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I have question, I hope Lord Wong will comment on this issue.

My girlfriend is very irrational, not quite a fundie yet but on the way. I get depressed when thinking about our future. Like Wong said in another thread when a problem comes up her reaction is always to 'lets just forget about this' other than 'lets see what the problem is'. She is to put simply , irrational.

I have contemplated breaking up, but I really love her and we've been together for more than 3 years and we are also planning to get married.


I would like some advice on how to educate her in :

1. rational thinking
2. focusing on problems on hand
3. not being a fundie.

Sit down and lay it out up front. Tell her she can't just turn away and not talk about it or shit's going to get worse and down right abominable.

DO NOT get married as long as these points are unresolved.

Illuminatus Primus wrote:Sit down and lay it out up front. Tell her she can't just turn away and not talk about it or shit's going to get worse and down right abominable.

DO NOT get married as long as these points are unresolved.

I do that everyweek! And she pretends to understand and we are back to ground zero the very next day.

Is she un-salvageable?

If she is indeed unsalvageable then opt out of the relationship. The belief system difference will eventually bite you in the ass.

j1j2j3 wrote:I have question, I hope Lord Wong will comment on this issue.

My girlfriend is very irrational, not quite a fundie yet but on the way. I get depressed when thinking about our future. Like Wong said in another thread when a problem comes up her reaction is always to 'lets just forget about this' other than 'lets see what the problem is'. She is to put simply , irrational.

I have contemplated breaking up, but I really love her and we've been together for more than 3 years and we are also planning to get married.


I would like some advice on how to educate her in :

1. rational thinking
2. focusing on problems on hand
3. not being a fundie.

You CANNOT. The more you try to change her, the more she will get into her religion. My opinion, based on experience, is to break up now, before your feelings and hers get more tangled. And for fuck's sake, DO NOT MARRY HER!!!!

Dunno, maybe you could keep their exposure to other irrational stuff low? You can't exactly force somebody to be logical; you can only guide them, but they have to take the inititive...

Keep trying... I hope it works out.

I the standard SD.net solution is "Fuck her up the ass." I suggest you try it, Wong will reccomend it anyway.

Sea Skimmer wrote:I the standard SD.net solution is "Fuck her up the ass." I suggest you try it, Wong will reccomend it anyway.

I have . I can get her to see my point of view and make her think rationally only with a painstaking amount of explaining.

The problem is that it all has no effect the next day!

And the fundie belief thing is not so big a problem as the irrational thinking part.

Let me put it this way... another way your relationship would really work, would be you converting to whatever fundamentalist religion she sports. Why don't you?

Whatever reasons you give me, she has more to give you for not dropping her mythology. You cannot win. Imagine how fun it will be when you get married, have kids, and every time you mention teaching your kids science and evolution she storms out...

Sea Skimmer wrote:I the standard SD.net solution is "Fuck her up the ass." I suggest you try it, Wong will reccomend it anyway.

No, his solution will be to invite her to watch porn with you...

Pistolero wrote:Let me put it this way... another way your relationship would really work, would be you converting to whatever fundamentalist religion she sports. Why don't you?

Whatever reasons you give me, she has more to give you for not dropping her mythology. You cannot win. Imagine how fun it will be when you get married, have kids, and every time you mention teaching your kids science and evolution she storms out...

I can tolerate her going to church, and she also tolerates me not going. Her tolerance isn't such a big problem, as is her irrational thinking.

Let me rephrase :

I need advice on how to make her think rationally without having to make a 2 hour speech about the holes in her logic every time some problem comes up. And make it last more than 1 day.

j1j2j3 wrote: I can tolerate her going to church, and she also tolerates me not going. Her tolerance isn't such a big problem, as is her irrational thinking.

It is not as much a question of tolerance as of love and respect. If you are going to marry someone it is most certainly not to tolerate anything from them. If you don't believe me, just tell her you are with her just because you tolerate her religion... see how far she sends you. All of us are flawed, one way or another, and the only way those flaws will not matter much is by sheer love for eachother. Otherwise you are fucked. And who said she had to be rational?

j1j2j3 wrote:

Sea Skimmer wrote:I the standard SD.net solution is "Fuck her up the ass." I suggest you try it, Wong will reccomend it anyway.

The problem is that it all has no effect the next day!

Well, you'll just have to do her again each and every day.


If after three years you don't think you've made any progress, there might not be much hope. Some ideas and beliefs are simply to set early in life to be changed later.

j1j2j3 wrote:Let me rephrase :

I need advice on how to make her think rationally without having to make a 2 hour speech about the holes in her logic every time some problem comes up. And make it last more than 1 day.

Logic is best explained through the use of social issues and personal situations where she does not have a lot of emotional investment. In other words, it's better to explain logic to her as it relates to, for example, a slippery slope fallacy that the guy on the TV news just used, as opposed to a false dilemma fallacy in Pascal's proof for the existence of God.

I dunno, from what I've read, it doesn't seem like it's all that big a problem. If she wants to be irrational, that's her perogative, so long as she's not ramming it down anyone's throat. People don't have to see eye to eye on every fucking detail. I'm with Sea Skimmer. Fuck her early and often, in whatever orifice is open. ENJOY the relationship. This philosophical bullshit is either going to work itself out or it isn't. You worrying about it isn't going to help any.

I should relate my own experience. Apart from the important ass-fucking, one of the things we did was agree that her religious beliefs were hers to keep if she wanted, even if they weren't rational. In other words, it's OK to be irrational as long as you understand that you're being irrational.

But she was never a fundie; she never bought into creationism, Biblically inspired homophobia, or any of that bullshit. She was what I would refer to as a moderate Christian. An outright fundie would be a serious problem, as such a person is intolerant by nature (and as mandated by the Bible, taken literally), which is bound to cause friction.

So your advice is to

1. Use unrelated analogies to show her that she is behaving/talking irrationally

2. Come to an understanding that one should a least admit that one is irrational when doing irrational things?

Thank you.

Darth Wong wrote: But she was never a fundie; she never bought into creationism, Biblically inspired homophobia, or any of that bullshit. She was what I would refer to as a moderate Christian.

actually Mike, it sounds more like she was a straight Deist rather than a christian... that alone puts her with quite a bit of respectable company.

Shaka[Zulu] wrote:

Darth Wong wrote:But she was never a fundie; she never bought into creationism, Biblically inspired homophobia, or any of that bullshit. She was what I would refer to as a moderate Christian.

actually Mike, it sounds more like she was a straight Deist rather than a christian... that alone puts her with quite a bit of respectable company.

She believed in the God of the Bible, not the apathetic god of deism. She started moving from that to deism after a few years away from home, and from there to atheism.

Well, I can tell you that this sort of situation played in a hand in my parent's divorce. My father was a devout fundie, while my mother was more of some kind of misc. deist. Eventually, my mother could not take all of the crap anymore. It got ridiculous: my father would take us all to church every Sunday (even when we were on vacation), my dad wanted me to go a Christian school to learn about creationism, he told me that homosexuals choose to live a sinful lifestyle, etc. My mom disagreed with all of it.

My dad also turned fundie after they married. He went from a high school, pot-smoking athlete to a Bible thumping fundie.

The good news is that my dad actually did realize his stupidity and managed to grow out of it. He lost quite a bit in the process, however.

So, I would say that marriage might not be the best idea. Try to think of the situations that might come up and both of you would handle them.

j1j2j3 wrote:So your advice is to

1. Use unrelated analogies to show her that she is behaving/talking irrationally

2. Come to an understanding that one should a least admit that one is irrational when doing irrational things?

Thank you.

I don't understand what's your problem?!

She's thinking irrational from your POV and you can't bear it?

Leave her... You can't change a personality that much.

Or...respect other people different POV, even if it's hard to deal with it.

It's totally up to you, although if you beginning to question something then you don't believe in it...

I hope you can read between the lines!

Boba Fett wrote:
I don't understand what's your problem?!

She's thinking irrational from your POV and you can't bear it?

Leave her... You can't change a personality that much.

Or...respect other people different POV, even if it's hard to deal with it.

It's totally up to you, although if you beginning to question something then you don't believe in it...

I hope you can read between the lines!

Yes, I just cannot stand irrational behavior. Believing other people and not me while being unable to explain why... etc.

I don't see hiding from issues and unable to justify oneself as another POV. I would just 'respect other peoples POV' and move on if I were to not see her again, but if I am to marry her that makes me choose between changing her personality or leaving her.

It's a hard choice but I would rather change her than leave her.

Or is there something really hidden between the lines ?

There is a difference between respecting a point of view, and then having to respect that point of view while starting a family.