Why do religious people go on atheist sites?

Here's a positive review of my new comment policy on this blog, where I now moderate (approve) comments before they're published. One day in, I'm enjoying the lack of off-topic crazy comments from dogmatic religious believers. 

I regularly exchange emails with the person who wrote what follows. John used to be religious, but now, like me, he's seen the atheist light. 

John makes some good points. I don't know any atheists, which includes me, who go to religious sites and try to convert believers to atheism. But this churchless blog gets many visits and comments from religious people.

Why? Well, like John says, I agree that believers in God get a lot more defensive when someone questions their religion, than atheists do when someone questions their lack of belief in God.

Which makes sense.

I don't get upset when someone questions why I don't like country music. Since I don't have any attachment to that type of music, it doesn't bother me if a country music lover thinks I'm a fool for not being a fan of that genre.

Plus, atheists are used to being put down by religious people, while this is much less common for believers -- given that the vast majority of people in the world believe in some form of supernatural divinity.

This is the message I got from John today.

Hey Brian, I saw where you are moderating comments again.  Good for you!  I think I’ve talked about this before, but I can’t understand why religious folks go on sites like yours and try to convert people, or “prove” that others are wrong, or whatever.  It seems very common. 

I wonder if atheists go on religious sites and rant and rave and such?  I would think there are some, but my suspicion is that it’s less common.

I kind of understand why the religious folks like to argue their points.  I was never really zealous in my religious days.  I was very serious about my faith, but I didn’t argue with many people who didn’t believe like I did.  But I think it’s more threatening to have a believer’s beliefs questioned than it is for a non-believer to have their non-beliefs questioned.  LOL  If you know what I mean?

There were a few times that I got into a discussion with an intelligent atheist or agnostic and they would ask me questions that I just didn’t have the answers to.  That was very unsettling!

I thought the cartoon that you posted was great, as well.  Oh man, how accurate is that?  I remember, in my early days of walking away from religion, I read a lot of Wayne Jacobsen’s material.  At that time, he talked a lot about how religion always seems to have a hook in it. 

“Invite your non-churched friends to the church picnic!”  Why?  Just so you can get to know that and bless them and see that they have a good afternoon getting to know some great people?  NO!  It’s so we can get them to come back, and eventually get them saved.  And then they will tithe, of course. 

And inevitably, if they get worked on long enough without getting saved, then they are normally discarded and the believers move on to someone else.  Often with the attitude from your cartoon.  I’ve heard many a church member say something along the lines of, “well, I’m glad they are going to hell”.  Really?!?!? WTF?  Ugh.

I have yet to hear of a blogger whose mind was changed by the religious comments on their blog.  And vice versa. 

In my experience, and in others that I’ve talked to, any time a person makes a big change in their beliefs, it’s usually because something happened to make them start thinking and seeking answers.  Now, in that seeking they may come across someone who says something that will help them down the road a bit. 

But the classic knocking on someone’s door out of the blue and converting them to your beliefs, or flooding someone’s comment section, usually doesn’t have the desired result.  Most of the time, it actually works in the opposite direction!  The person being preached to normally walks away just that much more sure of their own beliefs.

Thanks, as always, for the great posts.

Talk to you again soon.
John

Comments

[OshoRobbins]

In my younger days, I used to be a bit of a religious nut.

Now I seem to have dropped some of the "religious" but not the "nut"

If you had met me when I was 20, I KNEW (or at least I thought I knew) that I had found the real truth, which was sant mat. The reason was that sant mat says "Don't believe, but SEE for yourself". I remember a big poster behind sant Darshan SIngh at one of his UK satsangs, which read "SEEING IS ABOVE ALL"

That was why I pretty much knew I was on the right path.

On top of that, I was meditating and seeing light daily. MY body would go numb.
All the signs were there that any day now I would arrive at Sach Khand
and I would finally meet the big guy.

If anyone listened, I told them about the truth.

Only when I had the awakening as I call it - did I realise what a trap I was in.

Previously I could see that all others were deluded except for your truly.

So at that time I too was on a mission to covert. It's only natural.

And if anyone questioned me, is was just not their time, and it was their bad karma.
Now I get that from sant mat followers when I question GSD on the mic, and I am not even saying anything against him.,

I will still engage with anyone who listens, but it's a lot harder to convert someone to what is essentially "nothing"

My motto would have to be
"Hey, come join my new religion, all about NOTHING"

Actually come to think of it - it sounds good.
Maybe I will start a new religion all about nothing and open my first ashram right opposite RSSB in beas!

[s*]

Difficult to choose where to go then..🙃😉

[Spence Tepper]

Demonizing those who don't agree with you is the problem.

There's plenty of that to go around.

And I think the problem stems from ego. Feeling so threatened that we cannot acknowledge the grain of truth in our opponants' statements.

And that naturally leads to personal attacks.

It makes for very poor dialogue.

[Turan]

Yes, it's something of a puzzle, though on this site I guess many were drawn to the Sant Mat element. Others perhaps just stumbled upon it through surfing then wow – someone is threatening my beliefs here.

Apparently, the threatened beliefs are just the secondary reason for our outbursts. Having built up years of knowledge, facts, opinions and beliefs they become 'who we are' (or who we believe we are). From these mental ideas and images we assume a 'self'. Just as we protect our bodies we humans also protect our self construct, our mental contents – as though it were a real entity.

When physically threatened we respond physically to protect the body and when our mental store of information is challenged we react, usually emotionally (with a touch of logic thrown in) to defend this illusory self – because we feel it to be 'me'. When our 'mental contents' are threatened it almost feels like a physical threat.

Debates on theories and factual matters can be quite fruitful but debates on issues where beliefs are impervious to facts a sort of cognitive immunization takes hold. So the debates go back and forth – all in the attempt for participants to maintain there self structures. Truth and reality become irrelevant, what is important is the justification of 'me'. And what better way to strengthen the 'self' than to prove the other wrong – and 'me' right.

[Brian Hines]

Spence, what you said makes sense when there are genuinely two sides to an issues. Like, whether tariffs are good or bad for an economy. But often there aren't two sides. (And most economists agree tariffs are bad, but at least an argument can be made for them.)

The Earth goes around the sun. There isn't any point in taking seriously those that argue the opposite. That argument was settled hundreds of years ago.

Likewise, global climate change is settled science. Those who deny global warming shouldn't be taken seriously, because they don't have any serious arguments to make.

Atheists consider that the same is true of the debate about whether God exists and whether life continues after death. There is no demonstrable evidence in favor of these religious tenets, so even though arguments can be made in favor of religiosity, they are very weak ones, and deserve to be treated as such.

I agree that we should recognize a grain of truth in opponent's arguments. But when that grain is extremely small, the recognition will be commensurate, very small.

[Arjuna]

@ Brian - I will no longer comment on your blog.

I wish you all the best.

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Brian
Your argument is correct as far as objective reality is concerned, and as far as we understand this mystery.

But belief is all about personal experience.

If I have a compelling dream, it's telling me something, in symbols.
Something about my own issues.

The choice to believe in God may simply be the peace and calm that anyone experiences in deep prayer.

That subjective experience is absolutely connected to an objective reality, which is how the brain operates, and what is healthy for the brain, and one 's Outlook.

If we can honor the utility and natural operation of that process for others, I think we can also open the door to acknowledging the difference between subjective and objective experience.

And that opens the door to accepting all sorts of belief systems as easily as we accept different preferences in clothing, movies and food. Some of that is of course based on how we were raised, or what we have discovered.

Because it is all 100% subjective, we can honor it in the same way we honor different cultures.

Indeed it is this true understanding, which only Atheism affords, which gives us the basis for universal respect and bother / sisterhood.

Atheism IS the path, understood correctly.

[s*]

I am more of an agnost..
A not knower..
But I feel things,that's for sure..
Bhakti is not what one does..but what is just there..

[Jen]

Hello fellow space travellers, atheists included :)

I always find Alan Watts quotes very inspiring ...

“We seldom realize, for example that our most private thoughts and emotions are not actually our own. For we think in terms of languages and images which we did not invent, but which were given to us by our society.” 
― Alan Watts

“You are an aperture through which the universe is looking at and exploring itself.” 
― Alan Watts

“The art of living... is neither careless drifting on the one hand nor fearful clinging to the past on the other. It consists in being sensitive to each moment, in regarding it as utterly new and unique, in having the mind open and wholly receptive.” 
― Alan Watts