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Sean Faircloth:
Attack of the Theocrats!
There are two kinds of anti-god argument: ones that atheists find convincing and ones that Christians find troubling.
I think the prime argument for believing in a god is the god will torment you in eternity if you dismiss it as a crock. It is an "expected value" argument. Even though the probability of the god existing may be vanishingly small, the negative payoff is unacceptable if it does.
I notice the the Muslims ratchet this argument up an order of magnitude from the Christians. It is quite effective.
To free someone of the notion of Jehovah, you need an extreme level of convincing to overcome that argument. 99% sure god does not exist is not good enough.
The primary focus then has to be freeing people of fear of the god-monster Jehovah.
How? Transfer fear from god to clergy. Do "dangerous" things and taunt Jehovah to harm you, and show it does not happen. Arguments why a rational god would not behave so badly. I think people would prefer to believe in a kind god.
Permalink Fri, 27 Jul 2012 10:26:21 UTC | #950149