[ernesto905]

> when all hope is lost in conversation, retreat into your self

This speaks to me quite a bit, particularly around unfalsifiable topics I'll have with friends/family, such as theology. If we define hope as the idea they'll change their mind and agree with me, seems not much one can do but retreat into themself, right? I suppose I can sympathize with their sentiment before I retreat into myself, but taking this bullet point at face value I'm unsure how to make this a pro-social experience :/

[appreciatorBus]

It’s possible to be social with people who hold opinions you disagree with. Being social and recognizing or even celebrating our shared humanity does not require having the same opinions and ideas as the other person.

[bityard]

100% agree. Unfortunately tribalism is very trendy right now, especially on social media and online communities.

[em-bee]

yes, but that means that hope is not lost yet. for me, all hope is lost when people stop listening if i said something they disagree with, even if i follow up with something they do agree with (which is usually my tactic in this case, find common ground, and then expand from there). to be social with people who disagree requires both sides to want to continue the conversation. both sides need to believe that having the same opinions is not required. if they don't want to continue then i can try as i might, but at that point hope is lost.

[appreciatorBus]

You can also simply chose not to talk about controversial topics where you suspect such deep disagreements might lie.

In my experience the only way to really connect across those divides is to first have a long history, months or years, of productive and positive social interaction. But you don’t get control how others think and feel, even if by some theoretical measure, your position is “right”. So even under the best of circumstances you just have to accept and resist that others think differently.

[appreciatorBus]

lol I meant 'accept and respect that others think differently' 'resist' is not gonna work

[weett]

Maybe the trying to get people to change their mind part is where you're going wrong

[lucky_cloud]

You need to question whether you really need to have the conversation in those terms. A conversation about religion/theology is not like a conversation about physics or math. If you insist on applying scientific rigor to matters of faith, you are and will remain fully confused.

I bet if you observe your own mind for long enough, you'll find some part of your life which requires you to have faith too. Use that to understand your friends and family better. The next time you find yourself in a conversation with them about religion, ask them about their faith (not their religion). You will gain a deeper and more nuanced understanding of how they navigate the world.

If you can have that conversation, go ahead and ask them about their religious beliefs, withholding judgement unless/until they say something morally objectionable. You can think of their religion like any other mythology, and you get to play sociologist for a while. There's a fascinating variety of responses people give to even fundamental questions - e.g. "what is god?".

This open approach is not only much easier for everyone, it's also more useful in the long term. My neighbor has an interesting mashup of beliefs that includes a decent chunk of Christianity. She sometimes has bad anxiety, and unfortunately she can't afford treatment for it. I've helped her out of panic attacks using two methods: 1 - I've given her a clonazepam tablet and 2 - I've quoted scripture to her (e.g. "behold the lilies of the field"). Both methods work, and the latter tends to work faster.

It's different if the person is using their religion as a cover for engaging in or supporting something morally evil. That's a trickier conversation and often one not really worth having, depending on your relationship and how comfortable/willing you are to attempt to correct them.

[legacynl]

(If you're an atheist) You shouldn't debate theology with religious people. The whole idea of religion is that they 'believe' despite their experiences, facts, reasoning and logic. There's literally nothing to gain from using logic and reasoning to debate religious people.

edit: also the article is sarcastic. You shouldn't retreat into yourself just because you cannot agree on something. Talk about something else.

[NateEag]

Some religious people believe because of their experiences.

See the (very rare, statistically) experiencers of spontaneous remissions the Catholic Church declares miraculous healings, such as Dafne Gutierrez:

https://catholic-miracles.com/miracle/charbel-makhlouf-dafne...

I'm not personally sure that's a supernatural event, but if I'd had my eyes deteriorating for years, undergone multiple failed surgeries to stave off blindness, become fully blind, had doctors tell me I was irrepairably blind, and lived without eyesight for years, then had it come back within two days of praying to a Catholic saint for healing...

Well, I doubt I'd still be agnostic after that.

[legacynl]

> Well, I doubt I'd still be agnostic after that.

To me that doesn't follow logically. What if instead of praying to some saint, they found their lucky underwear that they lost when they were a child, and wore that for the first time again? Would that proof that the lucky underwear was somehow instrumental in fixing their eyes?

Apparently the body was able to heal her own eyes, and it would have happened if she prayed to the saint or not.

[NateEag]

> Would that proof that the lucky underwear was somehow instrumental in fixing their eyes?

No, obviously not, as there's no reason to believe the underwear are sentient.

Rapidly getting what you ask for, when experts have generally agreed it's impossible, would be very striking.

> Apparently the body was able to heal her own eyes

There's no more evidence for that claim than there is for the claim that a saint did it.

Indeed, the fact that medical personnel say "This does not happen" is arguably evidence against the "it was a natural coincidence" interpretation.

I don't mean to suggest that anyone experiencing such a healing should or would necessarily become religious.

I'm just saying that personally, given my other life experiences this far, I probably would ratchet my probability of there being some unnatural power capable of intervening in the universe from ~55% to 90%, if I experienced sudden, dramatic healing of incurable blindness promptly after praying for it.

And, returning to my original point, there are people out there who asked for something vanishingly rare to the point that some experts label it impossible, then get it quite rapidly after praying for it.

That's a fairly reasonable reason to believe in a personal God of some sort, even if it's not the only plausible explanation.

[hootz]

How can there be nothing to gain, when discussions around the subject helped convince me about atheism? I was born catholic and my family is catholic. If no one talked about it, I'd probably still be going to mass every sunday.

[derangedHorse]

You might have better luck with your hope to be mutual understanding. Seek first to understand, then to be understood.

[thrie838r9fnr]

Theology is quite predictable rigid scientific field, something like law. You just have to define which set of rules you are using (catholic orthodox, shia islam...) There are thousands of books with notes, precedents... going back thousands years. Thousands branches...

Calling theology "unfalsiable" is ignorant. Like saying math is unfalsiable, because there are multiple geometries and nobody understands it anyway.