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gjm comments on Book trades with open-minded theists - recommendations? - Less Wrong
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I think Dallas is going in the right direction here. It's not enough to convince someone that God is impossible- you need to give them a replacement. (And convincing someone that the Church is a harmful force- when they don't get the impression their local church is- is difficult and probably not worthwhile.) For example, as mentioned elsewhere the primary argument of Mere Christianity is probably "Christianity is an optimized meme for getting humans to believe it- that's evidence for humanity being built around the meme." The counterargument is that the meme is built around humanity- but to do that you need naturalistic explanations for all the pieces that Christianity relies on, like the feeling of universal (i.e. built-in) morality.
If you are going to recommend Dawkins, I suggest The Selfish Gene, as it's the best explanation of evolution that I've come across (and once they believe in evolution, they're on the path to realizing God is unnecessary).
This may be true in places like the US where creationism is strong, but not everywhere. For instance, for decades Christians in the UK have almost all accepted evolution, and most varieties of Christianity (even quite conservative ones) have no problem with it. That doesn't mean that there isn't any tension between evolution and those varieties of Christianity, but because Everyone Knows that the two are compatible, reading a good explanation of evolution won't necessarily make a Christian rethink his or her religious beliefs.
(I was a Christian for years and years, and so far as I can recall I never found creationism at all tempting. And when I finally got out of religion, evolution had very little to do with it.)
Seconded. Heck, even the Catholic Church says there is no conflict.
I think that if you understand how evolution works on a really intuitive level — how blind it is — it's very difficult to believe both in human evolution and a guiding divinity. "Genes which promote their own replication become more common over time" is not a principle which admits of purpose. Vaguer understandings of evolution's actual mechanism probably contribute to the apparent reasonableness of "theistic evolution".
Sorry, but that sounds like motivated stopping to me. Coming up with ways by which blind evolution and guiding divinity might be compatible isn't really hard at all.
For one, a gene mutation can only be selected for once it exists. Whether a mutation comes into existence or not is a random process. God could influence the mutations that come into existence.
Secondly, the course of evolution is determined by the environment. Put life in a cold environment, and it will evolve to have adaptations for the cold. God could manipulate the environment to select for the adaptations He wants. There are a lot of papers arguing that the evolution of intelligent, tool-using life requires a very specific environment, which God could have helped arrange.
Thirdly, in addition to choosing the environment, God could influence what happens in the environment, for instance by causing catastrophes that lead to population bottlenecks, helping select specific traits by influencing who survives.
Fourthly, there's genetic drift, again essentially a random process.
...and these were just ones I could come up with off the top of my head.
What is hard is to make compatible evolution and all-loving divinity. To watch how ones creations torment and devour each other for hundreds of millions of years is not exactly my idea of love.
Ok. That doesn't matter though- my point is it's no good to try and make God vanish in a poof of logic. What seems far more effective is getting people to the point where they can say "I have no need of that hypothesis." Apologists have spent a long time making the logical basis of the church difficult to attack- which can be subverted by pointing out an alternative to the church.
I agree with that, but I would note that this is a highly intellectual route which won't work on people whose reasons are non-intellectual. I was a theist once: less so because of any intellectual issues, but because of the emotional comfort and feeling of safety that it provided. I've also talked to religious people who acknowledge that on an intellectual level, there's no reason to believe, but on an emotional level there is.
I often get the feeling that LW focuses exceedingly on the intellectual reasons, while not always realizing that the emotional reasons can by themselves be enough for someone to believe. (On the other hand, purely emotional belief tends to be compartmentalized and harmless, so focusing solely on the intellectual belief is probably a good thing. But it does risk creating an incorrect model of the psychology of the believers.)
Right. I've said elsewhere that most people choose religions based on who their fellow worshipers will be, and that needs to come up in any conversation about conversion.
I understand what you are saying here, but I think it's phrased a bit inaptly. The only choice that most people make about religion is the choice to continue practicing the religion they were raised with. Limiting the discussion to converts, you are, of course, correct.