My journey away from theism was characterized by smaller arguments such as these. There was no great leap, just a steady stream of losing faith in doctrines I had been brought up to believe. Creationism went first. Discrimination against homosexuals went next. Shortly after that, I found it impossible to believe in the existence of hell, except perhaps in a sort of Sartrean way. Shortly after that, I found myself rejecting large portions of the Bible, because the deity depicted therein did not live up to my moral standards. At that point I was finally ready to examine the evidence for God’s existence, and find it wanting.
I think in the end you will find that there are two things which can work. You must either point out that the beliefs lead to conclusions that are not just inconsistent, but also absurd, or you must point out that the beliefs lead to conclusions that contradict more “core” beliefs, such as “love your neighbor as yourself”.
Fred Clark is a liberal, fairly orthodox Christian. He blogs on a variety of subjects, including the birther/TeaParty movement, the deficiencies of creationism ([1][2]), the strange phenomenon of religious hatred of homosexuals ([3][4][5]), and an interesting view on vampires. (He also has an entertaining ongoing series where he rips apart the popular fundie series ‘Left Behind’, and shows how the writers know nothing of their own religion, let alone how the real world works.)
You could do worse than to look at how he handles this sort of thing, from a religious perspective.
My journey away from theism was characterized by smaller arguments such as these. There was no great leap, just a steady stream of losing faith in doctrines I had been brought up to believe. Creationism went first. Discrimination against homosexuals went next. Shortly after that, I found it impossible to believe in the existence of hell, except perhaps in a sort of Sartrean way. Shortly after that, I found myself rejecting large portions of the Bible, because the deity depicted therein did not live up to my moral standards. At that point I was finally ready to examine the evidence for God’s existence, and find it wanting.
I think in the end you will find that there are two things which can work. You must either point out that the beliefs lead to conclusions that are not just inconsistent, but also absurd, or you must point out that the beliefs lead to conclusions that contradict more “core” beliefs, such as “love your neighbor as yourself”.
Fred Clark is a liberal, fairly orthodox Christian. He blogs on a variety of subjects, including the birther/TeaParty movement, the deficiencies of creationism ([1] [2]), the strange phenomenon of religious hatred of homosexuals ([3] [4] [5]), and an interesting view on vampires. (He also has an entertaining ongoing series where he rips apart the popular fundie series ‘Left Behind’, and shows how the writers know nothing of their own religion, let alone how the real world works.)
You could do worse than to look at how he handles this sort of thing, from a religious perspective.