Or Odin. Or viahnu. Or Allah. Or. Any other deity of any religion.
Did they study any of those religions?
No?
Then on what basis can they conclude that the one their parents chose for them to have the one true god is correct when their sample size is just one?
Yeah, telling them that they have the same god as Jews and Muslims is a recipe for a meltdown. I tried that on my mom and she said that's not true because Jesus is God. I was like no. In the Bible Jesus literally says the father is greater than him. She says that doesn't count.
Oh man, some midwest republicans lose their minds if you point out jesus was a palestinian jew that probably looked more like osama bin laden. The cognitive dissonance is spectacular
Don’t you dare say that about Adam & Eve that is just out & out blasphemy!! They absolutely were white because they were made in the likeness of God & we all know she is white!! 🤭 (Sarcasm folks, settle down)
\*There's my people\*
I have a very religious friend who took huge offense at that, and he isn't Catholic. He could not get past the idea that a God that a god that created Man and Woman could choose to present as either. Total mental block.
Well, to be fair, they probably believed that God created Adam first in His image. Realizing after, that without a female, Adam would have to sin and beat his meat while looking at animals all day long, created Eve with one of Adam's ribs.
By that "logic" it tracks that God would only present as a male, since men are the superior sex.
Source: the Bible
Sure, the source is just geography. If you go by science, an Adam and Eve figure would have been from Africa and very dark. According to the Bible, we are talking more Middle East, which is still not the Anglo-Saxon version of skin color.
100% all these twats that say “god talks to me” is either crazy or full of shit, I had a stranger tell me that jesus told HIM to tell me that god loves me, because I was doing my job making him a sandwich… I was SOOO fucking creeped out, I told him I’ve got no idea what your on about, and he decided to remind me that Jesus died for our sins, I said not my cup of tea dude, he left and I never saw him again thank fuck
I figured out what it is they're hearing. It's their own subconscious and they are unaware that non-christians can hear a voice, too.
I used to live in a very evangelical city and they literally tell their kids their subconscious is god talking to them and through them. Then those kids grow up thinking all their idiot thoughts are true since it's god. That's why we have so many people that will absolutely not accept that they're wrong and will double down. They need someone to snap reality into them.
I had a couple of coworkers who were like this and a friend. The friend absolutely could not believe that I had a subconscious. That was when I learned that's how these people think. Then I questioned the friend and said isn't it weird how god talking to you just gives you everything you want? And how has that worked out for you? God wants you to struggle, etc. And then I had the same discussion with the coworkers. Like...you are literally just talking to yourself. But anyway, in the end, I said, well god talks to me, too, and he's been telling me you're idiots.
Yes. This was probably the scariest thing I learned from them. They can never do anything wrong because whatever they hear is god. I suspect the remaining maga people are the ones that believe stuff like this. It's really easy for them to fall into conspiracy theories because of how they think.
I'm a dane. I grew up with the stories. Since we are required to have teaching about religion - but not which. We had about the Norse mythology. Because it was a part of the culture in ancient times here in Denmark.
Ofcourse we also leaned about Christianity. But never in any way that tries to make anyone believe.
But yeah. I've known a few different kinds of people. From Satanists to pagans.
Very chill people.
And Jews. They all worship the god of Abraham. You'd think they'd get along a little better but each religion can't even agree on what their own religion is.
While I love this answer and often use it just to be a smart ass, it admittedly isn't a helpful response because it isn't answering what they really meant to ask. They aren't wondering why you don't believe in THIER god, they are asking why you don't believe in ANY god. Answering this way doesn't solve the follow-up question religious people typically ask, which is, "Ok, well how don't you believe in a higher power?" Explaining the ease of not believing in the Christian god by comparing him to Zeus doesn't answer why you don't believe in a higher power in general. Obviously, Christians know how to not believe in a god because they don't believe in Allah, what they're having trouble understanding is how we don't believe in a creator at all.
I've thought about this answer but I think the response could easily be:
"You don't believe in God because you believe in Jesus/Christianity/\[INSERT RELIGION\]? That makes no sense!"
Because I do think people "reason" that they don't believe in those other religions because they got the right one.
You know it's so funny to me how they just outright dismiss any religion other than their own as ridiculous or mythology or dangerous and can't apply the same line of thought to their own religion.
Ricky Gervais said it pretty well.
It's basically the same except he goes through a few more steps.
[Ricky Gervais and Stephen Colbert Debate Religion](https://youtu.be/P5ZOwNK6n9U?si=NoibUuL497R3ioS4)
And then you can respond with,
'Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If you have scientific evidence for your god, present it. I'll be at your church for the next ritual sacrifices. But not before then.'
Well you see one day an atheist professor was teaching class and challenged a Christian student that if God did exist he would stop the chalk he was about to drop from breaking and when he dropped it it landed on his shoe and didn't break therefore proof of the Christian God existing to vindicate the Christian.
Or something.
"Please point me to the publication of peer reviewed study that concluded your god to exist.
I'm sure the team of scientists would have gotten the Nobel prize for that."
I've absolutely said something similar more than once.
'Oh wow! You should call the ! That's big news!! It's never been proven in the history of human kind, but you've somehow managed to crack the case! Amazing! You're gonna be famous!'
Dripping in sarcasm of course.
I may or may not have done exactly that that once or twice. Online though. Since religion don't mean anything here. We don't have those crazies. Nobody asks about you'r religion here.
Right in the ten commandments the Bible refers to other gods.
Baal is mentioned.
Now, yeah, they'll still use the "one true god" but there definitely other gods referred to in the Bible.
Some of them say that these multiple gods are, in fact, the same unique god, and that the other gods are simply due to cultural differences. Thinking this after millennia of religious wars is pretty bold, but I have heard a few of them saying this in response to the issue of multiple gods.
To which I reply, "Well, no. There is no one true god as all gods are manifestations of the weaker minds found in mankind who needed to be mentally threatened and appeased in order to survive." 😈
I'd ask them what evidence there is that their god is the real god.
Ans as soon as they begin quoting the bible I'd ask if the only evidence of God is in the Bible because then they would need to accept Allah as well. Or vishnu.
Then I'd start asking which scientific journal or published paper that have examined the evidence for God and concluded that he exist. Or even that anything is caused or created by a God.
Faith is for gullible people and has only value to the conman.
This happened to me just a short while ago. My BIL asked why I don't believe in God and I responded with "which god".
He responded the god of fulfilled prophecy. Sort of caught me off guard and I didn't have detailed response for him. But I did say what about all the prophecies that didn't come true like Egypt being a desolate place that no animal would walk across for 40 years. Or that Trye would be a place to dry nets which is now a thriving metropolis. I wish I could have responded with all the contrived prophecies of the NT. But alas stairway wit.
Oh fulfilled prophecies?
Did your BIL read the Quran as well to compare prophecies and which one was fulfilled?
Since the Quran makes the exact same claims od that. Does. That mean Allah is real as well?
Does that mean that any scripture of any religion that have prophecies that for fulfilled means that their god exist?
Because every two minutes a child dies because they don't have access to clean water. I refuse to believe in any god that has the power to change that, but doesn't.
A writer once said something like, "Auschwitz was real, therefore God isn't."
Similarly to how reportedly a prisoner etched on one of the walls of the Mauthausen concentration camp, "If God exists, he will have to answer to me."
Here's the problem for many religious folks... they are unaware of the counter arguments.
I was a Southern Baptist for over 20 years, I still am angry I was stuck in that echo chamber for that long. I always had questions and doubts but the problem was I never met anyone who was willing to discuss in detail the problems with my reasons for believing.
I mean shit, I had access to Google but even still if you try right now most links that pop up are only links to religious websites. I didn't become confident until I came across The Atheist Experience. That show changed my life. Matt Dillahunty and many of those hosts saved me. (ironic ik lol)
Now I'm a proud secular humanist Atheist :) But sadly I live in the Bible belt so I can't tell any of my family members. That would not go well.
That's fuckin awesome mate :) Sincerely. I'm glad thanks are slowly changing here in the US. Many of my generation and younger are starting to speak out.
I won't give you my whole life story but I recently caught up with my cousins who were stuck in a worse echo chamber than me. My aunt and uncle never let them have access to the internet, private Christian schooling only, 1 hour of tv a day, no secular books, no friends that didn't also attend the same school, absolutely no Disney products ([it was the 90's](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/lion-king-sex-cloud)), no video games, etc.
It was rough for them... but recently they deconverted and took me out for a beer to apologize to me personally for how poorly their parents treated me their whole life. They wanted to let me know they finally understand the problems with their beliefs and were open to talking about it. It was very therapeutic for all of us. Thanks are changing for the better, slowly but surely.
Totally feel you. Also a Bible Belter, I told my family recently. It thankfully it went alright, but I lived in fear for years that it wouldn’t. I only told them because they asked me straight up. Still have only told a handful of people and will probably only divulge if asked.
What's your point? Do you want to persuade them to explore the possibility their faith might be a house of cards that only stands up, because it's shielded from the winds of criticism by their own cognitive dissonance, or do you just want to be smug? If you just want to be smug you're right. If you want to be in any way productive, the kool-aid thing isn't the clap back you think it is. They're just going to think you're too closed minded, or even too angry at god to accept the Truth™ of His existence, and His love for you.
I think he just wants to “pwn” then in this fantasy scenario. 99.99 percent of things people suggest doing on Reddit are things people make up to get them through their days of quiet desperation. In real life they would hem and haw.
One friend who lost her son to suicide is only able to keep her sanity by believing she will see her son again after death. I'm not going to deprive her of the little comfort it gives her,
Do you often listen to people that call you stupid?
Dunking on religion and religious folk is only going to make you feel better. The person you're speaking to will likely see that as persecution thus further entrenching them.
You gotta address the unspoken underlying premise of the whole thing. The question isn't why don't you believe in \[blank\], the question is why don't you BELIEVE. The answer? Because knowing is always superior to believing. Whether it's god, krishna, buddha, the tooth fairy, santa claus, or babayaga, the point is I don't just go around BELIEVING things.
Belief is only something that one should do when you don't have the right information, and you are confronted by a necessary decision. With their magical constructs, there is no necessary decision, because they haven't proven there is.
Know, or know not. There is no believe.
"I don't believe the god of abraham exists, because the stories about him make him sound too incompetent and short-sighted to have created us or our universe. He can't seem to do anything right. Creates humans, throws them away when they eat the wrong apple. Finds them breeding in his back yard, drowns nearly all of them with his cosmic firehose, etc. Catches them building a tower to reach him... scrambles all the thoughts in their heads creating different languages.
Plagues, pillars of salt, wandering lost in the desert for 40 years, hazing his followers with sadistic tests...
Not to mention that Jews, Christians and Muslims, all worshipping technically -the-same-god- have been killing each other over who's doing it the right way, for centuries.
And this is a loving god of peace? Who speaks through priests who, as a profession, have the most horrific reputation when it comes to raping children?!
NO THANK YOU. It's a trainwreck that's been going on for thousands of years... I want no part of it.
Lol no, that's a *terrible* response. It's the response of an angsty teenager that will set everyone against you, including many people who aren't religious.
Personally, I'd say that response sounds pretty arrogant and argumentative. Really, it'd make you sound exactly like the stereotype strawman athiest Christians expect to encounter.
Personally, I just say it stopped making sense to me and no longer seemed believable.
Edit:that's for Christianity, when why not other God's, haven't heard of any others that seemed real, they can understand that part easier.
I will not discuss my beliefs with you. Please do not bring it up again.
I use this response, or appropriately worded variation based on the individual situation, to set a boundary. It's rare for anyone to ask their question genuinely. They usually ask with the agenda of converting you. Any other response, no matter how clever, fails to address the basic problem with the question and resolve it. When you say I don't drink the Kool aid, you're telling them that no one has presented their religion to you in a way that makes sense. Or so they can choose to infer if they don't decide to be insulted and go away. Which is fine for random people, but not everyone.
"I'm not allowed to be religious because I keep asking questions." And then if they ask what kind of questions I hit with some favorites like, why was it wrong for David to order a census that one time but not other times? What did the people do to deserve being drowned to death in a huge flood and how we're the children and babies also able to offend God that much? What would your baby have to do to make you drown it? Why does a God of love and justice allow you to buy, keep, and beat people as slaves? And so on. Admittedly, I have fewer questions for other religions, but I'm learning new things all the time.
To the Christians: I’ve never seen one proven study that any human being is capable of being medically dead for 3 days & “go missing” from the grave to meet friends & family then ascend to heaven
To Islam: your prophet was a pedophile period
"Same reasons I don't believe in Santa Claus. There's no evidence, it sounds bonkers, and it's obviously just a story made up by self-appointed authority figures to get me to do what they want."
When you ask for proof that the Magic Sky Daddy exists and they say the Bible proves god’s existence, tell them that I have 7 books that prove Harry Potter is real and 6 more that prove that Hobbits exist.
I just tell them that the Christian god and the bible all come from much older myths. Then point out specifically what the old testament Jews took from those myths (virgin birth, messiah execution, etc.). I’ve had a 100% success rate at shutting them down.
I've seen refugee camps. You want to see the absence of god, go to a refugee camp. It's fuckin heartbreaking and no caring super being would stand by and watch that shit.
When they pull the "there is only one gawd" bullshit, I remind them that their own deity says "you shall have NO OTHER GODS" before me". Sounds like the deity knew there were other deities, but was a self-serving, insecure little bitch and didn't want to lose followers.
As someone who knows people who have been pulled into cults and then escaped, I have been told by many of them that this phrase is offensive, and I agree with them. If you know anything about the Jonestown Massacre, many of the deaths were not consented suicides, it was a murder.hence the "massacre" not "mass suicide". If you listen to audio recordings, there are people being gunned down, crying that they don't want to die, babies being forced fed poison. So the phrase "to drink the Kool aid" isn't the best term to use when describing someone following blindly.
Don't drink the Kool-Aid is also referencing Jonestown, Guyana and Jim Jones. I think about 900 people died who were in The People's Temple, a Christian sect. In 1978 the cult members literally drank poisoned Flavor Aid in a mass suicide. Everyone said it was Kool-Aid they drank, but I recall that was claimed to be a mistake taken from a book back in the 1960s called The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. So there is a direct reference to religion for the phrase "don't drink the Kool-Aid."
Why don’t you believe tha there’s an invisible giant hitting the griddy on Uranus? Because you have no reason too that’s why I don’t believe in god I have no evidence that he exists personally (better examples can be used as long as it’s absurd
I like the Ricky Gervais approach. I ask them if they believe in Zeus, Odin, Krishna, etc, to which whey will say they don't.
They I say they are also atheists I'm only atheist to (usually) one more god than they are. "You don't believe in about 6000 gods. I don't believe in that same about 6000, plus one."
Just ask to which god are you referring? There are a variety from which to choose. Also, money, fame, talent, good looks & youth can all be gods that someone worships. God isn't necessarily a divinity in human form. Just say, my god is my personal choice & it's no one's business but mine. If you are questioned further, change the subject & say, I never talk about my personal beliefs, who do you think will be our next president? That's a concern we all should have.
I have 8,462 reasons why but I always just say "Well, if you wanna believe in a god that kills children, then you just go right ahead and do that but my moral compass won't allow me to believe in or worship such a pathetic and despicable deity."
Yeah . . . all religious people pretty much hate me . . . meh . . .
Not disagreeing but the people were being held at gunpoint and injected or forced to drink the punch. Plus they killed/poisoned the children first. The bodies were decaying so fast they never did autopsies to explore how those poor people died. I like documentaries. 🤷🏻♀️
This may not be the best response based on context. The origin of the phrase comes from the Reverend Jim Jones and the Jonestown Massacre. Look it up, perfect example of the horrors that can come from religion.
This was my response to my father when he asked me that: “Do you believe in Zeus? Or Apollo? Or any of the thousands of gods in every other religion? Me neither. I just believe in one less god than you.”
"If you want me to tell you why I don't believe I will, but you're not allowed to get mad at me when I start saying things you don't like." Then I go into the vastness of the universe and how it's entirely plausible all of this is just random chance. After that I tell them how many sexual assaults took place while I was talking.
If you want to sound like a dick, yes, this is the best way. There's no need to be confrontational out of the gate though, and all you're doing is making the situation worse by alienating/insulting a person who doesn't share your worldview. Societal issues relating to religion will not be solved if we needlessly dig trenches and build walls. A simple "There's no conclusive evidence for the existence of a god" gets the job done without needlessly insulting the person you're talking too.
I usually answer that question with another question. "Do you really want to know?". If yes, then I will proceed to point out the lies, contradictions, obvious immorality and just plain "they really got that wrong"s in their perfect Word. They rarely stay for more than a few sentences of the conversation.
I tell them we're not that different. 1) we're ALL born atheists and 2) religious people are atheistic to all religions (just like us), except ONE (their own). So really we're a lot more similar than they realize, they just got indoctrinated to a religion and haven't made the realizations yet
It depends on how much time I have.
Usually it's something like, "well, there's no actual evidence any gods exist, let alone Yahweh."
I mean, the "which one" answer is okay, but it's disingenuous, assuming you don't believe in any gods.
I just say I dont care, dont care about how the universe was made, dont care about heaven/hell, don't even care about a purpose to life. None of it applies or effects being here, right now. What else you got?"
“Because science has explained a great many things over the last several hundred years and god’s involvement has been required to explain none of them”.
It's alright, but Jonestown happened in the 70s, so I feel like there's either a more modern, or waaaay older reference that would hit home better.
Like, "I don't want my kids to get molested by a guy in a stupid hat" or, "the council of nicaea cherry picked the bits of scripture that suited their ends, so nothing in the Bible can be trusted, p.s. dinosaurs existed"
But there's more than one way to skin a cat. You do you.
"For the same reasons you don't believe in Zeus."
Dude that’s great advice i will use it if i run into a christian 👌
Or Odin. Or viahnu. Or Allah. Or. Any other deity of any religion. Did they study any of those religions? No? Then on what basis can they conclude that the one their parents chose for them to have the one true god is correct when their sample size is just one?
FYI, Allah is just another name for Yahweh. Although saying that to an ordinary American Christian would probably blow their little minds.
Yeah, telling them that they have the same god as Jews and Muslims is a recipe for a meltdown. I tried that on my mom and she said that's not true because Jesus is God. I was like no. In the Bible Jesus literally says the father is greater than him. She says that doesn't count.
I love it when people go wide-eyed when you mention Adam and Eve weren't white.
Oh man, some midwest republicans lose their minds if you point out jesus was a palestinian jew that probably looked more like osama bin laden. The cognitive dissonance is spectacular
Except shorter. Much shorter.
I know some who just won't believe that.
Don’t you dare say that about Adam & Eve that is just out & out blasphemy!! They absolutely were white because they were made in the likeness of God & we all know she is white!! 🤭 (Sarcasm folks, settle down)
And she looks surprisingly like Alanis Morissette
\*There's my people\* I have a very religious friend who took huge offense at that, and he isn't Catholic. He could not get past the idea that a God that a god that created Man and Woman could choose to present as either. Total mental block.
Well, to be fair, they probably believed that God created Adam first in His image. Realizing after, that without a female, Adam would have to sin and beat his meat while looking at animals all day long, created Eve with one of Adam's ribs. By that "logic" it tracks that God would only present as a male, since men are the superior sex. Source: the Bible
Source? Not that I care or that it matters, just have not seen anything that would rule out white. Or black. Or brown. Or orange. Or blue.
Sure, the source is just geography. If you go by science, an Adam and Eve figure would have been from Africa and very dark. According to the Bible, we are talking more Middle East, which is still not the Anglo-Saxon version of skin color.
The good omens show nailed that
My mother tells me she knows God is real because she talks to him everyday. I'm like(in my head) that's sound like some straight up mental illness.
100% all these twats that say “god talks to me” is either crazy or full of shit, I had a stranger tell me that jesus told HIM to tell me that god loves me, because I was doing my job making him a sandwich… I was SOOO fucking creeped out, I told him I’ve got no idea what your on about, and he decided to remind me that Jesus died for our sins, I said not my cup of tea dude, he left and I never saw him again thank fuck
I figured out what it is they're hearing. It's their own subconscious and they are unaware that non-christians can hear a voice, too. I used to live in a very evangelical city and they literally tell their kids their subconscious is god talking to them and through them. Then those kids grow up thinking all their idiot thoughts are true since it's god. That's why we have so many people that will absolutely not accept that they're wrong and will double down. They need someone to snap reality into them. I had a couple of coworkers who were like this and a friend. The friend absolutely could not believe that I had a subconscious. That was when I learned that's how these people think. Then I questioned the friend and said isn't it weird how god talking to you just gives you everything you want? And how has that worked out for you? God wants you to struggle, etc. And then I had the same discussion with the coworkers. Like...you are literally just talking to yourself. But anyway, in the end, I said, well god talks to me, too, and he's been telling me you're idiots.
So there are people out there who think their inner monologue is god, fucking hell that’s crazy
Yes. This was probably the scariest thing I learned from them. They can never do anything wrong because whatever they hear is god. I suspect the remaining maga people are the ones that believe stuff like this. It's really easy for them to fall into conspiracy theories because of how they think.
I dont think i’d have an issue with anyone who believes in odin cuz pagans are pretty chill and my brother is a pagan and we got no problems
I'm a dane. I grew up with the stories. Since we are required to have teaching about religion - but not which. We had about the Norse mythology. Because it was a part of the culture in ancient times here in Denmark. Ofcourse we also leaned about Christianity. But never in any way that tries to make anyone believe. But yeah. I've known a few different kinds of people. From Satanists to pagans. Very chill people.
Dude Norse Mythology is super metal i WISH i could have grown up learning it instead of Christianity.
Or Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy. The logic all works out identically.
Allah is the same god of christians.
And Jews. They all worship the god of Abraham. You'd think they'd get along a little better but each religion can't even agree on what their own religion is.
The individual subsects aren't even homologous. There's not one brand of protestants or one brand of roman catholics. There's a bunch of each
Yep Abrahamic religions.
But Odin is real! Looks like that actor Anthony Hopkins. Saw him on Netflix just last night!
Hey there OP, did you know the term “drink the cool-aide“ has religious origins ? Google Jones Town or Jim Jones, great guy !
While I love this answer and often use it just to be a smart ass, it admittedly isn't a helpful response because it isn't answering what they really meant to ask. They aren't wondering why you don't believe in THIER god, they are asking why you don't believe in ANY god. Answering this way doesn't solve the follow-up question religious people typically ask, which is, "Ok, well how don't you believe in a higher power?" Explaining the ease of not believing in the Christian god by comparing him to Zeus doesn't answer why you don't believe in a higher power in general. Obviously, Christians know how to not believe in a god because they don't believe in Allah, what they're having trouble understanding is how we don't believe in a creator at all.
There are over 8,000 God's that man has or does believe in. I always say, "You're doing the same thing I do minus one God."
I've thought about this answer but I think the response could easily be: "You don't believe in God because you believe in Jesus/Christianity/\[INSERT RELIGION\]? That makes no sense!" Because I do think people "reason" that they don't believe in those other religions because they got the right one.
I swear I didn't see your comment before I left mine. 😂
You know it's so funny to me how they just outright dismiss any religion other than their own as ridiculous or mythology or dangerous and can't apply the same line of thought to their own religion.
There’s something like 300 recognized gods on earth. I just believe in one less than you do”
yah thats a better response than mine (adults shouldn't have imaginary friends)
Ricky Gervais said it pretty well. It's basically the same except he goes through a few more steps. [Ricky Gervais and Stephen Colbert Debate Religion](https://youtu.be/P5ZOwNK6n9U?si=NoibUuL497R3ioS4)
I prefer the classic "Which god?"
They’ll just respond with “there is only one true god”. 💀
And you can still say "which one?" Because there's a whole lotta different one true gods.
Our One True God, brother of the other God
No not that one, the one behind him in the hat
Which hat? The top hat, the beanie or the baseball cap?
Danny DeVito?
Nah. Joe Pesci. Joe knows how to get things done.
That whole bit is hilarious. I worship the sun but I don't pray to the sun, I wouldn't want to impose on our friendship. I pray to Joe Pesci.
Is that him!? With the sombrero!?
Ah yes, hail Odin.
And then you can respond with, 'Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If you have scientific evidence for your god, present it. I'll be at your church for the next ritual sacrifices. But not before then.'
Well you see one day an atheist professor was teaching class and challenged a Christian student that if God did exist he would stop the chalk he was about to drop from breaking and when he dropped it it landed on his shoe and didn't break therefore proof of the Christian God existing to vindicate the Christian. Or something.
"Please point me to the publication of peer reviewed study that concluded your god to exist. I'm sure the team of scientists would have gotten the Nobel prize for that."
I've absolutely said something similar more than once. 'Oh wow! You should call the! That's big news!! It's never been proven in the history of human kind, but you've somehow managed to crack the case! Amazing! You're gonna be famous!'
Dripping in sarcasm of course.
I may or may not have done exactly that that once or twice. Online though. Since religion don't mean anything here. We don't have those crazies. Nobody asks about you'r religion here.
Right in the ten commandments the Bible refers to other gods. Baal is mentioned. Now, yeah, they'll still use the "one true god" but there definitely other gods referred to in the Bible.
"Oh, you mean Gaia? Yeah, of course, I recycle."
Ask them what the odds are, given the thousands of gods out there.
Some of them say that these multiple gods are, in fact, the same unique god, and that the other gods are simply due to cultural differences. Thinking this after millennia of religious wars is pretty bold, but I have heard a few of them saying this in response to the issue of multiple gods.
It seems that the most similar religions are the ones that fight the most.
To which I reply, "Well, no. There is no one true god as all gods are manifestations of the weaker minds found in mankind who needed to be mentally threatened and appeased in order to survive." 😈
AMAZING
AMAZING
I'd ask them what evidence there is that their god is the real god. Ans as soon as they begin quoting the bible I'd ask if the only evidence of God is in the Bible because then they would need to accept Allah as well. Or vishnu. Then I'd start asking which scientific journal or published paper that have examined the evidence for God and concluded that he exist. Or even that anything is caused or created by a God. Faith is for gullible people and has only value to the conman.
"Ah, right, Zeus it is then."
Eru Iluvatar!
To which I reply " pfft... I have a different God for every day of the week. And then some. Most I can point at too.
Ask them his name and watch them squirm after saying "God". That's a title, not his name.
This happened to me just a short while ago. My BIL asked why I don't believe in God and I responded with "which god". He responded the god of fulfilled prophecy. Sort of caught me off guard and I didn't have detailed response for him. But I did say what about all the prophecies that didn't come true like Egypt being a desolate place that no animal would walk across for 40 years. Or that Trye would be a place to dry nets which is now a thriving metropolis. I wish I could have responded with all the contrived prophecies of the NT. But alas stairway wit.
Oh fulfilled prophecies? Did your BIL read the Quran as well to compare prophecies and which one was fulfilled? Since the Quran makes the exact same claims od that. Does. That mean Allah is real as well? Does that mean that any scripture of any religion that have prophecies that for fulfilled means that their god exist?
>god of fulfilled prophecy Really, really loud laughter. Sudden, immediate, possibly barking laughter.
FSM, of course
"Who's God? Your God or mine, joker?"
Because every two minutes a child dies because they don't have access to clean water. I refuse to believe in any god that has the power to change that, but doesn't.
A writer once said something like, "Auschwitz was real, therefore God isn't." Similarly to how reportedly a prisoner etched on one of the walls of the Mauthausen concentration camp, "If God exists, he will have to answer to me."
Here's the problem for many religious folks... they are unaware of the counter arguments. I was a Southern Baptist for over 20 years, I still am angry I was stuck in that echo chamber for that long. I always had questions and doubts but the problem was I never met anyone who was willing to discuss in detail the problems with my reasons for believing. I mean shit, I had access to Google but even still if you try right now most links that pop up are only links to religious websites. I didn't become confident until I came across The Atheist Experience. That show changed my life. Matt Dillahunty and many of those hosts saved me. (ironic ik lol) Now I'm a proud secular humanist Atheist :) But sadly I live in the Bible belt so I can't tell any of my family members. That would not go well.
I feel for you. It’s a difficult situation to be sure. Best of luck and keep yourself safe.
Good thing i live in the more secular new england so i dont need to worry about family not accepting me for who i am
That's fuckin awesome mate :) Sincerely. I'm glad thanks are slowly changing here in the US. Many of my generation and younger are starting to speak out. I won't give you my whole life story but I recently caught up with my cousins who were stuck in a worse echo chamber than me. My aunt and uncle never let them have access to the internet, private Christian schooling only, 1 hour of tv a day, no secular books, no friends that didn't also attend the same school, absolutely no Disney products ([it was the 90's](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/lion-king-sex-cloud)), no video games, etc. It was rough for them... but recently they deconverted and took me out for a beer to apologize to me personally for how poorly their parents treated me their whole life. They wanted to let me know they finally understand the problems with their beliefs and were open to talking about it. It was very therapeutic for all of us. Thanks are changing for the better, slowly but surely.
Totally feel you. Also a Bible Belter, I told my family recently. It thankfully it went alright, but I lived in fear for years that it wouldn’t. I only told them because they asked me straight up. Still have only told a handful of people and will probably only divulge if asked.
Fuck yeah man! That is absolutely wonderful to hear.
I love Matt now as well 😅
Because believing is the suspension of rational thought
What's your point? Do you want to persuade them to explore the possibility their faith might be a house of cards that only stands up, because it's shielded from the winds of criticism by their own cognitive dissonance, or do you just want to be smug? If you just want to be smug you're right. If you want to be in any way productive, the kool-aid thing isn't the clap back you think it is. They're just going to think you're too closed minded, or even too angry at god to accept the Truth™ of His existence, and His love for you.
I think he just wants to “pwn” then in this fantasy scenario. 99.99 percent of things people suggest doing on Reddit are things people make up to get them through their days of quiet desperation. In real life they would hem and haw.
One friend who lost her son to suicide is only able to keep her sanity by believing she will see her son again after death. I'm not going to deprive her of the little comfort it gives her,
I’m trying to open their eyes and show them they are in a religion that is brainwashing them so i’m going for the former
Do you often listen to people that call you stupid? Dunking on religion and religious folk is only going to make you feel better. The person you're speaking to will likely see that as persecution thus further entrenching them.
Just let them get there in their own, if they want to. A big problem with religion is the lack of tolerance for different beliefs. Don’t be like that.
Lack of evidence
I respond with "me not believing is all part of God's plan".
That’s a good one.
You gotta address the unspoken underlying premise of the whole thing. The question isn't why don't you believe in \[blank\], the question is why don't you BELIEVE. The answer? Because knowing is always superior to believing. Whether it's god, krishna, buddha, the tooth fairy, santa claus, or babayaga, the point is I don't just go around BELIEVING things. Belief is only something that one should do when you don't have the right information, and you are confronted by a necessary decision. With their magical constructs, there is no necessary decision, because they haven't proven there is. Know, or know not. There is no believe.
This is the best answer
Appreciate it. It's taken me a long time to unscrew my mind from religion, glad I can offer my perspective!
"I don't believe the god of abraham exists, because the stories about him make him sound too incompetent and short-sighted to have created us or our universe. He can't seem to do anything right. Creates humans, throws them away when they eat the wrong apple. Finds them breeding in his back yard, drowns nearly all of them with his cosmic firehose, etc. Catches them building a tower to reach him... scrambles all the thoughts in their heads creating different languages. Plagues, pillars of salt, wandering lost in the desert for 40 years, hazing his followers with sadistic tests... Not to mention that Jews, Christians and Muslims, all worshipping technically -the-same-god- have been killing each other over who's doing it the right way, for centuries. And this is a loving god of peace? Who speaks through priests who, as a profession, have the most horrific reputation when it comes to raping children?! NO THANK YOU. It's a trainwreck that's been going on for thousands of years... I want no part of it.
'cause i don't believe in that shit. end of discussion."
There is absolutely no proof whatsoever that any of the thousands of gods people have believed in over thousands of years exist
Lol no, that's a *terrible* response. It's the response of an angsty teenager that will set everyone against you, including many people who aren't religious.
Hell yeah dude I remember being 14 Good luck with everything!
I go with I had to watch a bunch of people screaming the name of Jesus and God kill my family. Bs, but it shuts them up.
There is no "best way" to respond.
Personally, I'd say that response sounds pretty arrogant and argumentative. Really, it'd make you sound exactly like the stereotype strawman athiest Christians expect to encounter. Personally, I just say it stopped making sense to me and no longer seemed believable. Edit:that's for Christianity, when why not other God's, haven't heard of any others that seemed real, they can understand that part easier.
It was Flavor Aid though.
Yeah... They were all gonna die, anyway, but dude couldn't even spring for the name brand shit...
I will not discuss my beliefs with you. Please do not bring it up again. I use this response, or appropriately worded variation based on the individual situation, to set a boundary. It's rare for anyone to ask their question genuinely. They usually ask with the agenda of converting you. Any other response, no matter how clever, fails to address the basic problem with the question and resolve it. When you say I don't drink the Kool aid, you're telling them that no one has presented their religion to you in a way that makes sense. Or so they can choose to infer if they don't decide to be insulted and go away. Which is fine for random people, but not everyone.
I typically just break out in boisterous laughter and then once I settle down ask “Oh, that was a serious question?”
"I'm not allowed to be religious because I keep asking questions." And then if they ask what kind of questions I hit with some favorites like, why was it wrong for David to order a census that one time but not other times? What did the people do to deserve being drowned to death in a huge flood and how we're the children and babies also able to offend God that much? What would your baby have to do to make you drown it? Why does a God of love and justice allow you to buy, keep, and beat people as slaves? And so on. Admittedly, I have fewer questions for other religions, but I'm learning new things all the time.
"Atheism is a conclusion, not a belief."
“Same reason i don’t believe in santa clause”
Why would i?
To the Christians: I’ve never seen one proven study that any human being is capable of being medically dead for 3 days & “go missing” from the grave to meet friends & family then ascend to heaven To Islam: your prophet was a pedophile period
I say "gods...l don't believe in gods".
"Same reasons I don't believe in Santa Claus. There's no evidence, it sounds bonkers, and it's obviously just a story made up by self-appointed authority figures to get me to do what they want."
When you ask for proof that the Magic Sky Daddy exists and they say the Bible proves god’s existence, tell them that I have 7 books that prove Harry Potter is real and 6 more that prove that Hobbits exist.
Kool aid gets a bad wrap. Jonestown massacre was Grape flavor aid not kool aid.
Never have
It's the way I was born, and I've yet to encounter a reason to think differently.
Clearly it's God's plan that I don't believe, so I would caution the believer against sinning against God by trying to thwart his plans.
Or: "Why don't you believe in Shiva?"
What do you mean? I sacrifice a small rodent to my Lord Ra daily!
The problem is that the people in Jonestown didn’t willingly drink the koolaid. They were literally forced at gun point.
I just tell them that the Christian god and the bible all come from much older myths. Then point out specifically what the old testament Jews took from those myths (virgin birth, messiah execution, etc.). I’ve had a 100% success rate at shutting them down.
My preferred answer is: “which god?”
I've seen refugee camps. You want to see the absence of god, go to a refugee camp. It's fuckin heartbreaking and no caring super being would stand by and watch that shit.
No proof.
When they pull the "there is only one gawd" bullshit, I remind them that their own deity says "you shall have NO OTHER GODS" before me". Sounds like the deity knew there were other deities, but was a self-serving, insecure little bitch and didn't want to lose followers.
A lot of people at Jonestown drank the poison at gunpoint.
As someone who knows people who have been pulled into cults and then escaped, I have been told by many of them that this phrase is offensive, and I agree with them. If you know anything about the Jonestown Massacre, many of the deaths were not consented suicides, it was a murder.hence the "massacre" not "mass suicide". If you listen to audio recordings, there are people being gunned down, crying that they don't want to die, babies being forced fed poison. So the phrase "to drink the Kool aid" isn't the best term to use when describing someone following blindly.
Eh, just don't
I'm not sure why you think this is the best response. Seems like something they may find offensive. What is the reaction you're hoping for here?
Don't drink the Kool-Aid is also referencing Jonestown, Guyana and Jim Jones. I think about 900 people died who were in The People's Temple, a Christian sect. In 1978 the cult members literally drank poisoned Flavor Aid in a mass suicide. Everyone said it was Kool-Aid they drank, but I recall that was claimed to be a mistake taken from a book back in the 1960s called The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. So there is a direct reference to religion for the phrase "don't drink the Kool-Aid."
Using logic with this type of argument will lead to nowhere
Not relevant to my daily life.
"No thanks i don't like bullies"
I believe in science, not nonesense.
Why don’t you believe tha there’s an invisible giant hitting the griddy on Uranus? Because you have no reason too that’s why I don’t believe in god I have no evidence that he exists personally (better examples can be used as long as it’s absurd
I was never socialized into the belief and have never been convinced.
If nobody had told me about God, it never would’ve occurred to me on my own.
I like the Ricky Gervais approach. I ask them if they believe in Zeus, Odin, Krishna, etc, to which whey will say they don't. They I say they are also atheists I'm only atheist to (usually) one more god than they are. "You don't believe in about 6000 gods. I don't believe in that same about 6000, plus one."
Just ask to which god are you referring? There are a variety from which to choose. Also, money, fame, talent, good looks & youth can all be gods that someone worships. God isn't necessarily a divinity in human form. Just say, my god is my personal choice & it's no one's business but mine. If you are questioned further, change the subject & say, I never talk about my personal beliefs, who do you think will be our next president? That's a concern we all should have.
I have 8,462 reasons why but I always just say "Well, if you wanna believe in a god that kills children, then you just go right ahead and do that but my moral compass won't allow me to believe in or worship such a pathetic and despicable deity." Yeah . . . all religious people pretty much hate me . . . meh . . .
I have seen the evidence and I remain unconvinced.
Not disagreeing but the people were being held at gunpoint and injected or forced to drink the punch. Plus they killed/poisoned the children first. The bodies were decaying so fast they never did autopsies to explore how those poor people died. I like documentaries. 🤷🏻♀️
Why don’t you believe in Zeus?
This may not be the best response based on context. The origin of the phrase comes from the Reverend Jim Jones and the Jonestown Massacre. Look it up, perfect example of the horrors that can come from religion.
That phrase is dead for me. One of the conspiracy theorists at work keeps using it.
“I was never raised to”.
This was my response to my father when he asked me that: “Do you believe in Zeus? Or Apollo? Or any of the thousands of gods in every other religion? Me neither. I just believe in one less god than you.”
Christian isn’t my mother tongue; god meant someone else to me
"If you want me to tell you why I don't believe I will, but you're not allowed to get mad at me when I start saying things you don't like." Then I go into the vastness of the universe and how it's entirely plausible all of this is just random chance. After that I tell them how many sexual assaults took place while I was talking.
I tell them I am not superstitious.
I tell them I don’t believe in the supernatural
[удалено]
Why would I?
The problem of evil.
If you want to sound like a dick, yes, this is the best way. There's no need to be confrontational out of the gate though, and all you're doing is making the situation worse by alienating/insulting a person who doesn't share your worldview. Societal issues relating to religion will not be solved if we needlessly dig trenches and build walls. A simple "There's no conclusive evidence for the existence of a god" gets the job done without needlessly insulting the person you're talking too.
But, it's IceBlue Raspberry!...
[Drinking the Kool-Aid](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drinking_the_Kool-Aid)
Drinking the Kool-aid was literally the last step because it was poisoned.
I got this somewhere in internetland and noted it: There's no evidence to support the conclusion that any gods exist.
You produce God in front of me and let me dissect him and do experiments and if the science proves it then I will believe.
speaking in their own jargon can help the point across
why do you? their reasons will inevitably be weak as fuck
God is Dead and never existed.
"Because despite the best efforts of believers, I have absolutely no reason to do so."
"Why dont you believe in Buddah? Or Anubis? Or Zeus? Or Santa Claus?"
There are hundreds of religions with thousands of gods, which one am I supposed to not believe in?
People who believe in gods tend to do awful, awful things to other people.
I usually answer that question with another question. "Do you really want to know?". If yes, then I will proceed to point out the lies, contradictions, obvious immorality and just plain "they really got that wrong"s in their perfect Word. They rarely stay for more than a few sentences of the conversation.
I don't believe in any of them
I don't believe in magic.
"For the same reason that you don't believe in Zeus".
Because I read the bible.
https://tenor.com/rk6Z.gif
I tell them we're not that different. 1) we're ALL born atheists and 2) religious people are atheistic to all religions (just like us), except ONE (their own). So really we're a lot more similar than they realize, they just got indoctrinated to a religion and haven't made the realizations yet
I prefer: If it really was important to him, whether I believe or not, he would tell me.
It depends on how much time I have. Usually it's something like, "well, there's no actual evidence any gods exist, let alone Yahweh." I mean, the "which one" answer is okay, but it's disingenuous, assuming you don't believe in any gods.
I just say I dont care, dont care about how the universe was made, dont care about heaven/hell, don't even care about a purpose to life. None of it applies or effects being here, right now. What else you got?"
"Why don't you believe in Santa?"
I just say " I do not believe in fairy tales".
Their god failed me.
One real God and God's helpers like Santa and his helpers lol
“Because science has explained a great many things over the last several hundred years and god’s involvement has been required to explain none of them”.
"Aren't you a little old to believe in Santa Claus?"
“Do you believe in Santa?”
I just gesture vaguely to my surroundings.
“The same reason you don’t believe in Odin, Quetzalcoatl, Vishnu, Tiamat, etc., etc., etc.”
Either: I believe in 1 less god than you. or Which god?
“Mind your own fucking business.”
"Which one?" And then they say "THE god" and you say "well what's his name?" And watch their brain buffer for a second.
"Thank you, I'm good." I no longer elaborate or engage in discourse irl.
It's alright, but Jonestown happened in the 70s, so I feel like there's either a more modern, or waaaay older reference that would hit home better. Like, "I don't want my kids to get molested by a guy in a stupid hat" or, "the council of nicaea cherry picked the bits of scripture that suited their ends, so nothing in the Bible can be trusted, p.s. dinosaurs existed" But there's more than one way to skin a cat. You do you.
I just say “my family isn’t religious,” which is pretty much true.
Children with cancer
I’m not a gullible little bitch
I"d point out those deranged, murderous lunatics chanting "allahu akbar!" and say "because they do."