rationalskepticism.org

kravarnik wrote:I was directed to this board due to me saying there are barely any civil atheistic forums, with a relatively large memberbase. I believe this thread to be redundant, as I believe the issue lies much deeper. To be more precise, it lies in the misconceptions about the opposite camp and especially the lack of interest for comprehending the opposition. And these miscoceptions are not exclusive to atheists or theist, but to people in general.


What I mean is, if you view religion/non-religion/atheism/-insert what you like- as evil, irrational and stupid, then most likely you won't be handling its adherents in a good manner, since all you see in their actions are negative attributes. You won't be seeing your counterparts as people who genuinely seek the truth, as you do, but as evil people who try to win you on their side. Their ways and reasoning becomes deceptive to you, thus false and deservent of bad treatment. This does no good to anyone, nor the very purpose of discourse - to seek and find the truth.

I believe we need more comprehension. We need to understand that these people, who spit out words which are seemingly false and non-sensical, are just like us, trying to find the truth, or sharing what they deem to be truthful, even though, to us it's of no intellectual value. We need to understand that these people are like ourselves, although mistaken in our eyes. Try to void mockery, try to avoid the snarky remarks for easy points of witt, try to be more understanding, etc. This will only help, I promise you.

I am a Christian and I really hope there are people capable of understanding, capable of sensing genuineness.