Tactical Approach

What's the best approach to lead theist friends to atheism?

If you are an atheist what is more important to you: 1. Seeing a theist friend come to the realization that the idea of god is nothing more than a construct of the human mind throughout human evolution or 2. that your theist friend comes to the realization that science is the the best tool ever devised to understanding how the world works? It's very difficult leading a theist back through all the unfounded nonsense they accepted as fact because this ordained fellow said this, or this old book said that. It's a challenge to get them to meet you on the same page which is: "I don't know". It's hard to know where to start.

Each atheist has their own path to atheism. Some had to be de-converted like myself. Others were brought up from atheist parents and just stayed the course. For those that are active atheists it can be difficult to get our theist friends to talk about theism or atheism. There are a few exceptions in my personal life, but not many. Most ignore the subject due to "keeping the peace". Which I used to understand (comfort level), but no longer do. I do not agree with bottling things up. As friends or family, I despise not communicating our differences. The human animal is so sensitive to disagreements. I always notice I am when proven wrong about something I thought was true. I feel like I'm getting better at noticing that and understanding the merit of that, but it's a work in progress. It's healthy. It's easy to knee-jerk reaction everything.

There is this idea that the "new atheist" movement is militant (in a bullying verbal/written form). It's just as fundamentalist as the theist fundamentalists that they are "trashing". Despite the obvious flaw in logic in that last sentence, it's clear that there is push back against the "four horsemen"  (Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens (RIP)) not just from the obvious theists but from agnostics and even some atheists. In general, atheists are not used to standing up and fighting for their ideology. People do not like the abrasive approach of these "new atheists". I guess because having a youtube channel, public debates, lectures, or releasing books for sale are abrasive approaches. I'm not sure I get the "abrasive attack" characterization. I can see how people may have thought Hitchens was a smart-ass at times but he was incredibly polite to all the people he debated (a.k.a. intellectually destroyed) and to the host of whatever show he was on. Same goes with Dawkins, Harris and Dennett. The closest I've seen Dawkins being angry was in an interview with O'Reilly (how can anyone not get annoyed with O'Reilly's attack interviewing style though?)

So the issue is knowing where to start in getting your theist friends to the ultimate mental/physical freedom of atheism. I've noticed when debating fundamentalist Christians, (people that still attend the church I attended throughout my childhood for example) they do not take science seriously. Not only do they not take valid scientific theories like the theory of evolution seriously but they do not respect/adhere to/practice the scientific method as a whole in every day life. In other words, they do not think scientifically about things. Obviously these theist I'm speaking of are not informed enough on the subject they object to: Evolution, for example. That's clear, but the core of the problem is: they do not understand how science works.

What if it's better for the theists I'm speaking of to start with discovering science and most importantly the scientific method. Maybe it is better for some to go the Kenneth Miller route. Kenneth Miller is a theist and a evolutionary biologist. He has fought publicly in the courtrooms against the teaching of Intelligent Design in the biology classroom in public schools in the U.S. He understands that Creationism is not science. His book is called "Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution". However before this book, it may be important to point to your theist friends in the direction of some basic books on science methodology. Maybe point to some works by Carl Sagan. If we can get the theist to meet us in the "I don't know. you don't know" arena then we can have an actual debate about god or no god.  No specific privilege for God said so in my book. Science has to be the measuring stick.

In a recent "Big Think" youtube video Neil DeGrasse Tyson explains why he is an agnostic and not an atheist. Neil is a genius astrophysicist and a personal hero of mine. I love his passion for advancing science literacy to everyone around the world. Though I find some fault (not much though) in what Tyson says in the video about his characterizations of atheists I do have to wonder if he hits the nail on the head near the end of the video when he says, "I'm a scientist. I'm an educator. My goal is to get people thinking straight in the first place. Just get you curious about the natural world." This may be a more effective approach to leading your theist friend to atheism. Get them started with science. Share with your theist friends the joys and the usefulness of skepticism. Get them obsessed with being a skeptic. It's absolutely critical and above all: evidence, evidence, evidence! Extraordinary amounts of it for an extraordinary hypothesis.

If we get the theist to become a scientifically literate individual then we will get them to become a step closer to reasoning away a theistic view of God then.. a deistic view (which is always the last to go, but seems to go quickly once we've let go of the infallible "word of god") At the end of the day we have to ask ourselves as atheists what we really would wish for our theist friends. We obviously want to help set their minds free from being a mental/physical slave to a celestial dictator. However, more importantly we want them to understand the natural world through the tools of science. This to me is the most important. This most likely (not always) will lead them to the path of at the very least, agnosticism. It takes magnificent mental acrobatic maneuvers to know enough science and still believe in any holy book as literal truth. Show your theist friends the wonders of all things science and let the brain do the rest.