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What are your best shut downs, when debating religious people?

I consider it a win if I can get a religious person to say "It's Gods' Plan" or "Gods will" or any of the numerous "Non-answer" answers that they love to give when they're stumped.

BonelessGod 3 Sep 30
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12 comments

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What evidence do you have to support your claim that a god exist.

What evidence do you have to support your claim that the bible is true.

Why should I join a religion based off faith, I'm not a gullible person.

What kind of god would come down to earth to impregnate a virgin so he could be born as himself so he is also his own father who Impregnated his own mother to sacrifice himself to himself in order to bypass his own laws he made by himself in the old testament so he could save his gullible followers from sins he already knew they were going to do cause he's supposed to be omniscient. That's absurd.

Go Read Your Bible the whole book cause you obviously haven't read it.

I don't see the point in talking to the wall, ceiling, or air.

How is burning humans for eternity without any chance of redemption helping your god or anyone. Who burns there children do you burn your children when they disobey you.

If we have free will than how is god omniscient.

Why should I join a Cult of hypocrites.

So if the ten commandments are the laws of your god then why aren't they the laws of the United States.

I hear voices in my head too I call it intuition.

Don't see the point in joining a dying religion.

I can go on and on and on and on I would literally be sitting here all night. hope you like these ones there my favorite.

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"Can you demonstrate the truth of that claim?"

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Don't debate them unless you like that sort of thing. You won't change their minds or even cause them to doubt or question. The higher the intensity of your shut downs, the more they will reject your arguments.

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Christian: Do you believe in God?
Ben: God who?

Christian: Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your Personal Savior?
Ben: Thanks but I'm already seeing a savior.

Christian: Jesus loves you.
Ben: Maybe, but he's not "in love" with me.

Christian: Unless you accept Jesus as your personal savior, you'll burn in hell.
Ben: As opposed to spending eternity with you? I'll risk hell, thank you.

nice one.

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I ask for evidence. A book isn't evidence.

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When the conversation goes to Pascal's Wager or Shifting the Burden of Proof I know it's already over. They ONLY EVER have logical fallacies, but when I refuse to let go of pointing out what they're claiming is bullshit they find some excuse to stop talking.

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You are Right, I reply them, cause I want peace and those are not the ones to have peace with 'em

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If this is a case of someone evangelizing to me I don't shut them down, I instead practice tolerance, 'Tolerance is giving to every other human being every right that you claim for yourself.' - Robert Green Ingersoll. If instead it's someone who wants to debate me or my beliefs it's unlikely either of us will convince the other they are wrong so instead I prefer to explain what I find inspiring in my beliefs to be better understood. That it's my character that makes me a good person, my conscience. Like the four cardinal virtues, prudence, temperance, fortitude, and justice or those of positive psychology, wisdom and knowledge, courage, humanity, justice, temperance, and transcendence. That I also respect the empathy and logic of morality and recognize from many religions the logic of the Golden Rule, similar to a maxim of reciprocity but through empathy. That I feel a spirituality with the universe as a product of star dust, and a rapport with all life on Earth, sharing the same origins. I am awe inspired by the intricacies of the laws of nature and life. I fear dying but I don't fear being dead, I accept my mortality with the rest of life and the humility of being a wave crashing on the surf and not having to be the endless sea. That for me the meaning or purpose in life is to ask 'what is the meaning of MY life' and to pursue my passions and virtues.

Wisdom really do come with age. You are such an admirable man. A GoodMan

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They are making the claims; it's their burden of proof, never let them turn that back on you. Get them to say I believe this based on faith and then point out why believing something based on faith is a terrible way of knowing the truth of something. If I can have faith the next flip of a coin will be heads, and you can have faith it will be tails then in this analogy one is going to be correct, and the other is going to be incorrect. Hence faith fails. If faith worked as a means of knowing the truth the coin flip would need to land on both heads and tails at the same time. Now with belief in a God, that isn't going to be a 50/50 chance. There are thousands of sides to that coin, and the theist just believes in one, their God.

Debates lead to arguments and we all know that "nobody wins an argument" . . . ask my wife if you please

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At that point I simply tell them that if their god's will is to give a child cancer, then there god is, at best, a schoolyard bully, and at worst, a psychopath.

why call natural disasters, physical abnormalities, etc., "an act of God?"

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I like to use this quote by Stephen Roberts. "I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismissed all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." That usually shuts them up because they have to think about it--or not!

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I like going for the moral aspect of it. We obviously live in a world that has some serious problems (disease, famine, disaster) why would an all powerful and all loving god subject his children to this?
I also like to point out the absurdity of the fall (why leave two incredibly naive and impressionable beings along with the devil? why make the devil or the tree of knowledge to begin with) picking apart the whole christ crucifixion and atonement is good too, but thus all kind of goes off of them having an
abrahamic based god concept.

With Christians, specifically, I like to point out the fact that their perfect "god" impregnated (had sex with) his own mother, to conceive himself, so that he could then sacrifice himself, to appease himself, for the original sin that he, himself, created.
In regular conversation, in the real world, I tell people "I can't prove that God doesn't exist, but I can prove that he isn't good."

Bonelessgod:
I think that your remark about a god is very interesting and telling. OK, I can't prove if (s)he exists, but I sure can show how heartless and cruel (s)he is! Now if only believers will listen to what I say.

Generally, religious people subscribe to some version of: "My mind is made up, don't confuse me with the facts." Facts are irrelevant in the face of "faith" which seems to supersede everything else.

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