Expert: Austin Cline - 5/18/2005

Question
Hi,
I got really sick of those pastors and priest.
Every week, I saw my christian friends donating like 20 or 30 dollars for the church and we don't even know where the money will go. Maybe some damn pastors is planning on to be the next bill gates or happily spending everyday with some beautiful chicks.

The churches actually uses the same technique as the scientologist uses called the "dianetics", but they did it in little dose so that people aren't aware.

How can I help my friends? Why aren't the government doing anything to stop it? It sucks to see people giving their money to those XXXX pastor and seeing my friends collaspe in tears while because of the emotion-appealing music played by the church.

Their hostility towards any opposition whether its rational and evidenced-based or not made me feel worried, and sad.

When I tried to explain to them, they just easily got furious, and say that I don't understand about jesus and I'm too ignorant, and what's more, jesus told him so.

Please help.  

Answer
1. It's unlikely that you will "reach" your friends. You can't get a person to see reason if they don't see the point of reasoning in the first place.

2. If you are going to accomplish anything, you'll have to ignore religion for the time being. They are far too emotionally wrapped up in it to "hear" any criticisms you make. It's like a friend who is obsessed with a person who is cheating on them - they won't listen to you because they are in love.

3. Instead, you need to focus on getting them to better appreciate reason, skepticism, and critical thinking in general. They probably don't know how to reason well (most don't), so you'll have to help them learn this (you will probably learn more along the way, too, so you also get something out of it). Focus on non-religion topics. Focus on things that they already agree with you in some way. If they learn how to reason well and begin to adopt a habit of skepticism, then perhaps they will be able to apply the same critical thinking skills to religion.