A Believer’s Guide To Talking To Atheists Is As Misguided As It Sounds

You know those cheesy crime dramas that have infested our pop culture like an extra-oozy case of the clap? There’s always that one cliche episode where a little girl has been traumatized by a serial killer dressed in a bear suit who kept her in a dungeon under the circus. They rescue the girl in the opening scene and run after the fleeing perp, while the CSI unit remains behind at the crime scene. Some red-headed Rico Suave swabs a potted cactus with blood all over it, pauses, puts on his sunglasses, looks at the camera and says,

“Looks like we have ourselves a… prickly situation.”

Yeeeeaaaaaaahhhhhhh…

Wait. I’ve gotten sidetracked. Where was I? Right, there’s always that little traumatized girl episode, and of course, she won’t speak. She won’t utter a word until the childless Detective Hippy McBigtits comes along and says,

“Let me handle this.”

She maneuvers her luscious, overflowing curves into the room, and sits down across from the little girl at a pink, plastic, miniature table (all police stations come equipped with these if NBC is any authority on the topic). We watch through the soundproof one-way glass, alongside all the helpless men in suits who failed before, as the little girl loosens her grip on her bloody teddy bear and starts talking. Just like that, like magic, the girl is talking and Hippy McBigtits decides right then and there that she wants Captain Ginger McCheeseface to stick a baby in her tonight.

My friends, Hippy McBigtits is the child whisperer. Hippy McBigtits knows how to talk to kids.

The thing about these poorly written episodes that seem to fool people into thinking they’re seeing original content, is that you flip off the television when you’re done. You come back down to Earth, where talking to children isn’t magic, and any cop who wears a crop top and mini skirt as her work clothes is only a "cop" on set.

We all know, in a world where Horatio Caine does not exist, that talking to anyone is as simple as saying,

“Hello!”

According to apologist Dennis Booth, however, atheists are a whole other monster. How to talk to an atheist is a point of discussion, as though we’re not just regular people, with regular lives and passions and hobbies and ability to engage in small talk. No, to Denny-Boo, we’re special. Touched, perhaps. We need big-hearted Denny to come and join us at the little atheist table to crack through our hard exterior. Dennis Booth, little loves, is the atheist whisperer.

In a post where he explores how to talk to atheists, Dennis says,

atheists have no way to describe what happens when they die….except more often than not the word “nothing”

This is called intellectual honesty, my little Bible-kisser. It’s when you don’t pretend to know something you don’t actually know. We have no way of describing what happens when we die because we don’t know what happens when we die. The very same way you don’t know what happens when we die, Den Den.

Christians on the other hand will believe they go to the afterlife (heaven hopefully) or want to believe that will happen. In other words one has hope and the other does not use the word at all.

Oh, Denster, you know, when you say stuff like this, you come off as an intellectually stunted. One can have hope in many things. It’s not limited to eternal life. If you think about it, Denny Doolittle, eternal life isn’t really something to be hoped for anyway, considering it requires you to be stripped of the option to end it, no matter how little you like it. I mean, especially if it’s the Christian version of eternal life where you either burn for eternity or you sit in comfort with the knowledge that others burn for eternity. Either way, that ain’t no eternity I’d want. Hope, to me, is more about what goes on down here, on planet earth… you know, that place we know exists.

The theory of evolution though has the belief that everything evolved over a period of time from some micro-organism.

No, tiny thinker, that’s not what evolution is. Evolution is gradual change in biological populations over many generations. It’s why I was born with blue eyes while both my parents were born with brown eyes.

This is where I like to have a discussion because if that is what they believe the end of the discussion is “who then made the micro-organism in the first place?”

Okay, there are three problems here. 1: “They believe” is incorrect. Those of us who accept evolution know based on mountains upon mountains of evidence that biological populations change over generations. There is no belief necessary. 2. “They believe” is also incorrect because there are atheists who do not accept that evolution is factual. Atheism and evolution are not interchangeable and are not related. There are even men and women who believe in god, who accept evolution as fact. 3. Evolution does not attempt to address the origins of life. It only addresses the diversity of species. What you’re looking for is abiogenesis, a theory for which we do not fully have yet.

Another argument against God is that how can he exist if he allows senseless killings, terrible torture etc to exist. ……well for a start he cannot allow death not to exist or else this world would become so over populated

So, tell me juicy fruit, how does he handle that problem in Heaven?

But the greatest attribute a Christian can have is not only his/her belief and faith but the knowledge that one day when the pass away they will be re-united with loved ones

You mean, you hope you’ll be reunited with them, and that none of them will be burning below you for eternity while you’re supposed to be filled with bliss up there in the fluffy clouds with the big guy. Have you thought about what it might be like to have to endure an eternity in Heaven with the knowledge that people you love are being tortured for all time? Or does it just not bother you?

and quite frankly if you hold on to that nothing will sway you against any argument an atheist puts up.

Ahh, yes, that’s the best way to be. Blindly cling to your fantasies in the face of any and all evidence. Just stick your fingers in your ears and belt out some “la la la”s.

I prefer Jesus’ version of hope at the end than that of the atheist….how about you?

Dickie-dee, you prefer to hang onto the ideas that make you feel warm and fuzzy, no matter how little evidence there is fort their truthfulness. Atheists, on the other hand, prefer to collect data and evidence from the world around us and use it to describe what we see. Like a good CSI team investigating a murder, we use the pieces of the puzzle we do have to understand reality and leave the gaps empty so we can fit the answers in when we find them. We prefer to admit when I don’t know, to recognize that we don’t know everything because many of us were duped into believing lies before and…

I guess you could say…

We won’t be fooled again.

Yeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh!

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