Monday, August 10, 2009

The Proselytizing Playbook & What Drives It


Here’s the thing about religious fanatics who believe it is their duty to proselytize to the educated and sane: They haven’t figured out yet that we have heard it all, read it all, rejected it all as fable.

They think that by repeating their canned corn, their brainwashed dependency on ancient fable, their rejection of reality, distortions of fact, and reinterpretation of biblical scripture that suddenly every bit of knowledge we the thinking have accumulated through study, discourse, education and investigation will suddenly be abandoned, dissolved like salt in so much water. It would be as though by quoting to them from the Egyptian Book of the Dead we’d expect them to see the light and worship Isis or Ra.

I can’t count how many times I’ve heard the same old crap that they draw from fundamentalist apologetics sites, or JW pamphlets, that have time and again been offered as some proof for supernaturalism. From great flood pseudo-science, to Jesus’ resurrection ‘cuz the Bible says so, to quoting John 3:16, to putting God’s merciful murderous rampages into a lovely light. All somehow are suppose to get us to abandon what we know from science, natural law, history, and our own reading of scripture and familiarity with comparative religion and pre-Abrahamic gods, and fall to our knees praising the Lard. You’d think by now they’d get the picture.

We’ve seen them all - argument by “popular acceptance” (“How could so many people believe if it isn’t true?”); to grossly fallacious distortions of “argument by authority” (“Einstein believed in a God.”); to the craziest perversions of science (“Scientists have proven the Ark exists / the great flood happened / that the earth is only 6,000 yrs old.”) etc., etc. It’s a veritable cornucopia of hackneyed, false, and vapid statements that anyone with a modicum of intellect and education can dispel with finality.

So why does it persist? There are, by my experience three causes for this irrational approach by the proselytizing fanatic:


  1. They project on thinking people the same gullibility, lack of sophistication, stunted education, rejection of secular learning /history, lack of respect for fact, and distain for evidence and the scientific method that they themselves embrace.

  2. Since they believe their myth to be the only reality, they are incapable of seeing the correlation between all other man made gods, man-gods, mythical figures and beings that carry exactly the same weight of evidence as does their preferred myth, and which they readily reject because “those are fairy tales.”

  3. They are led to believe by their shamans and fundie websites that atheists just haven’t heard the “good news” and all it takes is a little preaching to bring us into the fold. It’s their duty, their calling, to inform us. Imagine, I an educated adult in an industrialized country having never been exposed to Christian doctrine, one of the greatest travesties of the mind in 2,000 years, and here some superstitious inbred mind slave is going to elucidate me.

There was a time when I enjoyed the opportunity to lambast and expose the foolishness of these apostles of magic, superstition and stupidity. But as I get older, as I hear the same old hackneyed crappola offered as some new and revealed truth by the ignorant and deluded, my patience has worn thin. I become bored. A simple verbal bitch slapping is all I have the time for.

25 comments:

NewEnglandBob said...

I think it is all three reasons but more and more your first one, Hump.

I no longer put up with them when they ring my doorbell. I tell them I do not believe their bullshit fairy tales and I tell them they have 60 seconds to get off my property and they need to do it without a single word in reply or I will call the police. They usually hurry down my driveway.

Dromedary Hump said...

Bob,

heheh... Well, I'm more polite with the in person visits, as you know from my book. I get a kick out of telling them i'm atheist, playing with their heads and demonstrating to them that atheists aren't heartless scumb. It confuses them.

Remember, they didnt know I was an atheist when they showed up.

It's the internet proselytizers who knowingly enter an atheist blog, message group, chat room, etc., and try to convert the thinking and educated thru their dopy shit, that i have no time for.
Their very appearance insults my intellgence, and reconfirms their insipidness.

HoleyHands said...

New source for online fundie trolls...

Momma Moonbat said...

The last time the JWs showed up, they had the fortune of dealing with Mr. Oreo instead of me. He kindly and gently rejects them. I verbally bitch slap them, too. Trolling online is one thing, but showing up on my property to tell me about your imaginary, spiteful, murderous skydaddy is quite another.

Dromedary Hump said...

I see it as a source of entertainment. I'm retired, and in NH so few things exciting happen around here :)

Dromedary Hump said...

HH..

wow.. a concerted effort by Intel design proselytizers to get equally moronic believers to inundate us with their craziness? And for which they get a grade?

Yup... stupidity has hit an all time low.

Rachelle said...

LOL! My sister is a JW and she tried some 20 years ago to get me (the strong atheist) to "see the Truth." Truth with a capital "T." LOL! It didn't work then and she hasn't tried since. JWs are told to start with their families first before they go door to door to strangers with their bullsh-t...Strangely, her brain-washing hasn't affected our personal relationship...unless you wanna count our Saturday film selections. LOL! She won't see any film with an "R" rating. LOL!

One good thing about JWs is that they stay out of politics (they don't vote or run for office, so they aren't, for example, trying to get any bills passed that would allow teaching "Intelligent Design"/creationism in science classes, etc.). I wish all religious nuts the world over would stay out of politics.

Momma Moonbat said...

I didn't realize they didn't vote or run for office. Wouldn't that be a go to hell to have a JW in congress right now, trying to exclude things like blood transfusions from the healthcare bill?

Dromedary Hump said...

Racelle,
I agree with you about JWs. They are much less of a threat to our freedoms than the "mainstream" fundamentalist Protestants who want to see this a xtian nation, etc.

Another reason why JWs don't annoy me as much is because they reject the concept of Trinity as non scrptirual bullshit. This of course makes them a hated target of the mainstrean fundie whacko Christians.

And as the old saying goes ... "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". :)

Hump

TiG said...

I don't care what their reasoning is for stopping by to shove their lame-ass fantasies down my throat. I'm never rude but I am quite CLEAR they are unwelcome and should not return. No matter what I think personally these are deluded people who think they're working their way into paradise.

TiG said...

Ok, whoa...sorry there. Very confusing comment. What I was getting at was that regardless of their reasoning (which I get) I don't want them around. The same goes for godbots at work and so forth. Leave it at home! YOUR home!

=)

Dromedary Hump said...

Tidal...
perfectly clear to me.

I just find the internet religious fanatic proselytizers more annoying...because they KNOW in advance we are atheists and it doesn't stop them.

the thing about door to door JWs mormons etc, as fucked up and moronic as they are is: once they find out you are an atheist they typically want out as fast as they can.
and thats when the fun can start.Of course, I'm retired and am easily amused :)

Momma Moonbat said...

Tidal,
Yeah, I forgot about the workplace fundies. I haven't had to deal with one in a long time, but when I did it was tedious at times. Trying to be professional and yet tell someone to bugger off.

Angie Jackson said...

1 - Yup
2 - Yup
3 - Yup but my follow-through sucked. As a fundamentalist Christian (and later as a hippy-style liberal Christian) I *never* engaged atheists in debate. I knew I couldn't express my faith in terms of evidence for anyone else. Eventually it wasn't enough evidence for me either, but I resisted looking at it closely enough (1 and 2) to figure that out for awhile.

Dromedary Hump said...

Angie,

Thats very interesting. Here's why:
Some time ago I went to a real serious christian apologetics site. Their recommendation to their proselytizing flock was NOT engage in formal debate because
- nonbelievers want and demand evidence and you have nothing material to offer.
- Don't try to co-opt science, its a losing proposition.
- Speak only of your faith.

So you were doing it the way professional apologists recommend.

thanks for the input.
Hump

Angie Jackson said...

Hump - That's pretty damn funny. I was serious about my "relationship" with Christ and I was sure I was right and my wayward sinning "lost" friends were wrong, but I knew enough other Christians had told them the story that I wasn't going to surprise them. (Although I did really think the "it's not a religion, it's a relationship" line was supposed to a new idea they'd never thought of before.)

It never would have occurred to me as a fundamentalist to co-opt science to support my religious claims, because I didn't "believe in science" (my own words at the time). I have to say looking back that whatever appeals I did use were entirely appeals to emotion and pathos.

Dromedary Hump said...

Angie,
well.. you were doin it right, according to the pro-apologists ;)

By the way, a belated congrats on your escape from religious mind slavery.
Hump

Angie Jackson said...

Thanks Hump. You know how there's no worse anti-smoking crusader than a reformed smoker? Some with indoctrination. Once you break free, you get PISSED, and make the best anti-theist (or at least I try).

Dromedary Hump said...

Angie,
I'm proud to call you my sister in anti-theism.
Hump

Angie Jackson said...

Ooh goodie. We could form a group! An exclusive one, with elect members, like a cult or... damnit old habits die hard :p

Dromedary Hump said...

Hahah!!
I said SISTER...
not PRIESTESS
;)

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Henry said...

Add cognitive dissonance to your list. True believers have staked everything on their beliefs being true, and it is just not possible to consider the alternative. It is an extreme form of denial. From the description of their behavior in the NT, the apostles were most likely experiencing it.

Dromedary Hump said...

Henry...good call! thanks.