agree to disagree. Sounds like something appropriate to a WC conference.

Since I’m of the belief that one reason why America is so ideologically backwards is because we don’t like to talk about religion, and because I like to challenge people’s beliefs (or at least the degree to which they want to impose them on others), I was committed to leave religion on the table. I wrote a little speech for the presentation (the rest was to be a roundtable format) that included a very clear and diplomatic statement that, while perfectly valid on a personal basis, religious beliefs are not something you can argue for rationally. I had a feeling people were going to disagree with this. I was prepared to defend it. I set aside a portion for group discussion on this very point. Nobody bit.

On the surface, I think my presentation and roundtable discussion went very well. But. After the conference was concluded, I was talking to some of my compatriots from my home WC at my university. One of the girls told me that she overheard people talking in the bathroom after my presentation, and evidently people were withholding objections to my arguments on grounds of unnecessary civility. A textbook example of completely missing the point.

I don’t know what I could have done better to make my point. I was extremely careful to establish that all religious beliefs were valid for individuals, and none of them more valid for their believers than others. I had a hypothetical situation, using the Grid of Disputation, that took a pro-religion stance on church/state separation (i.e. pro-religion was “agree”, atheism was “disagree”). I never mentioned that I was actually an atheist. I acknowledged that many ideas that are popularly attributed to Jesus would be persuasive in an argument, because they adhere to our secular common sense and don’t require divine authority to be good ideas.

Any ideas as for what I should have done better to convince educated theists that people who disagree with them believe just as strongly as they do and with just as much reason?

An old boss and I used to have many conversations about raising kids. We had considerably different opinions. Beliefs like a child’s right to an opinion, Whether or not they should be allowed to eat at the same table, if spanking was an effective teaching tool. We argued about this many times and it seemed fruitless. Then one day I heard him arguing with someone else, using a perspective that was originally mine. It seemed a very short time after that that I noticed a tremendous change in how he was treating his son.

It was a change in thinking that slowly came to take place.

I see talking to theists this way. Small conversations bringing new ideas will eventually take seed and grow. If not it was good practice for when it could happen.

hoverFrog Says:”Throw them to the lions..Keep your sense of humour. If you can laugh at yourself then you may not cause so much offence if you laugh at them”

L.o.L ..I like it…Seems to work for me also.

Hemant Mehta says:”I talk about the need for them to take those ideas back to their churches and pastors”

Me too.People feel better if they feel less pressured,they more likely to considder rather than close their minds off.And we need folks of faith to start discussion amongst themselves also.

Blogs and public forums are important.You might get no where with teaching the old dog you speaking with new tricks,but many puppys in the background quietly listening are often keen to learn.

Dialogue is very useful,we see its having effect already.The big part of the ball game is keeping it up..In the past progress was made,only to be lost when many folks lost interest.

I have frequently debated against religious morons about their opposition to my civil rights as a gay man. Debating them about religion outright is pretty much the same experience.

I approach such arguments with some consideration: if I think it’s just going to be an argument with the one person, unless it’s someone I care about personally, I skip it. But, if it’s in a public forum, I might take them on, for the sake of the audience; I know that I may not convince the person I’m arguing with, probably won’t, but that I might convince the audience.

Next comes a choice of tactic. I could go for a direct and mannerly confrontation, in which I express disagreement with the points of my opponent and bring up evidence to support my arguments, or I could ridicule them, taking every opportunity to show how ridiculous their remarks are and goading them into saying increasingly absurd stuff to demonstrate to the audience what an idiot they are and, by extension, how idiotic their position is. Usually, I choose the mannerly confrontation if I think there’s any hope of actually convincing my opponent to agree with me, and ridicule if I just want to destroy their image in front of the audience.

On the other hand, a couple of times I went with the “ridicule” approach and actually managed to win over my opponent to my side anyway.

I also keep in mind that a conversion (to believing in gay equality, to atheism, whatever) is not an overnight event. It takes a lot of time and consideration. So, when I’m trying to actually make someone change their mind, I don’t go into it with the expectation that they will do so in one session, so I don’t use the argument “here is why I am right and you are wrong and that’s definitive so either agree with me or I have nothing else to say to you.” I argue points, I go after specific fallacies they have used, but above all I try to force them to recognize that the memorized BS they’re parroting at me is… off. That could involve proving it wrong, or it could involve making them see that right or wrong it’s still harming people, or it could mean demonstrating to them that even if they’re right I don’t believe what they’re saying, so they have to stop and consider why, or it could involve forcing them to realize that even if they’re right they’re not actually convincing anyone so they have to stop and think about it just to come up with a new argument to try.

But regardless of the method, my goal is to force them to stop and think about it, even if only to choose a new tactic. Every time their brain turns on for a moment is an opportunity for them to come a little closer to realizing the truth. I may be the one who finally pushes them over the edge into realization, or I may not. It may happen that day, or it may not. I may be there to see it when it happens, or I may not. But when it happens, that’s one more person working on the side of reason, sanity, and civility, which makes the effort I put in worthwhile.

He doesn’t know that that individual will change their mind or not.

Losing faith is a slow process. If we keep beating stuff with the reason stick, something’s got to give.

I disagree because just like they think, “you’ve planted a seed of doubt” (not a seed of faith/hope for heaven) I went round and round yesterday with a nun who swore up and down she had a jesus statue that bled blood tears that were from THE jesus and that a cloud she saw once was exactly like the baby jesus. I’m not making that up.

Nobody’s going to change their mind, and it doesn’t even feel like we’re speaking the same language.

and

Neither side is going to compromise on beliefs.

I don’t agree with either of these statements. At all. I’ve had more than one person tell me that they became atheists, in part, because of things I wrote. And I became an atheist, in part, because of things other people wrote. Most atheists were once believers… and we had our minds changed by something. Our numbers wouldn’t be increasing if that weren’t true.

I do think that, in one-on-one conversations, we need to shift our expectations. We can’t expect people to change their minds overnight. People tend to be very attached to their religious beliefs: we need to remember that letting go of those beliefs is emotionally hard, and that simply making a killer argument isn’t going to do it. We need to shift our expectations from “make the killer arguments that will change this person’s mind” to “plant the seeds of doubt and give them the tools they’ll need to re-think these questions on their own.” (And we also need to do a better job of making atheism a safe place to land once people do leave their religion.) We’re not dynamite under the foundations: we’re water on rock.

You might be interested in a survey I took and a piece I wrote (sorry for the self-linkage, but it really is relevant): What Convinced You? A Non-Belief Summary… and an Atheist Game Plan. I did an informal survey of non-believers in my blog, asking, “What changed your mind?” — and then summarized the answers into a game plan for what is and is not actually helpful in getting people to question their faith. Short answer: Yes, we can make a difference. It just takes time.

I disagree. They could be made to believe as children, they can be made not to believe as adults. It’s a harder lesson, but it can be done.

What advice do you have for talking with theists?

I’d give the same advice that I wish theists would follow when talking with atheists. Do not tell them what they believe. Tell them what you believe. Listen and respond to what they say, not what you think they secretly mean.