Getting Past Those Conversation Stoppers

Comment by: Ir

becca, I’m really glad you didn’t say anything whiny or fake. I actually think erring on the side of saying too little is a lot less hurtful in those situations than saying too much. It’s hard to be in a situation like that where just hearing you’re a Christian brings up a whole lot of emotion for someone else.

If that had happened to me I might have said “Wow - you’re a pastor’s kid? That’s such a hard way to grow up, having the spotlight on you like that. I feel sorry for any kids who have to go through that.” I might have said it because I have thought about how hard it must be and it’s really true that I feel sorry for them. (Children of any public figure probably face similar unusual pressures)

I might also have said “hey, swear all you like around me if it helps. It doesn’t bother me at all” - because that also is true.

Comment by: Eliza

Ir said: It seems to me that the value of admitting you’re an atheist is that by doing so, you might contribute a little bit to undoing the misconceptions about atheists that seems to abound in our society.

On the other hand, it’s risky, because those very misconceptions may cause the admission to have negative consequences to you.

This comes up most commonly with my older and/or sicker patients. I don’t want to be dishonest, but it also seems in these situations that they assume someone who is caring must be a Christian, and that these folks are at a place in life where throwing a curve ball like my atheism at them could be more detrimental to them, and our relationship, than not correcting the assumption. But again, I don’t want to actively mislead them at all.

It’s funny, when someone has asked if I’m Christian and I say “no”, the next assumption has been that I’m Jewish, and I say “no”…like if I don’t offer atheism as the answer, there’s a multiple choice test & it might be a while before they get to “none of the above”!

Comment by: Eliza

Thanks, Ir. I like your way of putting it - that feels like what’s going on in those settings.

TXatheist said:

It is threatening to me in that I don’t want to offend but I’m going to be honest so they become defensive.

Are there ways of phrasing your response that are honest but hopefully not offensive or threatening? Maybe, “I also have strong beliefs, but mine are different from yours.” That might leave the possibility of conversation open - who can argue, telling someone that their beliefs aren’t strong?

Comment by: KSG

TX - thanks for saying, “those type of xians”, instead of generalizing. Re. comment #4.

Eliza said:

So: Why is sharing beliefs related to religion so uncomfortable, and so often a conversation stopper in real life? Is everyone expecting that the conversation will devolve into an argument, or an attempt to convert them from their own beliefs? Is it threatening? Does it help to acknowledge these things?

I wonder if the reason is because so many people have doubts about what they profess to believe. Insecurity often manifests itself as either defensiveness or arrogance.

I’m also convinced that those of us who know the truth (Atheist or Xian) and hold to it with confidence also need a heavy dose of humility, so that when interacting with people (who either hold to other beliefs or who’s hold on our similar beliefs are more fragile) we can be respectful towards them.

Comment by: Jim Henderson

I recently reconnected with an old friend high shcool friend who originally tried to convert me to Christianity but I turned him onto Jazz instead and later we introduced each other to various types of drugs and music. We’re starting a blues band up just for therapy sake. He became as very serious Buddhist and I a Christian. We both remain such but not as serious (in the fundalmentalistic sense)I know - pretty funny. I was visiting with him today at his used record store when another old drug friend - now retired and living in Mexico - sober (most of the time I suppose) dropped in. He and I had not seen each other in close to 40 years and he wanted to know “what I’d been doing” - I was a pastor and now I interview people about their spiritual life (Was my response this time) He tried to care and connect but just didn;t have space for me in his world so that was effectively the end of the conversation until he reminded me that the US is becoming more facist due to right wing Cs (he didn’t ask me/he told me and he would have been surprised at how close I am to his politics)but he didn’t know how to talk with a C who wasn’t a right winger so we didn’t go there.

I presume that As would feel much the same about coming out knowing that their listeners lacked appropritate nuance knowledge to provide them a “space” to be something other than the one dimensional model most people have.

Anyway - all that to say that I get tired of the weird feelings people have when I tell them I’m a C so I avoid it unless they prove themself to be somewhat serious. I can easily divert most conversations away from myself and back onto others since they rarely notice it happening and we kill the conversation by focusing on them which most people prefer anyway.

I think for the most part being interested in others is the best plan. It is the rare person who asks questions or truly inquires. Our mission at Off The Map is to help Cs learn this sadly lacking skill and to follow the conversatio even if it heads in a direction they find challenging.

Comment by: becca

KSG, I like what you said about “humility.” Xian or Atheist will never be able to dialogue w/out one or both being willing to “de-escalate” (I know there’s a better word :-}) the tension.

Comment by: Ir

NCXian, I think that applies to other labels too as well as ‘Christian’ and ‘atheist’ - that’s why I think the only answer to achieve a meaningful level of understand is to talk things through.

But not everyone wants to take time to do that.

Comment by: Ir

Jim wrote: I think for the most part being interested in others is the best plan. It is the rare person who asks questions or truly inquires. Our mission at Off The Map is to help Cs learn this sadly lacking skill and to follow the conversation even if it heads in a direction they find challenging.

Neat.

I think some Christians confuse ‘wanting to get others saved’ with ‘being interested in others’.

I think it’s true that Christians who are interested in others will want others to share their beliefs - but I don’t think it’s true that Christians who want others to share their beliefs are necessarily interested in them as well.

Comment by: Siamang

NC, great post.

Don’t change your moniker! I like it!

Comment by: Lisa

This weekend I attended a women’s retreat put on by the church I attend. I came back to work today and mentioned this event to my coworkers. I found myself first mentioning the wine we drank, how late we stayed up and how much hysterical fun I had in addition to the spirtually uplifting experience. I wanted to dissolve any preconceived notions they might have had about what a women’s church retreat looks like. It takes a little bit of effort for me to do this but the conversation gets off to a more interesting start and less redirecting needs to occur.

During the retreat 30some women each admitted their most embarrassing moments. It doesn’t get more real than that!I freely admit to drinking good wine and committing what some would consider glutony.

Comment by: Kathleen

I’ve pretty much just lurked here on and off for a while, but this discussion really interests me. I’m a 19 yo college student, and a Catholic. Even at a Catholic college (and I don’t go for that reason, it’s the best school I got into :-), most of my friends are either committed athiests or lapsed Catholics. A few are those Protestants to whom a Catholic is almost as bad as an athiest, if not worse. I’m always surprised when I run into an aquaintance at church, mostly because my experience with the peers to whom I’m closest is that college kids don’t believe in God, and that I’m an anomaly. I won’t say that I have difficulty “coming out” (I wear a crucifix almost all the time, so that’s pretty much taken care of, though I don’t know whether most people actually notice), but my experience is that the most uncomfortable thing about openly being a Christian isn’t that people fear that I’ll try to convert them (maybe Catholics escape that stereotype?) but that they look down on me, see me as the superstitious, gullible one. Believing in God is like believing in Santa Claus, or the Tooth Fairy. No rational person should do it. Silly Kathleen’s always getting up early, or missing the end of the movie to make it to Mass on time. I’ve met athiests - many - who don’t act like that, but that’s the response I fear when religion comes up.

Comment by: Eliza

Kathleen - Thank you for describing your situation. Wow.

Among your friends, is your faith and mass attendance ever discussed or alluded to in a way that you can tell them something like, “look, this is what I believe. It’s part of me, and it’s important to me.” Basically, acknowledging the issue, owning your belief (not letting them assume you are just floating along with it somehow), and asking that they respect what it means to you, even if they don’t respect it otherwise…

Comment by: Eliza

Lisa - it sounds like you had a load of fun!

It takes a little bit of effort for me to do this but the conversation gets off to a more interesting start and less redirecting needs to occur.

It sounds like starting with the common ground sets the stage, so to speak. Do you find that the conversation can keep going, further than it would otherwise, when you think about opening it this way?

Comment by: Lisa

eliza said,

It sounds like starting with the common ground sets the stage, so to speak. Do you find that the conversation can keep going, further than it would otherwise, when you think about opening it this way?

Yes, actually the payoff is that I get the chance to dispell the image they have in their minds. And I get to be myself in the process. It usually leads to conversations about needs women have to retreat or about spirituality. Very cool.

Comment by: Tom in Sacramento

I came to the conclusion a long time ago that, from a Christian perspective, if I tell someone about Christ, I am telling them something that is Absolute Truth that can have an impact on them both now and for eternity. But from an unbeliever’s perspective, I am just sharing one person’s opinion on their own world view. And if I am not willing to listen to their opinion of their world view, why would I expect them to listen to my opinion of my world view?

This really took the heat off the compulsion tto witness that Ir refered to in her earlier faith-oriented life above. And it also utterly changed my approach to people I didn’t know. Without that compulsion, people became fun to be around and an endless source of learning and enjoyment. I really became interested in people for their own sake.

And then I discovered that there are so few people in the world that ARE interested in people for their own sake, that if you are, you become an icon in the circles you travel in.

And once that happens people become interested in what you have to say about a wide range of things. IOW, by being selfless in your approach to people you are granted the right to be heard.

But you can’t fake it. If your motivation is to “win them” it’ll never work. But if your motivation is to enjoy them, you may get the opportunity to tell them why you are the way you are, too.

Comment by: Ir

TXatheist wrote: If [Christians] tell me god is real and jesus died for me and then ask me what I think do I just say no I don’t believe that? Hardly. There is no realization on their part that it’s absurd to think god and heaven are true and I’m only allowing ignorance to be spoken without at least having them hear WHY it’s absurd.

TX, if Christians tell you their beliefs and ask what you think I see no reason not to give the honest answer “I think your beliefs are absurd”.

You already know I would prefer you to say “I think your beliefs are absurd” - which is absolutely true and they have no basis for saying you don’t think what you do think, rather than “your beliefs are absurd”, which cannot be proven and may incite them to try to argue the point.

My husband likes to say, don’t ask the question if you’re not prepared to hear the answer. Christians shouldn’t ask you what you think if they aren’t prepared to hear what you think.

Comment by: Tom in Sacramento

What was that question about conversation stoppers again?

Comment by: Eliza

Rorgg has posted his side of a conversation he tried to have with a pastor on the Discussion Board here.

Comment by: Eliza

TX,

Please cite one example of where someone was dead, really dead, not unconscious or comatose and they had brain activity.

We agree, see above, dead = dead. Dead body = dead brain. Absence of brain activity (flatline EEG) even in the presence of a beating heart is defined as death in modern times. Any case that claims otherwise, like cases where people fell through ice into a lake and are pulled out cold, blue, pulseless, and not breathing but then are successfully resuscitated, they were not actually dead - just appeared to be.

Please cite one example where you learned about the soul in your human anatomy class.

I slept through that class session. :) No, again, we agree. No one has ever captured or measured a soul. We don’t have any model for something that carries information without matter or energy, it violates the laws of physics, it doesn’t exist as we understand existence and the “real world”. The brain doesn’t sense itself & interprets manifestations it creates, like “the mind” (and hallucinations), as separate real entities but they aren’t.

It’s just as possible to say I’m GOD and I just fill your heads with ideas because you all entertain me. You can’t prove that isn’t happening can you?

Correct, except that I can say that you’ve managed to create these figments in a way that reproducibly obeys natural laws, good work! I had thoughts like this when I was a kid, you know “what if it were all in my imagination”, but I think we have to accept that those scenarios are far-fetched and don’t fit well with observations.

Also, I’m not claiming exclusive truth but some things are true, like the brain ceases to function shortly after death and that we are disposed of. I can find billions of examples of that. Test any dead body.

Yup, see above, we agree, testing not necessary at this moment to prove it but thanks for the offer.

Now, I could also tell you that I am GOD and me, the sea monster and mountain goats trick you because we know when someone is going to test the brain for electrical impulses and we are capable of stopping the brain while you are testing them but the brains never really die or cease, we just let you think they are. Again, you can’t disprove that I don’t control all humans along with my sea monster and mountain goat friends. (I’m trying not to laugh).

That’s OK, don’t feel you have to hold it in - but be careful, if you go around saying stuff like this you may get locked up. The sea creatures and mountain goats were an analogy, sorry if I didn’t make that clear enough for ya :)

I guess all beliefs of what happens to us and our soul are equally valid then. You can’t prove there is no soul or afterlife so it’s surely possible if not probable.

I’ll try again. What is a soul? Well, I think it’s a manifestation of the brain & dies when the brain dies. Certainly our ability to interact with a person and their soul is gone when the brain dies. But since we can’t measure or capture a soul, nor describe it with 100% certainty, is it possible that it is something, and goes somewhere, that is so completely outside of our experiences and not captured by our 5 senses that we just can’t observe, or measure, or fathom its true nature of the soul. I’m not a New Age type. I actually don’t believe the soul is separate from the brain. But I think it’s a mistake to assume that we can sense and understand everything there is. That was my point.

Last salvo, as I’m realizing how very off-topic this post is! Can an equilateral triangle have three 90 degree angles? If you can find a solution, you are thinking outside the box of planar geometry and maybe what I’ve said above will make more sense.

Comment by: Eliza

Tom - yes! The “impossible triangle” example comes from Sphereland, a sort of sequel to Flatland. I hadn’t interpreted those books as being about anything other than geometric worlds and interactions between them, but someone on the Discussion Board mentioned Flatland as alluding to contact with an other who can’t be fully understood or seen, because it/he exists in one more dimension (3-d instead of 2-d). It’s kind of neat because it suggests how miracles in a 2d world might just be manifestations of normal actions in a 3d world…leaving it hard for us to understand, exactly, how/whether that applies to us, but wondering whether it’s not completely impossible.

Comment by: NCxian

Eliza: I would love to hear about your retreat experience. I have a personal “working thesis” that later generations of folks are getting less squeamish about talking about spirituality. As compared to folks in my parents generation (they’re 70-somethings) who think that religion is not a topic for public discussion. I’m curious to know how your colleagues of different ages react.

I am also thinking younger folks are more likely to think outside the box (read “traditional religious structures”) in regard to spirituality, which may be why they are more likely to talk about it. They don’t anticipate the conversation devolving into “First Presbyterian” is a better church than “St. Peter’s Episcopalian”. They could really care less.

Perhaps they are also more likely to imagine something existing outside of the reality they can sense, having been raised with quarks and expanding/contracting space and synergy . . .? I haven’t thought as much about that, so I haven’t added it to my “I wonder” list yet.

As I said, I’m trying these thoughts on for fit, so I am just collecting . . . (man, I almost wrote the “e” word.)

Comment by: Ir

Wow, I think that’s the whole problem with many evangelicals. You don’t witness door-to-door, there’s no basis in the Bible for it whatsoever.

That reminds me of a comment I heard by a guest preacher once which seemed very silly to me. He said, in effect “the world assaults us as soon as we walk out the door” (by ‘the world’ he meant ‘non-Christian values’).

I already didn’t agree with him, but in view of TX and Peter’s comments I’m thinking he actually got it backwards - it’s Christians (who do door-to-door witnessing) that assault non-Christians as soon as they open their doors!

Comment by: Tom in Sacramento

TX,
Perhaps, Acts 5:42 — Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Christ. This is from Acts, so it is the disciples, rather than Jesus, but your point still stands. That’s interesting. I never knew why they used that model.

From the context, I’d say they abuse the text. But it is easy to see their thinking. Thanks.

Comment by: TXatheist

Peter and Tom,
I hope you guys don’t expect me to justify the JW christian mentality. I can only tell you why they do it but it won’t matter if we agree or don’t agree why they do. I would bet they ain’t going to stop. NO front door is safe on Saturday mornings! You could be next:)

Comment by: TXatheist

I want to have a discussion with them but that issue that your mentioning is part of my anti-trinity training and I know what you are talking about. We could round and round on the Trinity. No thanks:)

Comment by: Ir

Thinking about this…maybe it’s that each of us is, so to speak, assaulted by “others” when we step outside of our safe places?

Maybe what we are trying to do here - in part - is figure out how to talk to each other about things that might take us a little outside our safe places, without ‘assaulting’ each other?

(TX you said you were taking something I said to the discussion board but I didn’t see it. Maybe you changed your mind; if not then please give me the link and I’ll go there)

Comment by: TXatheist

sorry, I just took it over there 1 hour ago.

Comment by: KSG

Eliza, sorry for not responding to #10 until now…my thinking of what those conversations would look like primarily involve listening and asking questions, and disagreeing by acknowledging the other person’s right to have an opposing position without acknowledging that they are right.
I would add that I am tired of (and unwilling to tolerate) arrogance in “conversations”. Usually those “conversations” are not real, they are in fact speeches (preaching), debates, or arguments.
In #54, Peter echoes my comments from #9…
Peter (#54)

I think too often people “assault” others with their beliefs because they are themselves very unsure in them.

KSG (#9)

I wonder if the reason is because so many people have doubts about what they profess to believe. Insecurity often manifests itself as either defensiveness or arrogance.