What's the point? Your position is morally indefensible. So much of what you mention in your other causes to fight will no longer be an issue when you help liberate someone of faith as an epistemology. So, why chip at the sides and top of a structure, when you can take out the house of cards at the foundation; The foundation of pretending to know things a person cannot possibly know.

@ForTheWin what? "Morally indefensible"????? Says who, you? Sorry, but not listening.......

@ForTheWin That's pretty confrontational language. I can't understand why you'd lash out like that on such a minor difference of opinion.

@Leutrelle I always try to remember to give the benefit of the doubt and stop myself from imagining a tone I can't hear. I can imagine myself saying @ForTheWin 's exact words in a totally neutral, conversational tone, completely devoid of personal indictment. I have often ruffled feathers face-to-face when I used words that others found uncomfortably strong and direct, mistakenly interpreting rudeness in my approach...when I though my tone was completely appropriate. So I know it happens. ForTheWin did not attack me, only my idea. That is a-okay with me.

As a matter of fact, regardless of the nature of the tone, the rebuttal is one that has had me thinking and thinking. It's precisely the kind of whetstone I need against which to hone--or break--my own argument. It's what I'm here for.

Be cool, people. It's all good.

@stinkeye_a I understand that. I just happen to agree with your original comment. I think it is defensible.

@Leutrelle guess I imagined a tone! You may have thought out my argument better than me! I inuitively feel it's correct but am having trouble coming up with a rationale. Any insight would be much appreciated.

@stinkeye_a I don't know if I can help out there or not. I do believe in that old axiom which states you can lead horse to water, but you can't make him drink. I also reflect on my previous religious life and remember how close minded and defensive I was. So I tend to live and let live unless they are making me uncomfortable. I prefer finesse over verbal combat, if I see an opportunity I will give a gentle nudge. I don't know if this is rational or not

@Leutrelle The reason we're here discussing these things, about this topic is to exchange ideas. Dispassionate exchange of ideas should be flowing - even at the risk of creating angst. That being said, @stinkeye_a gave it consideration, and I'm thankful she saw it in the intent that I thought it out and typed it out. You came first to attack my post as unnecessarily confrontational to her, but next, you pole vaulted to lend tacit support to her original statement - but did not explicitly state why you feel her position is defensible. With that being said, who can answer to an unstated argument? i cannot.
Can we assume a position of openness that at least two possible positions to shore up exist? One is that being an isolationist agnostic is defensible (ie: "What's the point?" ), or the other: that an examined life led by reason, evidence and healthy skepticism is a better and happier life - and thereby worth sharing with fellow humans who are slaves to dogmatic closed minded thinking. Again, why chip with futility away at the tops and sides of a structure (racism, sexism, homophobia, divisive tribalism, etc) that are built upon a base of cards, when you can destroy and the level entire foundation of it? ie: religious faith itself.

@AnneWimsey I feel as though your statement is not an argument. I wish it was so we can converse about the things we care about and what drives us in one way or the other (or causes us to retreat). I can't think of any reason to go out and pick fights and create enemies, but I can think of plenty of good reasons to ask [people that try and sell us their religious faith snake oil] open ended questions in a non-adversarial way that literally hand people the tools to dismantle their own religious dogmatism. It's not an us vs them, and here is why: A person could attack their religion and watch them shore up their position with a long list of defenses, or we can see them as victims of their dogmatism. They are, in a sense, suffering from a 'delusion virus' that needs a dose of healthful antiviral medication, and an inoculation against future dogmatic thinking and actions that they spread to unwitting new hosts. Do their poisonous ideas spread like viruses? Does this virus manifest itself at the ballot box, making life miserable for millions more conscious people?

@ForTheWin Name checks out

@ForTheWin The answer is simple: It's not my priority. By the way you don't have to be religious to be racist or any other "ism". I have known plenty of Christian's who were none of those mentioned. I know a few who who would fight against the "ism". I really can't understand your unbridled passion for converting religious people. To me it smacks of some type of disfunction. I didn't join this sight to debate, and I have never pole vaulted. I am pretty sure if we were neighbors, we would not be best friends. I hope you can let this go. Excuse me for having a thought.

@Leutrelle No offense taken (and none offered at you), and this is not a debate or a race. One thing you can say about dogmatic religious people that could be true: "pretending to know things you they don't know". This is the root of faith. My passion for helping disabuse people of "pretending to know things they don't know"? Well, how can someone lead an examined happy life that is full of religious faith? (ie: pretending to know things they don't know). Will someone likely be happier if they're less superstitious? Will someone be more likely to hold a faith healing for their child with an appendicitis, if they're pretending to know things they don't know? (possibly) Will someone likely go to the ballot box, and select that all abortions should be illegal, if they believe that the soul enters the body when the cells divide?(even if the soul is that from father who impregnates his 8 year old daughter by force?) This is the case in several Latin American countries at the moment, and anyone that is detected to have had an abortion (such as telltale scarring on their cervix) will be handcuffed to their bed, and a forensics team will treat it as a crime scene. There are women in El Salvador serving 30 year sentences for abortion. This is an actual slippery slope where things can get worse for people, given enough support or tolerance for dogmatic religious ideas. So, when an agnostic or atheist says "the dogmatic religious aren't hurting anyone, and it's their deal, so whatever" isn't truly looking at the world as it could be.
Under the guise of religious freedom and religious tolerance in America, a lot of really horrible things are happening, and they can get worse. They're out there every day trying to pushing out these ideas, spreading them like a virus. We have a moral responsibility to help spread some good ideas based in rational, reasonable thought tethered to evidence - regardless of the offense they take at it. I hope you enjoy my rant.

@stinkeye_a I think the idea of "live and let torture" sounds nice at first. Taking an isolationist point of view, right? It at least is easy, sort of like "my thoughts and prayers going out to the families of this suicide bombing", LOL - or "my thoughts and prayers go out to the family of this gay person that was tortured to death for being gay". It sounds easy, right, cause none of that stuff is really happening in the real world is it?

@ForTheWin my statement is indeed not an arguement because, to put it yet another way, to try and argue anyone out of any position is tge same, to me, as trying to argue someone with curly hair into haviing straight hair.

agreed

@Leutrelle I am with you on this

@AnneWimsey I agree that arguing someone out of their religion would be tiresome and boring. But, good and wise people are reasoned out of their faith every day around the world. The biggest motivation I can provide is to say that it is not a lost cause like arguing with hair. Lets just look at that work for fun: "arguing curly hair into straight hair". You will positively affect the curly headed person that wants straight hair, but not much else. If you disabuse a person to understand that faith is faulty way of navigating this life, you positively effect them and everyone in their circle, because not only do terrible ideas spread, but so do good ones.

agreed

I agree. When someone says "I have other better things to do", it's like saying "I could of helped stop the cause of some of the worst possible suffering and misery in the world, but I had other priorities". We should cheerfully engaged the religiously deluded as an ally - not as an enemy of them. Our enemy is faith as a faulty epistemology -and many people will, when they realize it, come to their senses that it is a faulty way of learning about the nature of the world. It is not a way that is founded in reason and evidence.

So if you see someone drinking, smoking, shooting up, or smoking crack do you step in and try to fix them? There is an arbitrary line somewhere and just because someone has a different arbitrary line, doesn't mean they are amoral or morally indefensible. @stinkeye_a

When you debate a religiously dogmatic person, usually you just embolden them to stay on their point. It's much better, much more effective to use the Socratic method to get the person to realize why their faith is a faulty way of navigating through reality.

@ForTheWin since I don't debate them or even try to dissuade them the technique doesnt matter to me

@forthewin After four decades I have realized that peoples religious beliefs are rarely based in fact, but rather are based in emotion. The same is true of many other positions people take. As a Civil War Reenactor I frequently encounter people, both in and out of the hobby, who claim that the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery. When I point out the evidence that it was, such as the 1860 Democratic Platform, the South Carolina Declaration of Secession, etc. They come up with wild rationalizations to allow themselves to ignore the evidence. Climate Change, Evolution, etc. the list goes on.

@btroje and @Epic-curious Debate is for sport, or to impress people, but it likely will not do what we want it to do in my opinion. It could even make the dogmatic faith-head a better debater. I'd stay clear of facts, since facts are often debatable as to the trueness of said claims. Trying to defeat religion will be futile as well, since people associate their sense of community to religion, their weddings, births, friendships, and life events of all types are often tied to their religion, church/mosque. To debate them about the existence of "God" is fun and easy for sport, since the target is huge. To debate them about their religion or the existence of "God" can end in heated debate, and getting labeled "the angry atheist". But, undermine faith as a method of knowing truths in the world, is to raze the the entire field upon which the target sits. It helps change someone from dogmatic certainty, to uncertain wonder. It liberates them from a life often filled with guilt, and all the other blockades to leading a truly examined happy life.

@ForTheWin as I said. If they want to believe what ever it is their right.I see no point in undermining someones faith.They can come to their own conclusions in a naturalistic way; I will agree to disagree with you on your idea of saving someone from their position. End of conversation for me