There is one problem that the religious almost always seem to have and that is “everyone is just like I am!” We have a lot of discussions, but almost no theist can ever get past that stumbling block.

I’m in the middle of a discussion with a theist, who thinks they are defending God, but only by starting with all of the standard assumptions that Christians have, that God is real and has all of the characteristics that traditional Christianity, in this case, Catholicism, says that he does.

Sorry, you’re going to have to walk us through all of the steps to prove that. I don’t think the theist is going to do well.

This is something that, for some bizarre reason, they can’t get it through their heads. I can probably count the number of encounters on one hand, where the theist has come out the other side understanding why they are having so many problems convincing atheists.

This theist started off with the thesis that God has all of these omni-properties before setting off into their argument. I stopped them right there. How do you know any of that? He has no answers. Why? He’s just going with all of the things he’s been told from the pulpit and when faced with people who don’t take any of that seriously, he has no idea what to do.

This is exactly why I do not think anyone should let the religious rush downfield, past all of these obstacles. You stop them immediately. How do you know that? If the words “faith” or “Bible” or “my religion” come out of their mouths, they’ve lost. This guy did try to use the Bible, as if the Bible holds any weight to the non-religious. I asked how the people who wrote the Bible knew any of that, and keep in mind, we’re not accepting any faith claims. I don’t care what you believe, I care what you can prove. He hasn’t gotten back to me on that yet. I kind of suspect he’s going to make a run for it.

Because this is the problem, they have nothing. There is nothing beyond their faith and fee-fees that can justify these ridiculous claims. They just really want it to be true. That doesn’t mean that it is.

They don’t like that  fact, of course, but it doesn’t stop it from being a fact. I told him that he wouldn’t accept something the Muslims said, just because it said so in the Qur’an, or something a Hindu said, just because it said so in the Vedas. Your book means nothing to anyone but you and you walked in here, away from your religious echo chamber, and tried to use tactics that nobody in their right mind should expect to work.

Of course, they still think that everyone is like they are. It’s why they rely on things like Romans 1:18-21. Everyone knows their god is real, right? The Bible says so! Well, the Qur’an says everyone knows Allah is real. Are they going to buy into that one? I didn’t think so.

We just keep going around and around in circles, with them saying all the things they believe on faith and us saying “so what?” It’s usually at a time like this that they turn tail and run because they have no ability to back up their claims absent their own blind faith. Just because they want it to be true, that doesn’t make it true.

If they could just figure that one out, they’d be on a path toward rationality. Wouldn’t that be nice?