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Convert the believers?

Does anyone here actively try to convert believers? I’ve personally never really tried beyond exposing my own beliefs.

DJB371 4 Jan 29
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11 comments

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it Is mostly a useless effort.

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let each person sit under their own fig tree.

-Washington

I won't say anything to them as long as they stay the hell out of my government. Why should I care? They want to have fantasy time have fantasy time. I have fantasy time as well I play D&D once a week.

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As usual that depends. Many of us have been converted (or rather de-baptised) so it's not obviously an easy answer. Many anti-homosexuals have come around to accepting gays through association and words. My daughter is religious but she listens and respects her father. II don't push so she is gradually coming to see we can be moral, decent people. She adored my late partner who was an in-your-face atheist from a Moslem country and I think that presented a real conundrum for her.

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Trying to convert someone to adopt the same beliefs as his or her own is, to me, an act of disrespect. All that we can do is (2) ask questions which will get a person to think, and (2) describe one's own beliefs and why he or she holds them. I want the individual to be free to come to his or her own conclusions.

Couldn't possibly disagree more - it's a sign of respect and like if you try to disabuse them of incorrect and harmful beliefs, just like warning people not to walk in the street if a bus is coming - would you do that to someone you hate? It's a sign of disrespect / dislike if you don't care enough to try to convert them away from their brainwashing.

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Hell no. Religion is an addiction. I'd prefer to take up an addiction like heroin or meth, drugs I refuse to even try, than try to and remove an addiction from someone who cherishes it. I'll only tell them that most people don't entertain the ideas that your religion does.

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No. First, it's a futile endeavor. Believers are believers for their own reasons and the only time you can make any headway is when they are at a point in their belief experience where they have questions and are open to the answers. Otherwise nothing will happen except you wind up looking like a jerk and in fact you are. Think about how you feel when they approach you to save your soul from eternal torture. Now apply that thought to them.

It is justified to advise them and/or argue with them when they approach you. It is necessary to stand up and make yourself clear when they push their agenda in politics, the law, the schools, and other invasive ways. Attempting to convert them to our way of thinking is detrimental to us and potentially dangerous to all freethinkers.

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You can't deconvert a believer. All you can do is show them data and teach them to think rationally.

Still more likely than deconversion.

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I doubt that anyone can convert a believer. The believer has to do that on his/her own by examining evidence, facts and data and self examination. I think that the incentive to do so can be done however. (IMHO)

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I would like to hear anyone on here pipe up if they were debated into their current stance or if they came upon it in their own naturalistic way

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I've not tried to convert anyone. However, I will encourage questioning one's beliefs in favor of logic and rational thought, if asked.

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