Closeted Theists (exposing them to start the healing)

[Nemesiah]

Good Evening:

First please allow me to introduce my self; I'm Ed (Nemesiah) This is my first post in these forums. So First things first I,´m Mexican and here we speak spanish (don,´t mock, I've met people that did not know that) So; if my english is not perfect please correct me politely.

So anyway.... I have this aquintance and he claims to be atheistic; I joke about the bible and he laughs with me at "Team Zombie".

A few days ago we are discussing wether theists are worng or wronger in their view of life and he smacks me with "yes... but I mean, there are just some things that ARE metaphysical..."

You can imagine my face when I realised that he was not in fact joking; "Which things?" I ask

"Like what happens when we die"

At this point I,´m sure I'm getting trolled, right?

"You hit the floor and decompose" I answer.

To make the story short; turns out this guy thinks that life would be meaningless without an eternity to ponder over the mysterious nature of tofu; that thoughts are manifested (not created mind you) by the brain thus brain damage won,´t reflect on you once you die; that churches are wrong but religions in their pure form (without pesky humans to soil them I suppose) are just dandy; Oh and just to end things with a bang that human reactions can be random (effectively denying causality).

Now this is no slack jawed jokel we're talking about here this is a very talented IT guy that has taken 6+ semesters of philosophy and is 35+ years old.

My question then is: does anyone have a good, kind yet effective way of explainig to him that he is as batshit crazy as any Scientologist? I have tryed logic but he used the "some things are beyond human undrstanding"; and the "If you don,´t have a Ph.D in Theology and a Ph.D in every science then you are no authority because those tiny cracks you can,´t explain allow for any dementia I want to put there"

Thanks in adance for your help and simpathy; I trully hurts to see someone do a 180,° on reason.

 

[JustBusiness17]

To the best of my knowledge, there are no magic phrases to induce critical thinking. Asking for proof of an extraordinary claim is usually a good starting point.

 

[monitoradiation]

that thoughts are manifested (not created mind you) by the brain thus brain damage won,´t reflect on you once you die;

I'm not even sure how this makes sense. Thoughts are manifested by the brain... And thus brain damage doesn't affect you once you die? What the heck does he mean by "manifested by the brain"?

I don't really think there's a good way, other than to ask him constantly to define what he means and how he knows this stuff. For example, have him define metaphysics, and what it means for something to be metaphysical. Have him try to show you an example of something that's metaphysical.

He'll most likely resort to some sort of abstraction, but yah, I don't really know what he'll say.

 

[JustBusiness17]

that thoughts are manifested (not created mind you) by the brain thus brain damage won,´t reflect on you once you die;

I don't really think there's a good way, other than to ask him constantly to define what he means and how he knows this stuff. For example, have him define metaphysics, and what it means for something to be metaphysical. Have him try to show you an example of something that's metaphysical.

He'll most likely resort to some sort of abstraction, but yah, I don't really know what he'll say.

This comment @ Hytegia and Niocan

 

[lrkun]

My question then is: does anyone have a good, kind yet effective way of explainig to him that he is as batshit crazy as any Scientologist? I have tryed logic but he used the "some things are beyond human undrstanding"; and the "If you don,´t have a Ph.D in Theology and a Ph.D in every science then you are no authority because those tiny cracks you can,´t explain allow for any dementia I want to put there"

Thanks in adance for your help and simpathy; I trully hurts to see someone do a 180,° on reason.

Is it necessary to change the belief of your friend just because he thinks different from you? Please think it over.

 

[borrofburi]

I don't really think there's a good way, other than to ask him constantly to define what he means and how he knows this stuff. For example, have him define metaphysics, and what it means for something to be metaphysical. Have him try to show you an example of something that's metaphysical.

I dunno if this will work. Consistent rigid definition is something that has to be learned. I still vividly remember dealing with this process in 10th grade (and maybe a little in 11th grade); people would ask me to define or explain what i meant (especially in the papers i wrote) and I would think "it's obvious". It was one of the most difficult lessons of my life to learn that it's not obvious, that it takes explaining, and that if I can't necessarily explain it in such simple bite sized chunks that anyone with even basic logic skills can understand it, there's a good chance I'm wrong (but at least I know I need to think some more).

That lesson was not easy for me to learn, it was one of the more difficult ones in my life (despite being given major educational resources, and despite a very high innate intelligence), and it was one I only learned because it was forced on me by history and literature teachers. I can only imagine how many people simply haven't learned it and don't understand that "it's obvious" is wrong.

 

[JustBusiness17]

I can only imagine how many people simply haven't learned it and don't understand that "it's obvious" is wrong.

http://forums.leagueofreason.org.uk/viewtopic.php?p=68282#p68282

 

[makula]

Unfortunately a person who 'gets religion' is similar to burning a CD; once you close off the session you can't get back in to edit the files. If it was possible for a believer to produce irrefutable proof of the existence of a 'supreme being' a considerable percentage of logical thinking non-believers would accept it, whereas if the reverse were true; and there was definitive proof that 'God' did not exist, very few believers would accept it; they call it 'faith' which is immune to logic.

 

[OneKlicKill]

Unfortunately a person who 'gets religion' is similar to burning a CD; once you close off the session you can't get back in to edit the files..

Well in some cases people are Cd's. I was lucky a USB drive.

OT: Its one thing to dispute the topic with your friend, just know that if you try to impose your views you will most likely lose him as a friend.
I have gotten in discussions on religion with religious friends before and it pushes you away from them, and that wasn't imposing any ideas just conversing about our different views.

 

[Clint]

It's just so common, that people are just so afraid to say those words "I don't know", which are so vitally important. This inability leads to people filling these gaps with what ever fair-tales makes them feel comfortable. This willingness to believe without rational justification, is never a good thing (and of course consequences of this vary).

In a mixture of elegant words from Carl Sagan:-

Unfortunately, the universe is not obliged to conform to what we consider comfortable, or plausible. Science has taught us that because we have a talent for deceiving ourselves, subjectivity may not freely reign. It's conclusions are derived from the interrogations of nature and are not in all cases pre designed to satisfy our wants.

...if you lived two or three millennia ago there was no shame holding that the universe was made for us. It was an appealing thesis consistent with everything we knew. It was what the most learned among us taught without qualification. But we've found out much since then. Defending such a position today amounts to wilful disregard of the evidence and a flight from self knowledge. We long to be here for a purpose, even though despite much self deception, none is evident.

Once we over come our fear of being tiny - we find ourselves on the threshold of a vast and awesome universe that utterly dwarfs in time and space and potential, the tidy anthropocentric proscenium of our ancestors.

We long for a Parent to care for us, to forgive us our errors, to save us from our childish mistakes. But knowledge is preferable to ignorance. Better by far to embrace the hard truth than a reassuring fable.

If we crave some cosmic purpose, then let us find ourselves a worthy goal.

No one say's it better than the man himself...

​

 

[Nautyskin]

So. This man has "discovered" that he is going to live forever, with all his faculties intact (including his ever-present free-will) and you want to put yourself in the position of being someone who is trying to take that away from him? Yeah, the tea-leaves tell me there could be bad times ahead.

I strongly recommend you try no such thing. At least not in any direct way. Perhaps you could slip into the conversation somewhere that you're reading a really interesting book on neuroscience and, if he's interested, mention a few of the things from it, see if it interests him - he might take it up on his own.

Little things like that are probably the limit of what I'd try at this stage. He's chosen the path he has for a reason. I would suggest that nobody can really even start to change that except him.