this post was submitted on 05 Oct 2024
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One thing I've learned is you can't engage in a rational debate with an irrational person.
Yeah, you can plant seeds... But you won't win anything. And the seeds, you plant will be absorbed by others looking on mostly.
I don’t think most of the people we are talking about are irrational.
They are arguing in bad faith.
It’s not that they are stupid, it’s that they’re stubborn.
And arguing against them actually poses risks because they will lie about what you said if they can use it to polish their lies.
I honestly wish I could upvote you more because this is exactly the problem.
Maybe assuming you are the only one with reason in a conversation is the problem. You don't have to agree with someone to understand their point of view or reasoning.
Its definitely easier to ban or block if all you want is a circle jerk though.
There is no debating with people that believe in mythology as real life. Who says there is a lake of fire I'll go to because I'm queer, who vote for someone their religion says is the anti-christ. Blocking is just avoiding stepping in shit.
One could spend the enegry to spin their own beliefs to demostrate their contradictions... but their cognitive dissonance will cause them to just dig deeper to maintain their world view... people have to have an open mind before any rational debates can be made.
Yup, you can't reason a person out of a position they didn't reason themselves into
For most of my life, I was pretty quiet about being an atheist, and literally all of my friends were Christian; *they assumed I was too, and it was easier to let them. Eventually I stopped caring who knew, and finally told a few of my friends that I’m atheist. In every case, the response was ‘you can’t be atheist – you’re too nice’.
A couple of them flat-out refused to believe I’m atheist, telling me that I’m actually Christian, I just don’t go to church or pray, and that’s okay. Utterly refusing to accept I don’t believe in their god, and trying to convince me of all the reasons I’m acktuaaly a believer, even if I don’t think I am. It’s been confusing and maddening. Some of these conversations have gone on for more than a decade.
Many people will straight-up refuse to see anything that doesn’t conform to their worldview, and there’s not a thing you can say to break through it.
e: *
Damn - I'd be so down for that discussion, for no other reason than I'd be fascinated at their definition of Christian that's inclusive of not believing there is one existant God, who created the world, and whose representative/earthly form died to absolve us of our sins.
Like, you can follow every other rule in the book Ned Flanders style if you want, but these are the basic requirements to be a Christian (regardless if you're a 'good' or 'bad' one). Decent chance it ends with a hard, interesting look at the basis for their personal faith, if you have the patience and energy to pull at that for a while.
But unless you find that part interesting and just wanna be an atheist living your life, yeah, that sounds exhausting and irritating, and it sucks they're acting this way with you.
I actually enjoy religious debate to a point (until it becomes circular).
Responses I’ve got usually settle on the fact my outlook and actions follow Jesus’s teachings, and that because I have morals – and god is the originator of morals – I clearly do follow god, even if I don’t want to admit it to myself.
Trying to tell people that ethics didn’t originate with their bible, and that obviously people had morals tens of thousands of years before Christianity even existed (because otherwise cooperative societies would not have formed) is something they can’t even fathom, it’s so far outside their worldview.
Some insist I must believe in god in order to reject him, and can’t understand when I point out they don’t have to believe in leprechauns in order to reject them.
For indoctrinated and devout Christians, there doesn’t seem to be a way to break through the fog. I’ve two friends who will begin shouting at me over this, though they’re perfectly reasonable the rest of the time. Years of this is exhausting, as you say, so now I’ve mostly stopped trying.
I'm with you, but understanding someone's view sometimes means acknowledging that it is, in fact, irrational. There are reasons some give as to why they think that cis women need protection from trans women, but those reasons are either not rational since the vast majority of evidence is to the contrary, or they are founded on the extreme minority of evidence that confirms them (meaning the search for evidence was conducted irrationally).
If I try to understand someone's point of view, restate it to them in a way they accept, and present overwhelming evidence to the contrary, and their response is to say the evidence is irrelevant because it's possible some of it was biased, that's irrational.
I don't want a circle jerk, I just want to not see people tell me that facts that have been scientifically proven a million times are actually wrong because their old book said so (or at least they intepreted it that way) or cheerlead a genocide.