TheOtherDave comments on Recent de-convert saturated by religious community; advice? - Less Wrong

30 Post author: jwhendy 04 April 2011 03:25AM

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Comment author: Yvain 09 April 2011 03:46:38PM 2 points [-]

Could you expand on this? I'm not sure I understand what overwhelmingly strong points you might bring up that your opponent might agree with. Would this be something like priest scandals? Or not having your prayers for understanding answered?

The one I mentioned about the Holocaust would be my go-to example. But really what's important is that it's not something completely intellectual they're going to have a cached response for.

On a side note, I've never understood people who use priest scandals as evidence for atheism. It seems totally ad hominem - "some of the guys who talk about this God stuff are bad people, therefore it's wrong". I guess you could get there by saying that if God existed He wouldn't allow such evil among His followers, but the only possible response to that would be "And where have you been for the past five thousand years?"

Comment author: TheOtherDave 09 April 2011 06:57:11PM 1 point [-]

If I'm accustomed to people arguing for theism from authority (e.g., "I know God wants me to perform these rituals in this way, because my priest said so"), impugning the credibility of the authority figure (e.g., "Oh yeah? Well, your priest molests children!") is an understandable response.

But you're right, of course, that it isn't itself evidence for or against much of anything.