The Art of NOT Listening

I finally understood what some of the forum-goers at the RichardDawkins.net forum meant when they found that believers are REALLY difficult to talk to.

Once believers presuppose the existence of god, it is impossible to get them to check the position. It's automatically thought to be correct and never questioned.

Worst of all, some do not question at all because of the implications of the position. It goes something like this:

God created everything. [Original assumption]
Hence, god created my intelligence/wisdom/knowledge as well.
Only god is perfect, I am not perfect.
Therefore, I am unable to understand god completely and thus, should never question him.

There.
Perfect.
They've just put themselves out of the reaches of any form of rational discussion.

Other times, it appears as though they are deliberately missing point. Any argument, explanation or analogy doesn't seem to work no matter how I try to phrase it.

My explanation skills must really suck, I guess. Gotta work on that, I think.

That was my conclusion after engaging in conversations on Stomp.com.sg. And one of which in particular involved a typical christian fundie. Even talking to cow would produce more results.

Not to forget, his utter and complete ignorance of evolution. Of course, that's not his fault. But to reject evolution because he was presented a creationist caricature of evolution? That's tragic.

1 comments :

Anonymous said...

watching paint dry would be a more interesting activity compared with debating a fundie