Religion

If I am an atheist, should I try (while remaining civil) to convince religious people that they are wrong?

Comments

"To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven" (Ecclesiastes 3:1). There are occasions when it might be appropriate to talk and argue about atheism, or about vegetarianism, or global warming, or liberalism, or the Welsh rugby team, or Portishead's new record, or whatever else grips you, and other occasions when it certainly wouldn't be. Just going around, trying to convince people of your views, willy nilly, out of season, is not to treat others with much respect, nor is it likely to be very productive.

But I take it that isn't what's being suggested! The issue, I imagine, is: if you have come to believe that some widely shared, deeply held, view is wrong (perhaps damagingly wrong), then should you press your contrary arguments on appropriate occasions, even if people are prone to get a bit upset/offended? Should you, for example, when the occasion is suitable, advance your atheistic arguments even if it rocks the boat?

Well, why not? It is only through reasoning things through, back and forth, propounding arguments, listening to counter-arguments, that knowledge advances. And I'm still old-fashioned enough to think that we need all the knowledge we can get ...

Quite so. I think it depends in part on who the religious person is. If there is almost no chance that you will change their views then there is no reason why you should spend your time and energy on the matter. And I expect this applies to a lot of people. If there is a decent chance that you will change their views, then a good question is: would it benefit them? I expect that the answer will often be 'yes'. If I had once been religious and someone had convinced me that I was wrong, I'd be grateful. Lots of us want to know the truth.

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