How not to get ridiculed by an Atheist

So, yesterday, I got an email from a youtuber asking me to friend him.  He is known as TheHonestTheist.  I didn’t.  But I did look at his video.  It was nice, a proselytizing piece about his revelations about faith. And aside from the fact he isn’t very honest because he got me to watch his video not by asking me for my opinion, but by pretending to want to be my friend, I thought he asked a really good question, which deserves a response.

The question is why do Atheists use ridicule as part of their debate tactics when talking with theists.  And, I have to admit, we do.  The problem is because when we are forced to debate theists because they don’t accept our atheism, we find ourselves immersed in a discussion that is ridiculous to us.  Everything the theist says sounds ridiculous.  And at some point, as much as we try to be patient, our overwhelming frustration at trying to have a rational conversation about something that is patently ridiculous just overwhelms us and we drift into outright ridicule.

That we are able to engage in discussions about belief rationally at all and at any time is a testament to how hard we actually try to be polite.  But at some point, we just can’t take it anymore.

For those of you who are theists, let me try to walk you through the ridicule problem.  There are basically 2 types of people in the world: people for whom god is obvious and people for whom god is not.  If gods are obvious to you, I am happy for you.  Just realize that they aren't for me.

I understand from talking to my friends for whom god is obvious that you can't comprehend why someone like me can't see what is so amazingly obvious to you.  And so, when you encounter a nonbeliever, you just don't believe they don't believe.  This disbelief in the possibility of disbelief usually results in an annoying session of how many different ways can you ask me “so… you really don’t believe.”  And trust me, if you have ever been asked the same question over and over and over again for 15 minutes, each time giving the same response and each time being greeted with disbelief that you could possible mean what you just said then you will understand why we get frustrated and why that frustration is hard to contain.

Eventually, you will finally come to accept that we atheists e really don't believe, then you try to reason with us.  And that is annoying to. And here's why. For those of us who don't believe, god is not obvious.  Not only is it not obvious that gods exist, there is literally no way beings such as gods as they are commonly conceived of could exist. The best people like me can do is try to translate the term god into something else that does make sense - like space aliens that ancient people just confused with gods.  But that is clearly not what you are talking about when you use the term god.

And that is the basic problem. Not only am I not able to conceive of such being existing, I also have no idea what you are talking about when you say the word god.  For me, god is a generic term referring to a wide range of characters in a variety of ancient stories. For me to understand what you are talking about you need to be more specific. When you say the word god are you talking about Thor?  Vishnu?  Ahmet?  Bal?  or some other god? 

Unless you tell me which specific god you believe exists and what you believe it is like, I have no way of knowing what you are referring to when you say the word "god."  You could believe in a pig god that has minion pig angels that are invisible and fly around protecting your car when you drive for all I know.

And this is why it is hard for us to not engage in ridicule. It doesn't matter what you say, the likelihood that your particular god actually exists is as likely to me as the existence of invisible flying pigs. As a result, when someone tells me what they believe it is REALLY hard for me not to respond with a "you believe what?!?!?!"  Seriously, it takes an amazing amount of self-discipline. 

What makes it difficult to be polite and not be snarky is that it is really hard to keep up that self-discipline when people of faith refuse to accept my lack of belief as valid. Trust me, I try.  If I had my druthers, when someone asked me if I believe, and I say no - that would be the end of the conversation.

Unfortunately, most people of faith just can't believe someone doesn't believe.  So they press the issue. But if you keep at me about why I dont' believe, I am eventually going to tell you why I don't believe and YOU aren't going to like it. Because the fact of the matter is - I don’t believe what you believe because what you say you believe sounds ridiculous to me. There is no nice way for me to say that without it sounding insulting, because it is insulting. 

And the more you press the issue, the worse it gets. All you are doing is trying to rationalize why your particular invisible flying pig really exists while all the others don't, and that just makes you sound increasingly ridiculous. The more you go on the harder it is for me to not respond with exasperation because ultimately, I really don't care what you believe.  Eventually I will just be totally honest with you and that means telling you I think your beliefs are ridiculous.

But you need to know that it is your behavior that is pushing me to that point. Trust me, I have lots of friends who believe and the reason we are friends is because I respect their beliefs even if they don't make sense to me and they respect my nonbelief even though it doesn't make sense to them.

Long story short, the best way to help me to not ridicule your beliefs is to keep your beliefs to yourself. Whatever you believe is fine with me.  Doesn't bother me in the slightest. You can even believe in invisible flying pigs if you want. I may think it is a little strange, but I respect your right to believe whatever nonsense you want to believe. Just please give me the same respect to not believe.