Ever just get tired of debating Fundie tards?

[Superman]

Tonight while studying at the book store, this fundie guy was sitting behind me reading his Bible. Eventually, he started talking to me, and of course the conversation went down the religion road.

So, we sort of debated/talked for the next twenty minutes. I basically stomped him (Noah's ark is a ripped off 'Epic of Gilgamesh,' the Messiah was born of a virgin and therefore could not have been in the blood line of King David, there are no extra Biblical historical accounts that mention things like the apocalyptic events that happened while Jesus died on the cross... it went on and on). Anyway, I won.

Now, at the end of the debate, he wanted to exchange email addresses with me. I'm sure he would have recruited a few more fundies, I'm sure I would have recruited some of you guys, and it would have been on. But shit, I am getting tired of debating these idiots. Honestly, they're usually stupider people. It gets to a point where you end up debating their psychopathology; they believe in child-like fairies because, emotionally, they are children, complete with a father who punishes them and sets their rules.

Anyway, I didn't give him my email, thanked him for the talk, and went home at the end of the night. Yeah, I could have kept it up. I'm sure he would have felt bad or whatever, but I'm tired of it. They all use the same predictable disproved crap.

Anyone else tire of debating the Christian super tards?

[Zero]

I got tired of it a year ago, and I noticed that many of the deconverts, by virtue of being emotional children, weren't very well-equiped to handle a world without some omnipotent father figure to protect them and give them purpose. They didn't know how to give themselves purpose, or try to keep their own shit in order for themselves. This isn't true of all of them, I just noticed that some deconverts ended up being fuckups, and seeing individuals getting fucked up by losing their beliefs made it harder to think actually trying to deconvert these fuckers was a good idea. I don't have the stomach for it anymore. Besides that, the vast majority of them are just completely incapable of listening to logic or reason.

An instance that's particularly disturbing to me at this time is my uncle. He took me and my brother to lunch Monday, and the topic turned to how he thought doing business with Mormons was shit, and I explained that most religious types discriminated against believers of other religions.

I guess I had forgotten that he didn't know I don't believe in God; the whole conversation turned to him trying to convert me by trying to claim that there's no way the world could get to where it is without some design behind it, and asked how I thought I got here. I pointed out the simpler points of procreation, and then tried to explain evolution, and when he did the typical "But where did the first organism come from?" I explained some stuff reguarding abiogenesis before he cut me off. He was laughing, which showed that he obviously doesn't have enough knowledge of science to discriminate between psuedoscience and real science, since he aparently thought I was spouting bullshit. That's about when I realized I'd made a big mistake by even getting into this conversation.

He handed me his e-mail, and told me to e-mail him about problems reguarding faith and whatnot. The thing is, this is my uncle. Family. If he abandons his faith, whether he turns out to be a maladjusted fuck or not, I'll have an entire extended family of zealots to deal with, and they would probably disown me. If he doesn't acknowledge that he at least might be wrong, we'll end up pissed at each other because I'll think he's stupid, and he'll think I should respect him as my elder. If I don't e-mail him at all, he'll be pissed off next time we meet, which'll still be annoying as fuck.

So yeah... debating fundies isn't as interesting as it use to be...

[Superman]

I got tired of it a year ago, and I noticed that many of the deconverts, by virtue of being emotional children, weren't very well-equiped to handle a world without some omnipotent father figure to protect them and give them purpose. They didn't know how to give themselves purpose, or try to keep their own shit in order for themselves. This isn't true of all of them, I just noticed that some deconverts ended up being fuckups, and seeing individuals getting fucked up by losing their beliefs made it harder to think actually trying to deconvert these fuckers was a good idea. I don't have the stomach for it anymore. Besides that, the vast majority of them are just completely incapable of listening to logic or reason.

I agree. Some fundies grow emotionally and convert to more liberal churches, and I guess if they don't grow emotionally they're going to remain at that lever; church go-er or not.

I guess I had forgotten that he didn't know I don't believe in God; the whole conversation turned to him trying to convert me by trying to claim that there's no way the world could get to where it is without some design behind it, and asked how I thought I got here. I pointed out the simpler points of procreation, and then tried to explain evolution, and when he did the typical "But where did the first organism come from?" I explained some stuff reguarding abiogenesis before he cut me off. He was laughing, which showed that he obviously doesn't have enough knowledge of science to discriminate between psuedoscience and real science, since he aparently thought I was spouting bullshit. That's about when I realized I'd made a big mistake by even getting into this conversation.

Right. He laughs at your explanation as if a magical sky fairy is somehow more realistic. They really do indeed act like children. It never ceases to amaze me at how predictable they are.

He handed me his e-mail, and told me to e-mail him about problems reguarding faith and whatnot. The thing is, this is my uncle. Family. If he abandons his faith, whether he turns out to be a maladjusted fuck or not, I'll have an entire extended family of zealots to deal with, and they would probably disown me. If he doesn't acknowledge that he at least might be wrong, we'll end up pissed at each other because I'll think he's stupid, and he'll think I should respect him as my elder. If I don't e-mail him at all, he'll be pissed off next time we meet, which'll still be annoying as fuck

Well, rest assured he would be maladapted with or without his invisible friend. Hopefully, he can emotionally grow at some point.

You know, this is what kind of pisses me off about religious assholes. Whether it's at work, knowing an acquaintance, having a family member, the nonbeliever is the one who has to be more sensitive and dance on eggshells. Just like tonight, I freely said, "this is my opinion, here's why I don't believe it" and he always spoke as if what he said is absolute. The fundie is free to be a judgmental asshole, but if we atheists and nonbelievers opened up on them like they do with us, many would be in tears. I know this to be true from experience. I really do think that their religious bullshit is a mental defense mechanism; when you break through that, you find that they lose it and cry like a child who has just lost a family member... or like someone with Borderline Personality Disorder, Dissociative Disorder, or any other of the various mental illnesses where the person has difficulty regulating their emotions. With Christians, though, they use all that energy and try to spread it to other people.

Well, it's hard having family like that. It's too bad you literally have to choose which is more important; having him as a family member while catering to his religious nonsense, or being yourself and letting him know it's a bunch of crap. It's almost like if you want to be accepted, you have conditions.

[Jadetear]

That is why I am glad that I am a Taoist. I have been able to use it as a shield in some respects to avoid having to get into a lot of those conversations. For example, a friend Crystal and I were walking through the mall. Two guys came up and asked if they could testify to us. Knowing that this is something that is supposed to help them feel better I tell the guy okay, but I do not have a lot of time. He says his little spiel and asks if I have take jesus into my heart. To which I reply no, I am a Taoist. He just looks at me stupidly, and does not know how to proceed. Thanks me for my time and walks off, on the other hand Crystal says she is a Wiccian, and he starts into the sulfur and brimstone. How she is going to burn in hell... I had to run over and rescue her. It was slightly amusing.

I have found that it is just not worth arguing with many of these people, as the ones that want to debate with you are just going to not listen to anything you say, and if you them to the point where they should quit, they are just going to start repeating themselves over and over again.

[outcast]

Ah, but are you a religious Taoist or a philosophical Taoist? (as i understand religious Taoism to be considered the folk religion of China whereas philosophical taoism deals with concepts like detachment and such)

In any case, due to a series of experiences in early childhood and general personality, i become extremely agitated when i hear someone state something as fact when i know it's blatantly false. Even more so when that person then calls me stupid for educating him.

This is why i both frequently engage fundies and why i drive myself mad by doing so. As a result i generally don't even bother debating with them seriously, i just poke fun at them.

Because really, you're not going to convert them unless they already doubt.

[Darth Wong]

In face to face debates, if the person starts throwing up a wall of ignorance, I generally go on the offensive. Why should I keep defending against their endless attacks when I can simply go on offense and start demanding that he explain and defend the actions of his baby-killing, mass-murdering, terrorist psycho narcissist totalitarian dictator God? Why should I defend against all manner of idiotic assaults on things like radiocarbon dating when I can ask him how far he went in school, and demand that he explain how the fuck every kind of animal in the world lived within walking distance of Noah's house?

If you want to debate fundies without losing your mind, you can't be on the defensive all the time. Football is no fun if you're always on defense, and debating is no different. Go on offense. Put him on the defensive. Hammer him on science, hammer him on morality, hammer him on the gall he has for expecting other people to worship his baby-killing mass-murdering psycho God. Hammer him and hammer him again until he wilts and starts looking like a deer in the headlights, and then amp it up until he looks like he's going to cry. I've done it, and it's not difficult. It simply requires removing a level of self-inhibition against really taking a religious believer to task over his bullshit.

I've had enough of playing nice with fucktards like this.

[Jadetear]

Ah, but are you a religious Taoist or a philosophical Taoist? (as i understand religious Taoism to be considered the folk religion of China whereas philosophical taoism deals with concepts like detachment and such)

In any case, due to a series of experiences in early childhood and general personality, i become extremely agitated when i hear someone state something as fact when i know it's blatantly false. Even more so when that person then calls me stupid for educating him.

This is why i both frequently engage fundies and why i drive myself mad by doing so. As a result i generally don't even bother debating with them seriously, i just poke fun at them.

Because really, you're not going to convert them unless they already doubt.

I am a philosophical Taoist. I have found that for the most part their arguments are so stupid that they don’t even understand what they are saying. I used to try to enjoy the argument by turning the argument in such a way as to have them disagree with themselves. Nothing funnier than watching a fundie walk a way furious because he disagrees with his position.

[McC]

Hammer him and hammer him again until he wilts and starts looking like a deer in the headlights, and then amp it up until he looks like he's going to cry. I've done it, and it's not difficult. It simply requires removing a level of self-inhibition against really taking a religious believer to task over his bullshit.

It also requires a fairly extensive knowledgebase. A lot (all) of the refutations to fundies are logical points, to be sure, but having the mental agility to remember them all and be able to fire them off one after another is something I'm not readily able to do, face-to-face. I can do it in a forum like a bulletin board, or even a chat, just fine because I can quickly reference material when my memory fails me. But in face-to-face, you've got what you go in with.

What's more, when I argue with religious people, it's usually not the fundies. I know very few actual fundies (the one shining example that I know thinks I'm a demon, that her husband has been infected by demons, and so forth -- it's very scientology, really). Thus, arguments with generic "faithful" tend to turn into more of a philosophical discussion, and aside from doing what you recommended about pointing out all the ways that non-fundamentalist religion is simply bad philosophy, there's nothing to really be won/lost here. Which is also frustrating.

[Darth Wong]

Hammer him and hammer him again until he wilts and starts looking like a deer in the headlights, and then amp it up until he looks like he's going to cry. I've done it, and it's not difficult. It simply requires removing a level of self-inhibition against really taking a religious believer to task over his bullshit.

It also requires a fairly extensive knowledgebase. A lot (all) of the refutations to fundies are logical points, to be sure, but having the mental agility to remember them all and be able to fire them off one after another is something I'm not readily able to do, face-to-face. I can do it in a forum like a bulletin board, or even a chat, just fine because I can quickly reference material when my memory fails me. But in face-to-face, you've got what you go in with.

That's actually another reason to go on the offensive. That allows you to pick the points you know well, rather than letting them pull sophistic shit like asking you how much you know about the lifecycle of a particular species of South American beetle that they read about on a creationist website. A lot of their attack tactics rely on the fact that no one person could possibly memorize enough shit to refute every single conceivable species-based argument in detail; they can outright lie about how a species works (look at the popular bombardier beetle fraud) and only someone who's seen that particular argument before can address it directly. Far better to go after them on well-known aspects of their religion which they've obviously never questioned because of their blind faith, such as Noah's Flood or the massacre of children in Egypt. Everyone knows what you're talking about, and there's no need to play "I've memorized more arcane arguments than you" games.

What's more, when I argue with religious people, it's usually not the fundies. I know very few actual fundies (the one shining example that I know thinks I'm a demon, that her husband has been infected by demons, and so forth -- it's very scientology, really). Thus, arguments with generic "faithful" tend to turn into more of a philosophical discussion, and aside from doing what you recommended about pointing out all the ways that non-fundamentalist religion is simply bad philosophy, there's nothing to really be won/lost here. Which is also frustrating.

Generally, I don't have much quarrel with more moderate religious people except when they start advocating stuff like anti-gay discrimination or the Ten Commandments in courts. But in cases like that, they usually accept the rules of logical debate, ie- that they have to support their case. It's only the fundies who tend to go completely ignorant on you and just repeat their mantras over and over, much like the way the Phelps clan acts when they're on TV.

PS. I thought Stephen Colbert was quite brilliant when he was lampooning a typical "Ten Commandments" politician and asked him point-blank "What are the Ten Commandments?" The guy couldn't list them all

[General Zod]

I used to get a kick out of arguing fundies and occasionally trolling Christian based message boards and mailing lists, but after listening to so many arguments that effectively do nothing but repeat the same crap over and over and over, well, they tend to start boring the fuck out of you after a while. Gotten to the point where I won't even bother debating them unless they present the argument in some type of interesting way. Or I'm just feeling bored and want to rip into someone.

[Darth Wong]

I don't actively seek out opponents most of the time; in real-life I tend to speak up only when someone says something I don't agree with. And a lot of the moderates are not really bad people, they're just ignorant or haven't put much thought into it.

I was speaking to a guy a while ago who was talking about how he didn't trust gays because of the pedophile thing. I took it easy on him, I just asked him to name some of the famous recent pedophile serial killings in our area. Cecilia Zhang, Kristen French, Leslie Mahaffy, all young girls who were kidnapped, raped, and killed by heterosexual pedophiles. I mentioned Elizabeth Smart, pointed out that the Toronto sex crimes unit had been investigating numerous high-profile Internet child sex porn cases involving girls, and he conceded quite easily that he might be completely mistaken about the connection between homosexuality and pedophilia: that the majority of pedophiles were probably heterosexuals.

Even though I knew his basic position was due in part to his religion, I was able to argue the specifics with him and he understood it. That's why I tend to reserve my "no holds barred offense" debating technique for fundies; moderates can actually be reached with logic and gently swayed.

[Aaron]

I used to be a regular at Fresh-hope.com and used to debate Christians at every turn until I got sick of the same BS being repeated over and over again. Now I don't bother unless their Jehovahs spouting their no blood transfusion BS or Christian Scientists with their no medical care crap. Or the gay marriage oppression crap, that I'll freely argue at the drop of a hat. Otherwise it's just not worth getting my blood pressure up.

[Haruko]

I am not of the nature to debate on a common basis. However, even I am freakin' sick of debating fundie tards, and I'm one who has interest in debating the subjects of creationism v. evolution--all the related shit. I think my only heated argument was with my own mother because she was confronting me when I was getting sick and tired of wasting my time at church and Bible study (which was actually more like, "let's look only at good verses and praise the Lord! -rinse and repeat-") Even I, as stupid and ignorant as I am, got my own mother (who I love very much, but, who, I'm sad to say, is full of ignorance) to give up fundamentalism, believe in the seperation of church and state, and believe that difference in religion is no reason to want to lop off your own son's head for. It's amazing what merely dissenting to a long-held belief with reason and logic for even a short time can do to the person receiving it.

[Haruko]

I think my only heated argument

That is, in real life. I've had plenty of heated online arguments.

[Majin Gojira]

I haven't had that many encounters to be deterred from it yet.

[Darth Wong]

I actually find it really funny when they confront you with rhetorical questions and you don't give the answer that you're "supposed" to give.

One common scenario goes like this:

"So according to you, Jesus Christ was nothing more than a lunatic, the Scriptures are a fraud, and more than a billion people are all delusional."

"Yes."

... *shock*

[Zero]

It's harder to take the full offensive strategy when it's someone that you'll have to consistantly deal with anyways, and it's worse when they actually have the ability to fuck with your other personal relationships anyways. I mean, while I'm still reliant on my family for the basics, I don't really have any exit strategy if my entire family is pissed off at me.

[Darth Wong]

It's harder to take the full offensive strategy when it's someone that you'll have to consistantly deal with anyways, and it's worse when they actually have the ability to fuck with your other personal relationships anyways. I mean, while I'm still reliant on my family for the basics, I don't really have any exit strategy if my entire family is pissed off at me.

That's just bullying, and should be differentiated from real debate.

[Lagmonster]

It's harder to take the full offensive strategy when it's someone that you'll have to consistantly deal with anyways, and it's worse when they actually have the ability to fuck with your other personal relationships anyways. I mean, while I'm still reliant on my family for the basics, I don't really have any exit strategy if my entire family is pissed off at me.

That's just bullying, and should be differentiated from real debate.

Christians as a religious group aren't trained to debate; they're trained to preach, bully, scold, and to levy guilt and shame. In any situation where you wander in to confront a religious person, you can't always win by taking the same approach you would to an argument, because that requires that someone will think and then answer your points as opposed to simply clucking their tongues or admonishing you for making them feel bad.

[Darth Wong]

It's harder to take the full offensive strategy when it's someone that you'll have to consistantly deal with anyways, and it's worse when they actually have the ability to fuck with your other personal relationships anyways. I mean, while I'm still reliant on my family for the basics, I don't really have any exit strategy if my entire family is pissed off at me.

That's just bullying, and should be differentiated from real debate.

Christians as a religious group aren't trained to debate; they're trained to preach, bully, scold, and to levy guilt and shame.

Agreed. That's why you really can't debate them when they actually have enough leverage to harm you, because they won't hesitate to use it.

In any situation where you wander in to confront a religious person, you can't always win by taking the same approach you would to an argument, because that requires that someone will think and then answer your points as opposed to simply clucking their tongues or admonishing you for making them feel bad.

That's not a problem when I want to make them feel bad. And why shouldn't I? Hell, their entire approach to people who disagree with them is to try and make them feel bad. What's good for the goose is good for the gander, I say. When I'm confronted with that sort of person, the rhetorical gloves come off.

[Guardsman Bass]

It's harder to take the full offensive strategy when it's someone that you'll have to consistantly deal with anyways, and it's worse when they actually have the ability to fuck with your other personal relationships anyways. I mean, while I'm still reliant on my family for the basics, I don't really have any exit strategy if my entire family is pissed off at me.

Same here. My mother is a strong Mormon, and trying to debate with her is like trying to argue with an extremely stubborn mule. The problem is that I still live here, so my ass will go out the door if I piss her off on it too much.

[Max]

I can't really have a good debate in person. I tend to get flustered easily and my mouth doesn't move as fast as my brain. So I end up sounding really..stupid. I'd much rather do it over the internet where I feel I can be more articulate and not rushed. Plus you have the advantage of researching what you're about to type. Even with that, arguing or debating with hardcore religious people isn't as interesting anymore. It's the same thing over and over. So I don't initiate anything anymore, I'll jump in and help someone out, or speak up if someone says something rediculous about morals or evolution. Other than that, I don't actively seek out confrontation.

One thing that really bothers me though, and it's only because I know they are being smug when they say it, is when they end a *cough* debate *cough* with:

"At least I know where I'm going when I die, what about you?"

Yeah, in the ground to become fertilizer..just like you asshole.

[Darth Raptor]

My parents refuse to discuss anything even vaguley related to politics or religion with me anymore. This is at best a phyrric victory, however. I've convinced them of nothing other than that they're horrible debaters.

[Patrick Degan]

I guess I had forgotten that he didn't know I don't believe in God; the whole conversation turned to him trying to convert me by trying to claim that there's no way the world could get to where it is without some design behind it, and asked how I thought I got here. I pointed out the simpler points of procreation, and then tried to explain evolution, and when he did the typical "But where did the first organism come from?" I explained some stuff reguarding abiogenesis before he cut me off. He was laughing, which showed that he obviously doesn't have enough knowledge of science to discriminate between psuedoscience and real science, since he aparently thought I was spouting bullshit. That's about when I realized I'd made a big mistake by even getting into this conversation.

Just quote the Doctor: "What's life? A trick of matter. Nature's way of keeping meat fresh" and see how long it takes for the man's head to explode.

[outcast]

What gets me is when you've spend so much time showing them they are utterly wrong. Have refuted *every* argument they have presented and have logically speaken completely obliterated the foundations of their beliefs, they insist that *they* won the debate.

what?

I guess it's in the same vein as creationists that make statements like "scientists are starting to doubt evolution en masse" or "there is no evidence for evolution" or other such nonsense.

Nothing beats that fundie that told me the dinosaurs were killed by the big bang 6000 years ago though. That was a true wtf moment.