The Problem of Proselytizing

I have always been an atheist. My parents made it pretty clear: From a young age I knew we were Jewish, and we did not worship or believe in God. (Apparently, I was less clear on the distinction between the two, which led to me being enrolled in Hebrew School until I could differentiate them.) I have no “atheist conversion story,” although I could tell the story of how I became a skeptic some time.

That is a different article, however. The point I am trying to make is that I am happy as an atheist. I have never felt any particular need to be anything other than an atheist, never felt that I wanted to be anything other than an atheist, and never felt that I was missing out on anything by being an atheist.

Being an atheist is a huge part of who I am. I could not stop being an atheist without completely revising my outlook on the world. Becoming a believer would not be as simple as switching the “God” switch from “Yes” to “No.” In order to believe that God (or gods, or an impersonal supernatural force that comprised a privileged reference frame from which to view questions of morality and value) exists, I would have to redefine my understanding of the word “exists” to be able to include things not made of matter. I would have to redefine my definition of “true,” my definition of “evidence,” my definition of “reality.” I would have to completely revise the way I view the universe, and to get there, I would have to completely destroy the way I view the universe.

And beyond the existential distress of utterly transforming my worldview, there’s the social distress, too. Would such a drastic change influence the way my friends see me? Would it change my relationship with my fiancee? Depending on which religion I turned to, would it hurt my relationship with any of my family members?

No matter how it happened, becoming a believer would be an extremely stressful and painful experience. I’ve been told, by people who have done it, that the other way around is just as traumatic.

***

Greta Christina posted last month ^[1] that, “For many atheists, our main goal is persuading the world out of religion.” She goes on in the same post to establish herself in favor of that position:

We don’t want to see this happen by law or violence or any kind of force, of course. But we think religion isn’t just mistaken. We think it’s harmful. Some of think it’s appallingly harmful. Some of us think it’s inherently harmful: that the very qualities that make religion unique are exactly what make it capable of doing terrible harm. What’s more, we see religion as not just hurting atheists. We see it as hurting billions of believers. So we’re working towards a world where it no longer exists.

So, according to Greta Christina, her primary goal as an atheist is to make most of the world’s population suffer the trauma of losing their faith, so that they can then be better (read: more Greta Christina-like) people with truer (read: more similar to Greta Christina’s) beliefs. And I should be okay with this, because she promises not to use legal coercion or violence to bring it about.

I am not okay with this.

For starters, I am a skeptic. I demand truth claims be backed with empirical evidence. So: Where is the empirical evidence that religious belief is harmful, either to believers or non-believers? I want a serious study here: A comparison of abuse of power in religious institutions to similarly structured secular institutions, say, or of domestic abuse rates between religious and non-religious households, corrected for factors known or suspected to influence abuse rates not directly attributable to religion (such as authoritarianism, substance abuse, and abuse rates in past generations). Give me hard, empirical data that religion is harmful--that bad religious people would be less bad if they were atheists, that good religious people would be better if they were atheists, that suffering religious people would suffer less if they were atheists.

Then prove that it is always better to be atheist than religious. Show that there is never a person better off as a religious person, never a person whose religious faith makes the world around them better. Because if there is even one such person, then a world with universal atheism is worse than a world of pluralistic belief.

I find it absurd I have to make this argument. Somehow, large numbers of otherwise clearly very intelligent atheists are able to avoid seeing the blatant irony and hypocrisy of insisting, with no evidence whatsoever, that belief without evidence is harmful.

Second of all, I like diversity. Diversity is powerful and useful. In most fields of endeavor, empirical data and truth are not of primary importance; you can do data entry equally well regardless of whether you understand electronics or think your computer is powered by tiny gnomes. Without religious perspectives in particular, art, literature, music, and architecture would be sadly diminished. Imagine a world with no Sagrada Familia^[2], no Angkor Wat^[3], no Eddas^[4], no Lord of the Rings^[5], no Bach^[6]… the list is unfathomably long.

It is clear that, misapplied, religious faith is a hindrance to scientific and technical endeavors--creationism proves that. However, the existence of non-religious anti-science movements such as global warming denialism and the anti-vax movement call into question whether it is actually religion that is the problem, or clinging to demonstrably false, harmful beliefs in the face of overwhelming evidence, which hardly seems an exclusive problem of the religious. Meanwhile, the existence of religious scientists in large numbers (one 2007 study^[7] found that more than a third of biologists and psychologists believe in God or gods) suggests that religious faith is not an insurmountable obstacle to scientific endeavor, if it is even necessarily an obstacle at all (which I regard as, at the very least, not proven).

Third, and most importantly: You do not have a right to make others suffer for your beliefs.

No one has that right. Ever.

If Greta Christina’s assessment of religion were correct--if all religious belief is both false and inherently harmful--then religion would be not only a mental illness, but the most widespread mental illness in history. But even if that were true (and I do not believe it is), you do not have a right to cure people by force unless they are demonstrably an immediate danger to themselves or others.

I cannot reiterate this enough: Proselytizing is yet another word for making people suffer in order to transform them into what you think they should be, for no other reason than because they are not what you think they should be.

What Greta Christina advocates--what any atheist advocates when they suggest “increasing the numbers of atheists” as a laudable goal, what any adherent of any religion advocates when they suggest “increasing the number of members of my religion”--is evil in one of its purest forms.

--Froborr

---

^[1] What Are The Goals of the Atheist Movement?↩

^[2] Sagrada Família↩

^[3] Angkor Wat↩

^[4] Edda↩

^[5] Lord of the Rings↩

^[6] Johann Sebastian Bach↩

^[7] How Religious are America’s College and University Professors?↩

---

 

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Comments

[sarah]

A world without Bach would be a dark one indeed.

I think I have more to say, but I want to process before I post. In any case, thanks for this post, Froborr.

[Patrick]

Stop equating "convincing people by means of discussion" with "force." That is not ok.

[ZMiles]

(Wall of text. TW: refs to suicide, Hell, damnation, Phelps-esque beliefs, homophobia, violence)

The trauma?

When I was a Christian, I lived in total fear that my relatives, all atheist, would die and go to Hell. I lived in fear that I would sin, and die before I could beg forgiveness, and go to Hell. I feared that I would be called to 'take up my cross and follow Him,' that is, be forced to suddenly chuck everything I wanted to do with my life because of some religious calling.

I knew, based on my study of the Bible, that leisure and religion don't mix. That any moment spent in idle pleasure is a moment spent not glorifying God or promoting Him. That hobbies are good only insofar as they help God-related works; that being a pianist, for example, only had worth insofar as one could use that prostelyze to your fans, or to persuade others that God helped you create beautiful music. Reading only had value to learn more about God, or God's world, or to be someone with the qualification of intellectualism so that you would be a better witness. Using that quote of Nabokov or Shakespeare, or even Stephen King, to lead into a conversion attempt (or to set myself up as a wise and well-rounded invidual, in preparation for a later conversion attempt). But of course this meant that I couldn't read in leisure, because how would that help? Any book, or music score I played, or page I went to on the Internet, had to be studied and mastered, else I was wasting my time -- it'd be of no use when it came to saving souls from Hell.

I felt, in short, that, any moment spent not trying to master some skill for God or perfect myself as a witness would be something I would be called to account for when I died. And it applied to resources too; if I, for example, ate more calories than I strictly needed, or food that wasn't nutritionally optimal, I was taking them away from the starving and poor, and God would charge me for that. "On December 20th, 2005, from 5:30:00 to 6:30:00, rather than engage in any productive task, you took a nap which you did not need. Then you ate a hamburger; a grossly wasteful act, when you had other food that was about to spoil and the hamburger would have been good for two more days. You wasted that food." And of course I wasn't perfect or even close, so I was continually falling short and imagining my own list of sins growing, on and on, without end. Surely, I concluded, I must be an unusually worthless person, to understand so clearly what my God wanted and yet not even taking the minor acts he required.

I was the one who was paralyzed with fear when, in an idle moment, I had an intrusive thought that was negative about the Holy Spirit (for non-Christians: there's a bible verse stating that anyone who sins against the Holy Spirit cannot be forgiven but is irrevocably damned. Mark 3:29). Because I was certain that I was going to Hell, no matter what. What did anything matter? So I could have sixty years of service, or guilt, or even hedonistic pleasure, and then I die and am damned for all eternity. Kind of a bummer when you're in high school and thought you had a whole life ahead of you, to find out that there was no point in anything anymore, because you were bound for the Hellfires whatever you did.

And I also noted, in the back of my mind, the things about my faith that I found objectionable. Hell seemed rather unfair. So did the idea of original sin -- what, I'm a bad guy because of something Adam and Eve did? Substitutionary atonement -- what, so God can automatically cancel all moral debts? What right does God have? I think forgiveness is good, but if Alice executes Bob in cold blood, what right does God have to say to those who loved Bob, "I suffered on the cross; therefore, Alice's sins are paid for and you are obligated to forgive her and never hold her actions against her." But I couldn't dig into that too much, because that was still sin. (What did it matter if I was going to Hell anyway for breaking Mark 3.29? I didn't think that through all that much, but I suppose I felt obligated to minimize my sin even in that state).

And I should note -- I was not a Fred Phelps style fundamentalist. I was not even a Southern Baptist. I was pro-choice; I was pro gay marriage; I basically accepted science. I thought it was terrible and wrong what hateful people like Phelps and Falwell were doing, and I believed passionately that God didn't approve of their acts. I was the standard liberal Christian that the Templetons and Steadmans and Mooneys and, apparently, Froborrs of the world say we need more of, the kind that simply believed that charity and kindness and making the world a better place are the sort of acts that God wants. I wasn't the kind of person that one often thinks of when they think of a kid terrorized by religion; usually that kid's a Carrie White-esque person brought up in a hyper-religious household and thinks that just about anything is sin, even the color red. But my parents are atheists, and I wasn't that far gone, I thought that red and legalized abortion and legalized gay marriage and all that was A-OK, so I had no problems, right? Wrong.

You have no idea the sheer relief I felt when I read of a major theological problem with the Bible, because that was the crack that allowed my reason to reassert itself. No more did I tell myself "do not question, because questioning could lead to damnation". I finally looked at everything with an open mind and realized that the 'proofs' I'd used to convince myself that Christianity was true, all those years ago, were nonsense. That there was no reason to believe that any of it was true. Not the fundamentalist faith of Phelps, or the mainstream version, or the liberal beliefs I had, or the even more liberal 'God is just another word for love' stuff. Nor the Jewish faith of my great-grandparents ancestors, nor Islam, nor any other belief.

So don't go telling me that it's a trauma to lose religious belief. It was a trauma to have it. It was bliss to realize that I didn't need to have it; that I could reject it, and do so honestly, not because I wanted to sin without fear of Hell, but because there was no evidence of Hell. Or God. To this day, I am grateful for PZ Myers (his was the site that was my gateway to reason) and the other atheists who were willing to say these things in a world that is often violently hostile to atheists, because it was thanks to their work that I've enjoyed the last five years of my life and haven't spent them in a religion-manufactured depression.

As to the rest of it:

1. Evidence that religion harms people? No ,the burden of proof is on religion to show that it helps people, because that is what most religions claim. "Believe in God and you will be a more moral person." That is a fundamental claim of a great many religions and practitioners. Where's the evidence? Oh, there is none? Well, that's evidence that religions are lying about one thing right there. Not off to a good start, on their part.
I also note that the evidence you want would be basically impossible to provide. Sure, I can recite lists of atrocities committed for religious reasons (Crusades, pogroms, the IRA and the LRA and Al Qaeda and in some ways the IDF), but you seem to want proof that, had all these people been atheist, they wouldn't have done these things. That's of course impossible to know. Or, I could list statistics about how these atheists here have these metrics (happiness or amount given to charity or whatever), and these religious people have these other metrics, but there will always be other factors, which I'm sure would invalidate them in your eyes. Or I could go through holy books and began rattling off atrocities, but I'm sure you'd say that I'd need to prove that modern believers really thought those things were good (and polls don't tend to ask "do you think the slaughters of the Caananites was a good thing", so there's not much evidence there either).

2. Then you want evidence that it would always be better to be an atheist than religious. Always? Why on earth is that the standard? There are exceptions to almost every category of "it would be better for a person to do X than Y." It would generally be better for a person not to cut off their hand than to cut it off, but Aron Ralston determined differently. It would generally be considered better not to have terminal cancer than to have it, but a suicidal person who nevertheless doesn't want to pull the trigger themselves might welcome it.
And what does 'better' mean? For me and a great many atheists, in terms of religious belief, 'better' means 'closer to reality.' So, if there actually is a God named Jesus who came down, gave a sermon on a mountain, turned water to wine, walked on water, resurrected Lazarus, and came back from the dead, then Christianity would be better to believe than anything else (Note: this doesn't preclude the possibility of believing that Christianity is true but deciding to oppose God a la Right Behind; I'm using 'believe' strictly in the sense of 'thinks the factual events recounted are true.'). If there isn't, and if there is no God, then atheism is 'better' than Christianity. You seem to be using 'better' in the sense of 'makes the person feel better' or 'causes the minimal amount of trauma,' which is a complete different meaning, and you haven't justified it.
By your logic, one could justify opium and morphine addiction; it makes people feel better and it would hurt them to get them off of it, so it must be good! (Dawkins' metaphor).

3. Diversity is good for some things. It's good in terms of gender diversity, or racial diversity, or ability diversity. It's not good for scientific questions. If you're building an airplane, and your team is so diverse that you have a guy who thinks that planes fly because angels are carrying them, that's bad. If your medical facility has a doctor who believes that vaccines are a plot by Big Pharma to cause autism, that's bad. That's not a good opinion. Just because people believe something, anything, doesn't always make the world a better place.
There are some religious beliefs that I think, without question, the world would be better without. "God hates gay people," for example. Do you not agree?

4. And lastly, this post is treating believers like little children who will be horrified by being presented with alternatives to the comforting things they know. Christina explicitly states that she does not want to use physical force or legal means to convert believers. She wants to talk to them. Reason with them. Convince them. You act as if this is some great danger to religious people, as if they're so fragile that my presence, or that of PZ Myers or Greta Christina, could break them in half. Even when I was religious, I didn't think much of this argument -- I found it incredibly patronizing, like you're saying, "I know the truth, but you're not tough enough to handle it" -- and I don't think any more of it now.
And she's not claiming to have any sort of 'right' to convert. She's not saying that X religious people are obligated to convert after talking to her. So I don't know where you're getting the 'right to make people suffer' thing from.

Dreadful.

[Laiima]

Froborr, I have gone through the conversion experience (Catholic to Pagan), and it did indeed completely destroy the world I thought I knew and remade it. I thought it was not just worth it, but necessary for my sanity. I would do it again.

In fact, I think I may actually be doing it again right now. I'm not sure using 'theist' to describe myself (even 'polytheist') is the best term. 'Atheist' might be closer, or maybe there's something else. I'm not worried about it. Either I'll figure it out, or I won't. Whatever.

I enjoyed your post. It gave me new things to think about (always good).

[Lighthill]

So before I can ethically try to persuade you of something which I believe to believe to be true and important, I must not only make fairly sure that it is true and important, but also I must be sure that learning the truth won't make you sad?

If there's a bunch of people who have produced a beautiful temple to the beetle who pushes the sun across the sky, is it wrong to let them read any astronomy books, lest they make less pretty art?

FWIW, there's no need to treat me this way. I would rather that you try to convince me of what you think is the truth, whether you think I would be better off ignorant or not. Even if my being wrong (in your opinion) leads me to make art you like, or even if you think having my wrong (in your opinion) beliefs around makes the world more pleasant to live in. In other words, please treat me as an adult who actually cares about knowing the truth. I'd feel like you were patronizing me otherwise.

[LMM]

Well, that's great. I just wrote an entire post replying -- in detail -- to the claim that about a third of scientists are religious, and it appears to have been eaten.

Here it is in a five-minute nutshell (because I have actual work to do): The author writing the layperson's summary that you cite appears -- in multiple places -- to be rather biased. (For example, in the *actual* essay on science professors and religion (here), the term "spirituality" is stretched to the point where it becomes ridiculous. [1]) But if one looks at the actual journal article (which you *should* have read before posting -- if you didn't have JSTOR access, you should either have paid for it or asked someone), the picture gets even more complicated: there's another category that's included: "I believe in a higher power but not God." About 8% of all scientists (on average, this varies between disciplines) agreed with this position -- meaning that only about 20% of scientists are actually religious by any definition of the term. This drops even further if one looks at surveys of the most respected scientists -- only about 7% of members of the National Academy of Scientists (which is difficult but not impossible to get into) believe in a "personal God" and only 5% of biologists do. (This article is one of the first Google hits for "religious beliefs among scientists", by the way, so it's pretty clear you either didn't do your research or were picking at specific results.)

tl;dr: The percentage of scientists who are religious in a real sense is *very* low -- and it drops significantly when you look at the most distinguished scientists.

But, as a final note to the Board Administrative Team, you know how *not* to make this board a welcoming place to atheists? Include posts by atheists bashing other atheists -- instead of, for example, posts by atheists explaining their beliefs (as you allowed, say, pagans to do).

[1] No, understanding one's place in the universe is not the same as spirituality, nor did the quoted physicist (see the text; I don't have time to reproduce it) claim that it was -- the author merely concludes that the line "that's the closest I get to a spiritual experience" means that the scientist in question "is replacing religion with spirituality, not science." (The form of spirituality most scientists have -- from experience -- is indistinguishable from science. It's the feeling you get when you realize that all you are are molecules interacting with each other, and the size of humanity relative to that of the rest of the universe. It's not particularly mystical in a fuzzy sense -- it's awe-inspiring, but it leads to a philosophy that's downright materialistic.)

[Anon for now]

Wow, this one's brought out some intensity already. Thank you, Froborr; for what it's worth, I very much agree with you. I can be the rightest I've ever been about something and that still doesn't mean I get to engage people in conversations about it against their will.

For what it's worth, ZMiles, just because an experience is not traumatic for you does not mean the same applies to everyone. My own journey away from Christianity was sufficient to send me into some of the worst bouts of mental ill health I have ever had; it was sufficient to have me thinking that everything was useless, and myself most of all, because here I am unable to support even the small faith my family has had as a part of 'what we are' since before my parents existed. Because one thing that was right with me had become wrong, and there was not a damn thing I could do about it, if I was honest with myself - and honesty, eventually, through a process as painful as it was slow, became more important than the hollow appearance of being right.

It is sufficiently difficult that I have not told my family, and that I am going anonymous so that it's not associated with my usual handle. It's great that was not a trauma for you, but that emphatically does not mean that it's not something that can cause trauma, difficulty, or loss of social connection.

I do believe that it's worthwhile - those lows I mentioned have been countered by an increasing level of health and competency with myself, and the things I am discovering now are pretty amazing - but if I had been forced into this process, rather than entering it voluntarily, I would be deeply resentful of whoever had inflicted it on me.

Proselytization, as I read it, is not a measured discussion with enough room for a participant to bow out when necessary. More it's the yelling guy on the street corner, or the person with the tract who won't go away, or the people who corner you in your own damn living room with books and 'facts' and convictions of righteousness. A discussion - which by its very nature allows a method of escape - is not the same thing at all.

[Nick Kiddle]

//Stop equating "convincing people by means of discussion" with "force." That is not ok.//

The thing is, discussion isn't likely to work for many. People's religious identity is important to them, so it's going to take a huge argument to persuade them to rethink. And since people believe or not based on emotional rather than intellectual factors, I'm not sure "convincing" is even possible in most cases. So I don't think there really is a non-coercive way to get people to change their religious identity.

[ZMiles]

Anon for now:

I'm aware that it also can be a trauma. But it can also be a trauma doing it the other way. I'm saying that Froborr's patronizing concern is not only, well, patronizing, but also not necessarily any less hurtful than doing things Christina's way.

Where is Christina saying that she wants to force people to be atheists, or requesting the yelling, the tracts, or the cornering? What's being objected to is just measured discussion. Or not even that. What's being objected to is atheists openly being atheists. Having blogs and going to conferences. Being willing to challenge religious doctrine (why is it okay to tell a child that there is a Heaven, but not okay to tell a child that there isn't one?) Posting billboards saying 'atheists exist, and we're actually good people.'

Nick:

Well, I'm one atheist who was convinced by intellectual, not emotional factors. And I'm not alone. But even if it's hard, why should we give up and say "we can't possibly convince people by reason and we don't want to use force, so let's all go home?"

[Anon for now]

@ZMiles, absolutely it can be as traumatic going both/any direction. I'd not gotten that from your previous post, but it sounds like we agree there.

I don't think I'm objecting to the things you list. Going to conferences, having billboards and blogs and just bein' out there being atheists: go for it! I think there ought to be more of that sort of thing because of the awful ways atheists get treated around the US specifically, but as I do not claim "atheist" as a label, I don't know that there's a lot that I, personally, can do to make that happen.

I do have a problem when someone wants to say "everyone in the world should think just like us," and I think that's where the OP is coming from, too. It's not about the existence of conferences and blogs and billboards; it's about that statement. That the world would be better if everyone lost their religion.

That's where it turns into wishing that possibly- and perhaps even probably-traumatic experience on a whole lot of people.

[histrogeek]

Froborr,
I do appreciate, as a frequently anxious Christian, your reminder of the importance of pluralism.
There are some big issues in the comments that I would just briefly like to address. The first is the idea that religious people need to be protected from atheism. I don't think that is what Froborr was saying. I am quite familiar with atheist arguments and whatever reasons I have for disagreeing, it isn't because I don't understand them.
Thing is that proselytizers of any stripe always seem to think that the reason people don't agree with them is that they don't get the argument. This is the big reason I feel apolgetics are the most worthless endeavor around. Here is X philosophical argument (therefore not truly provable in the scientific sense). Here is why it is right/wrong. When that fails, the next strategy can best be summed up as HERE IS WHY THIS IS RIGHT OR WRONG! It just goes nowhere and it makes the other person angry because you imply they are an idiot or evil or whatever.
Just saying no violence or legal oppression isn't really as much of a shield as you might think. It is entirely possible to be an insulting dillhole without those. It's also entirely possible to browbeat and intimidate people without violence and legal oppression.
Want to convince me of your position? Try common ground first. As was mentioned a few posts ago, atheists, non-theists, and theists can all base their morality on empathy and "ahisma" to use the Sanskrit.
Bad and violent religion like bad and violent anything needs to be stopped because it is bad and violent. Communism was bad because it was violent and oppressive, not because it was atheist or based on political philosophy. Islam in Sudan, or U.S. fundamentalists, is bad for the same reason. Historically religion isn't any better or worse than tribes or nations or ideologies when it comes to oppression or violence.
Finally religious people can be as adaptable as any other people. Many religious people have no difficulty discarding earlier beliefs without changing their world-view entirely. So the sun beetle people Lighthill mentions might just as easily produce art with their sun beetle as a metaphor.

[Nick Kiddle]

//But even if it's hard, why should we give up and say "we can't possibly convince people by reason and we don't want to use force, so let's all go home?"//

Because people have a right to believe what they want, even if we think it's silly and obviously false. I figure if you've tried reasonably pointing out why a belief doesn't make sense and got nowhere, it's not a belief held based on logic. You can wait and hope they change their mind, but you have to accept that maybe they just aren't going to.

[Nick Kiddle]

//So before I can ethically try to persuade you of something which I believe to believe to be true and important, I must not only make fairly sure that it is true and important, but also I must be sure that learning the truth won't make you sad?//

It's not so much "learning the truth" as "changing your way of life". I could tell the story of how I became an atheist and the story of how I lost my faith to make this clear, but it might be tl;dr. Anyone interested?

[LMM]

I do have a problem when someone wants to say "everyone in the world should think just like us," and I think that's where the OP is coming from, too

Um, except that most people say this. Religious people definitely do. Why is it so much more offensive to people when *some* atheists say it? Isn't it just balancing out the playing field?

Or is it really worth dedicating one of the few posts on atheists on a multi-religious blog to *attacking* atheists who genuinely believe their beliefs are more accurate than religious ones?

[Will Wildman]

I liked this one a lot, Froborr. Looks like the discussion will be lively, too.

1. Evidence that religion harms people? No ,the burden of proof is on religion to show that it helps people, because that is what most religions claim.

This is an interestingly forceful assertion. If someone says they enjoy poetry and feel that reading books of verse improves them as a person, do you demand that they show proof that it has turned them into a better person, and that they stop reading poetry if it hasn't demonstrably improved them? Because assuming (as I do, being atheist) that all religions are wrong about the metaphysics of the universe (indeed, wrong about there being metaphysics of the universe) then it appears that religion becomes a mental and social hobby - albeit one with a considerable history of being misused to justify wrong actions. Which segues nicely:

There are some religious beliefs that I think, without question, the world would be better without. "God hates gay people," for example. Do you not agree?

I definitely do agree. But the atheist-proselytising position targeted here isn't 'remove all the negative aspects of religion', it's 'remove religion'. And as long as there are homophobic atheists, the notion of 'gay people are evil' isn't an exclusively religious idea, so why target religious people specifically, especially since there are plenty of religions in which homophobia is not a tenet? 'Gay people are evil' isn't an inherent religious belief, it's a (wrong) belief that has been incorporated with some popular religions.

So yes, we agree that not all beliefs are good. Some are harmful, some are false, some are harmful and false. I'm more concerned about the 'harmful' than the 'false' aspect, particularly since I have very little hope of making everyone correctly informed about everything.

[hapax]

I do have a problem when someone wants to say "everyone in the world should think just like us," and I think that's where the OP is coming from, too

Um, except that most people say this. Religious people definitely do. Why is it so much more offensive to people when *some* atheists say it? Isn't it just balancing out the playing field?

Many many religious people do NOT say this. Many many religious people find it offensive when their co-religionists say things like this.

Some of them have even repeatedly posted to this very blog saying exactly that.

[Will Wildman]

I do have a problem when someone wants to say "everyone in the world should think just like us," and I think that's where the OP is coming from, too

Um, except that most people say this. Religious people definitely do. Why is it so much more offensive to people when *some* atheists say it? Isn't it just balancing out the playing field?

I'm pretty sure, from the last few years' discussions, that Froborr (and I, and indeed most or all atheists here) do think it's offensive when religious people say that. Which would be why the whole post was framed in the form of 'here is why I think it sucks when atheists proselytise, which - shockingly - is also why it sucks when theists proselytise'. Are you seriously using the argument that if 'the other side' does something reprehensible, we should do the same because they started it?

[Nick Kiddle]

//Why is it so much more offensive to people when *some* atheists say it? Isn't it just balancing out the playing field?//

Atheists who make a big thing of being skeptical and evidence-based ought to hold themselves to a higher standard, like the OP says.

//This is an interestingly forceful assertion. If someone says they enjoy poetry and feel that reading books of verse improves them as a person, do you demand that they show proof that it has turned them into a better person, and that they stop reading poetry if it hasn't demonstrably improved them?//

I was thinking along similar lines, but you've said it better than I could.

[Deird, who is fed up]

Um, except that most people say this. Religious people definitely do. Why is it so much more offensive to people when *some* atheists say it?

Any chance you could switch that to "Some religious people definitely do"? Because it's not true of all of us.

--------------

But, as a final note to the Board Administrative Team, you know how *not* to make this board a welcoming place to atheists? Include posts by atheists bashing other atheists -- instead of, for example, posts by atheists explaining their beliefs (as you allowed, say, pagans to do).

LMM, what do you think is more likely?

Scenario 1:
TBAT receive dozens of submissions by atheists explaining their beliefs. And toss them in the bin, reasoning "no-one really wants to read that".

Scenario 2:
TBAT decide what types of posts they're going to be putting up this month, and then commission people to write them. Being devious and evil, they decide to ask for posts undermining the atheist position.

Scenario 3:
Froborr decides to write a post about what he wants to talk about and submits it.

...just maybe?

Get over yourself. And if you want a post by an atheist explaining their beliefs, damn well write it.

[Anon for now]

@LMM, it's not -more- offensive. This blog spends an awful lot of time calling out religious proselytization, and I think the very same argument I use above has been used in that case as well (I may, in fact, have first seen it from Froborr on a discussion of Evangelical Christian proselytization). It's also not -less- offensive, which - in my reading - was the entire point of the OP.

Perhaps I am not seeing the attack, but this seems an awful lot like the same song, in a different verse.

If you have the time for it, can you point out where anyone's said it is worse, or attacked?

[Will Wildman]

Well, that was amusingly stereophonic. hapax, high five! (But we should make sure to double-check the coordination of our formatting in future; you cut the italics first whereas I cut the blockquote.)

[Anon for now]

Ah, my kingdom for an edit button. @Nick Kiddle, I'd definitely be interested in that.

[Laiima]

Anon for now: I do have a problem when someone wants to say "everyone in the world should think just like us," and I think that's where the OP is coming from, too

LMM: Um, except that most people say this. Religious people definitely do.

@LMM, when you say "religious people" above, I think you may be conflating more authoritarian religious groups with everyone religious.

I not only don't want everyone to think the way I do, I don't see how they *could*. Diversity, context, the world is different for everybody. I don't believe in unity or dualism. I don't think there's Truth, or that everyone is searching for the same thing, but calling it different names.

I don't have any desire to tell anyone else what to do. And I'm religious, sort of, but not Christian.

[LMM]

This isn't "thought inspiring" or "comment generating". This is downright offensive. (And false in a lot of ways, as I pointed out.)

@LMM, it's not -more- offensive. This blog spends an awful lot of time calling out religious proselytization, and I think the very same argument I use above has been used in that case as well (I may, in fact, have first seen it from Froborr on a discussion of Evangelical Christian proselytization).

Except when has that been the focus of a main page article attacking an entire community?

That's my objection here -- atheism has rarely been the focus of posts on this blog. In fact, IIRC, multiple people have commented that this does not feel like a safe space for atheists. And, instead of calling for articles about atheism or something similar, TBAT decided to post this essay, which explicitly targets atheists in a downright hostile way.

[Helen Louise]

I like this post. As a former Christian myself, I'm never quite so eager to persuade others to stop being Christians (and even more cautious for anyone of other religion, I try not to meddle in what I don't understand) - I loved being a Christian and losing my faith was quite traumatic... But that said, I would try, when I was a Christian, to tell people about my faith if I thought they were interested and it would help them, so I guess as a humanist I should follow similar rules - if I met a Christian who is struggling with doubts, I would share my experience in the hope that it might help them find some peace.

[Nick Kiddle]

//Except when has that been the focus of a main page article attacking an entire community?//

When Fred was in charge, a good 50% of the posts could have been described as a Christian "bashing" Christians. I think it's always been part of the Slacktivist ethos to be able to look critically at our own religious communities.

//In fact, IIRC, multiple people have commented that this does not feel like a safe space for atheists.//

As far as I'm concerned, it's a safer space for this particular atheist than it used to be. I remember when the atheist side of any debate was dominated by aggressive and ableist jackholes who explained to me what atheists believe in the apparent belief that someone who wasn't constantly singing "life is amazing without god" couldn't possibly be an atheist. So mileage definitely varies on that one.

[Anon for now]

TBAT did call for articles about atheism. Multiple times, in at least two threads I can think of (the most recent just ended, with a long, painful battle about this very same thing.) It ended in accusations of bad faith very much like the ones you're throwing around.

I am still not seeing the attack; I see an atheist taking issue with atheist proselytizing being as obnoxious (not worse than) theist proselytizing. How is that an attack on an entire community, some of whom don't even exhibit that behavior?

Is that significantly different than many threads we've had in which assorted theists, including Christians, took issue with Christian proselytizing?

If so, why?

[ZMiles]

"This is an interestingly forceful assertion. If someone says they enjoy poetry and feel that reading books of verse improves them as a person, do you demand that they show proof that it has turned them into a better person, and that they stop reading poetry if it hasn't demonstrably improved them?"

If poetry were as important and potent a force in the world as religion, then yes, I would recommend, or try to reason with them, that, as they have no evidence for their beliefs about poetry, then they ought to reconsider whether they should believe those things. Like you say, we can't correct everything. But religion is so powerful, so vast, so dominant on a global scale, that when it comes to 'correcting things that I believe are wrong,' I find that it should have a high priority.

[Nathaniel]

Pardon me, but if the author of this little hit piece can kindly point out where Greta Christina calls for proselytizing, that would be just great.

Does she advocate for conversion based on emotional manipulation? No.

Does she advocate going door to door and bothering people? No.

Does she advocate anywhere for dishonesty or forcefulness in our arguments? No.

I think that the world would be a better place without a single person being a misogynist. Does that make me hateful, pluralism zealot who's no better?

Also, its not just a single person being better with religion. Its whether more people become worse because of religion than people become better.

Conspiracy theorists such as Anti-vaccers have to at some point show real world evidence of their beliefs, or fall by the wayside. Anti-vaccers are becoming irrelevant. Asshole evangelicals are not.

I could go on for pages, there is so much self righteous wrong in this post.

BTW, if you don't want atheists who are so mean as to point out that we think religion is wrong, then just say so. I distinctly remember how the previous piece addressing atheism on this site had a warning that we mean ol' atheists should be gentle and non combative in our posts.

A warning that no one felt was needed when it came to, oh, any single other belief system written about on this site.

Guess there's just something different, something untrustworthy about us atheists.

[LMM]

TBAT did call for articles about atheism. Multiple times, in at least two threads I can think of (the most recent just ended, with a long, painful battle about this very same thing.) It ended in accusations of bad faith very much like the ones you're throwing around.

Did they call for it on the main site, or did they call for it after thirty pages of posts? Because most people -- myself included -- don't read past the first few pages. Most of us don't have time, and it's not worth catching up with twenty more pages when I could be reading papers, writing an email, or playing Echo Bazaar.

TBAT has been very careful about dealing with other prejudices in the past. For some reason, though, it's never occurred to anyone that maybe atheist-bashing might be triggering for some people.

Is that significantly different than many threads we've had in which assorted theists, including Christians, took issue with Christian proselytizing?

Yes, it is -- because those threads weren't a blog post. Those threads weren't a dedicated post -- one of the few dedicated posts -- on a given group of people who don't happen to be very powerful and who happen to mostly fall on the right side of issues.

Here's another thing to consider: the Overton window, the range within a given discussion can occur.

When there aren't people aggressively arguing for your side, the window starts to push away from your side. When there aren't confrontationalists, the moderates start looking extreme. We've seen this with Democratic politics over the past twenty or so years.

We're starting to see this with the atheist movement, except in the other direct. Confrontationalists allow the accomodationists to function in a world which is primarily hostile to atheism.

Attacking confrontationalism stabs yourself in the foot. Holding your group to a higher standard means that your group is robbed of a powerful weapon -- and so it will lose. We've seen this with the abortion movement -- you conceed that abortion is undesirable and the other groups moves righward. This isn't the slippery slope fallacy: this is how things have happened in the past. Do you really think it's going to be different now?

[Deird, who would want to do the same]

But that said, I would try, when I was a Christian, to tell people about my faith if I thought they were interested and it would help them, so I guess as a humanist I should follow similar rules - if I met a Christian who is struggling with doubts, I would share my experience in the hope that it might help them find some peace.

I think that's a good perspective.

I don't want someone to come up unannounced and start listing all the reasons why I should stop being a Christian*, but if I was having a hard time, "this is something I've found that helped" would be very much appreciated.

---------

* Assuming that my being a Christian wasn't actively hurting them or someone else nearby.

[Nick Kiddle]

//this little hit piece//

You may not agree with it, but that doesn't make it a "hit piece". Stuff like that just blows the debate up without bringing anything useful.

//where Greta Christina calls for proselytizing//

"to recruit or convert especially to a new faith, institution, or cause"
"we’re working towards a world where it no longer exists"

//Anti-vaccers are becoming irrelevant//

I'd love to see a cite?

//Guess there's just something different, something untrustworthy about us atheists.//

Yeah, obviously TBAT, being two-thirds atheist/agnostic, find atheists completely untrustworthy and not fit to engage in debate.

[Mmy]

@LMM: Or is it really worth dedicating one of the few posts on atheists on a multi-religious blog to *attacking* atheists who genuinely believe their beliefs are more accurate than religious ones?

Say what?

Do you not count posts written by atheists on issues of morals and ethics and civic involvement unless they state at the top, in the middle, and at the bottom---HELLO THIS IS A POST BY AN ATHEIST?

MercuryBlue has written TEN posts (and thank you MB for all the excellent work). Zie has written about subjects that range from country music to Supernatual to ethics. All from an atheist point of view.

In addition to posts about the board (like "what is spam) I have written at least 8 pieces. I am an atheist and everything I write arises from my own atheist sense of ethics.

I actually don't know whether some of our guest posters were or were not atheists. I gather than many of the atheists on the board, like me, don't tend to write articles about being an atheist they write articles that are informed by their atheism.

[Anon for now]

You know, I think I'm going to leave this one alone. Sorry to have made things worse.

[hapax]

Two questions: Is there a need for a TW for this post? If so, what should it be? (I would recommend against "Atheist Bashing", since that rather pre-judges the content without the author's consent. What about "Criticism of Atheists"?

Second question: LMM, you raise an interesting point about the possible need for confrontational tactics, in all sorts of contexts. Would you be willing to write an article exploring this issue?

[AnaMardoll]

Froborr, thank you very much for this lovely post. (And thank you, TBAT, for hosting it!)

I don't think I'm an atheist, but I do know that I've never made my religious decisions based around someone 'talking me into it'. So this resonated very strongly with me, thank you. :)

[Deird, who is sad]

(Think I just got spam-trapped...)

[LMM]

Do you not count posts written by atheists on issues of morals and ethics and civic involvement unless they state at the top, in the middle, and at the bottom---HELLO THIS IS A POST BY AN ATHEIST??

No, I don't -- not unless it's *about* atheism.

A post about Supernatural has nothing to do with atheism. A post about morals is arguably about atheism, but nowhere near about atheism to the extent that -- say -- a post about a pagan holiday has to do with paganism.

This is one of the few posts on this blog that's explicitly about atheism, and it's openly hostile towards them.

If heterosexuals on this blog actively wrote posts about their families while the QUILTBAG writers mostly wrote stuff about gardening, but every once in awhile a QUILTBAG wrote a post telling their fellows that maybe they should reconsider the fuss over the issue of gay marriage (because aggression gets you nowhere), would you consider that balanced?

I wouldn't.

[LMM]

Second question: LMM, you raise an interesting point about the possible need for confrontational tactics, in all sorts of contexts. Would you be willing to write an article exploring this issue?

Maybe. I've got ten other things on my plate at the moment (not the least of which is a postdoctoral fellowship app due later this month). But it's an issue that's been bugging me for awhile (it doesn't help that I live near a Planned Parenthood), so I'll work on it.

[Deird, who is curious]

A post about morals is arguably about atheism, but nowhere near about atheism to the extent that -- say -- a post about a pagan holiday has to do with paganism.

Please - do write us a post all about an atheist holiday.

[Nick Kiddle]

//but every once in awhile a QUILTBAG wrote a post telling their fellows that maybe they should reconsider the fuss over the issue of gay marriage (because aggression gets you nowhere),//

To make it a fair analogy, I think it would need to be a post saying that marriage is assimilationist and a distraction from other, more important fights. Froborr disagrees with the expressed views of Greta Christina and writes a post expressing his own views. He's not saying that atheists need to stop hurting the delicate feelings of religious people - he's saying that he feels universal atheism is a wrong goal that he can't get behind.

[P J Evans]

Did they call for it on the main site, or did they call for it after thirty pages of posts?

I saw one on the front page, not many weeks ago. A full post, in fact.

[Mmy]

@LMM: A post about morals is arguably about atheism, but nowhere near about atheism

Then you are excluding me and many other atheists from ever having our work counted as "about atheism." As far as I am concerned each time I demonstrate (each time MercuryBlue demonstrates) the way in which someone who does not believe in god[s]) arrives at thoughtful ethical conclusions we are teaching the world about atheism.

Atheism it me is simply a - theism. I don't believe in god(s). A belief in god(s) does not inform my decisions. By writing about what informs my decisions I am teaching / demonstrating something about atheism -- that atheists can be thoughtful, ethical, caring members of society.

And that is a message we need to get out right now.

As for articles about other ways of being an atheist -- well people who are that type of atheist need to write them.

We don't go out and ask any particular type of person to write for us. We have had pieces about Mormons and Quakers and Atheists, and Pagans and people who like to read books and people who like to watch television and what is going on in Hungary and what is going on in Scotland.

People submitted them.

So, you want an particular type of article about a particular type of atheism.

WRITE IT!

[P J Evans]

This is one of the few posts on this blog that's explicitly about atheism, and it's openly hostile towards them.

WHAT?????
You are not reading the same post I am. I'm reading one about an article where someone asserts that everyone would be better off without religion, as if that was as easy as changing clothes, and provides no reasoning why everyone would be better off without religion. That's the point of this post!

[Nathaniel]

"to recruit or convert especially to a new faith, institution, or cause"
"we’re working towards a world where it no longer exists"

Sure, if you're going by the pure denotation.

But the connotation, of self righteous and pushy argument designed to get you to comply? Don't see that being advocated. As I pointed out. And as you ignored.

"Yeah, obviously TBAT, being two-thirds atheist/agnostic, find atheists completely untrustworthy and not fit to engage in debate."

Hey, I'm going by the evidence of posts explicitly about atheists. Does the existence of Herman Cain mean that the Republican party doesn't have an issue with racism in its ranks?

Is the only "nice" thing to do is give up argument and attempts to convince others entirely?

"I think this guys belief that women are delicate flowers unfit for public office is wrong."

"Yeah, but remember, we don't want to try to convince him otherwise. That could make him sad, and making other people sad is wrong. And anti-pluralistic."

"True that."

Or is religion its own special category where trying to convince others is wrong, and its okay with other strong.

This mean ol' atheist would like to know.

[Nathaniel]

@PJ Evans

If you're interested in knowing how Greta Christina argues for her position vis-a-vie religion, she has plenty of other posts detailing her arguments. Feel free to disagree with them, but don't say they aren't there.

[ZMiles]

"I'm pretty sure, from the last few years' discussions, that Froborr (and I, and indeed most or all atheists here) do think it's offensive when religious people say that [everyone should believe in the things I believe in]"

Dunno so much about this, but if this were changed to

"religious people think that everyone should believe as they do,"

I wouldn't mind this.
For me, the question of religion/atheism is a scientific question. A religion (or atheism) is a theory to answer the question, "Is there divinity, and if so, which religion most accurately describes it?"
And most scientific questions, I do in fact think that the world would be better if everyone thought the same on them. We'd be better off if no one believed that vaccines caused autism. We'd be better off if everyone believed that lead contributed to the homicide rate. We'd be better off if everyone believed in evolution. Etc.
So I don't really understand (and it's totally possible I've just missed something big) why it should be different here.
So when a religious person thinks, "ZMiles is totally wrong about religion. I wish he were right," I'm not actually offended, anymore than I would be if someone thought I was wrong on another scientific matter. Just like I don't think they should be offended if or when I think, "Religious Joe is totally wrong about religion. I wish he were right."
I mean... what are the alternatives? "Religious Joe is totally wrong about religion. I don't care, because I don't care enough about Joe to care if he's right or wrong"? "I don't care, because religion is so trivial to me that it doesn't matter if someone is right or wrong about it?" "I don't care, because I don't care about right and wrong?"
Now, I completely understand and agree that legal/physical attempts to force other people to be right (as I or another sees it) are bad, because they lead to massive negative consequences. And I understand (though I vehemently disagree with) Froborr's assertion that any sort of attempt to sway the other person's opinion is bad, because it could lead to other negative consequences.
But I don't understand -- and again, I could well just be missing something -- how someone could look at another, think to themselves, "That person is completely wrong," and not then think, "It would be better if they were right."

To answer a few questions that will probably arise from this comment:

"So, then, do you object to people proselytizing to you?"
Not inherently. But with a few caveats:
1. I do object when the person trying to convert me isn't playing fair and is allowing themselves a different standard of proof than they would allow me. So, for instance, "My personal experiences have shown to me that there is God." "Well, mine haven't." "Yours don't count." Or "My holy scriptures say that I'm right." "I don't have scriptures, but the equivalent tenants that I believe to be true disagree with your scriptures." "Your tenants don't count. This argument is only based on my scriptures." Same goes for 'conversion by repetition', where the person doesn't bother to respond to your argument but just repeats his or her own. That's not an attempt to resolve a scientific question, it's just an attempt to manipulate or badger someone.
2. I'll also object if something begins to violate what (I think) Will brought up about the harm/falsity ratio. In other words, if someone tries to convince me of something that stands a great chance of hurting someone, then yeah, I'll be annoyed or offended if they don't take care to show me that what they're saying is true. So if someone tries to convince me that "God is another name for Love," I probably won't agree, but there's not that much harmful in that, so I won't be offended, even if it's a weak argument. But someone trying to convince me that God hates gay people? There's a ton of harm in that. And, because invariably the person fails to come up with even a shred of evidence to support that harmful belief (because no such evidence exists, because they are wrong), then yes, that is offensive.
3. Conversion attempts that treat me like an idiot or totally ignorant are also annoying. "You just don't know about Jesus!" Um, yeah, I've heard of the theory. But of course, this is also why, were I to try to convince a religious person that I was right and they were wrong, I wouldn't just say, "Well, have you ever seen God? No? Hah, I win!" or "Teapot in space! Invisible pink unicorn! Ken Ham is an idiot!" and spike the textbook.
4. And of course the usual caveats about it being rude to pester me when I'm doing something else/when I'm not interested at the moment/shouting at me, not allowing me to leave, or throwing tract books at me. But that's rude no matter what you're talking about, not just a conversion attempt.

"Would you extend this 'it's okay to want everyone to think like you' to obviously hateful beliefs? For instance, if a misogynist said, "Everyone should be a misogynist," would you also agree that this is okay?"

My objections to such beliefs and attempts to spread them fits under #2 in the previous question.

"Doesn't #2 assume a known harm, or allow you to assert harm? What if a religious person says that they feel that atheism is incredibly harmful, and so under #2, you shouldn't be trying to spread it?"

I can easily show the harm in racist/sexist/homophobic/etc. statements. If someone wants me to just accept what they see as harmful, but not care about what I see as harmful (or listen to my evidence), that falls under #1. And if someone wants to try to show that atheism is harmful... well, good luck with that. I don't think they'll succeed, but again, if they can come up with real evidence, I'll look at it.

"If you really believe this, why haven't you tried converting the board?"

Under #4 above, I believe it to be rude to insist that people converse with you when they don't want to. And for religion, I generally pre-emptively assume that people don't want to.
What Christina is proposing is not door-to-door, or vans with megaphones, or anything like that. It's -- again -- rational discussion. Challenging ideas in the public square. Having blogs of our own, and conferences, and billboards. It's not sending messages to people who don't want to hear them. It's putting messages up in one's own space. The backlash is from people who object to even that, who object to atheists using their own space to be all "Yay atheism" and post reasons why they're right and others are wrong and so on.
So, if I want, I'll post posts on my blog about atheism. If the community wants it, maybe I'll submit a post here. But I'm not going to harrass or annoy people by derailing various arguments into 'atheism is true,' because that's rude.

[ZMiles]

I think I got spamtrapped.

[LMM]

@LMM: A post about morals is arguably about atheism, but nowhere near about atheism

Um, could you *not* quotemine me? The full quote is: "a post about morals is arguably about atheism, but nowhere near [as] about atheism as a post about -- say -- a pagan holiday is about paganism." And it's not.

Then you are excluding me and many other atheists from ever having our work counted as "about atheism." As far as I am concerned each time I demonstrate (each time MercuryBlue demonstrates) the way in which someone who does not believe in god[s]) arrives at thoughtful ethical conclusions we are teaching the world about atheism.

Maybe I am. All I know is, this post was *incredibly* insulting and hurtful towards an already-marginalized minority and should have seriously been reconsidered before posting. (And maybe run by a few people who could have pointed out the factual inaccuracies and strawmen?) Also, that people have been pointing out for awhile that maybe this blog is a little hostile towards atheists, and TBAT turns around and writes a post which is -- hostile towards atheists. Would you do that to any other group?

[Nick Kiddle]

//But the connotation, of self righteous and pushy argument designed to get you to comply? Don't see that being advocated. As I pointed out. And as you ignored.//

Well, I didn't see it as being intrinsically part of the meaning of the word, and I didn't get the impression that Froborr was using it in that sense, so it seemed like an irrelevance. Besides, "self-righteous" is a rather subjective term; arguments that assume you are wrong for thinking as you do very often sound self-righteous.

//Hey, I'm going by the evidence of posts explicitly about atheists. Does the existence of Herman Cain mean that the Republican party doesn't have an issue with racism in its ranks?//

You are assuming bad faith in the face of strong evidence that there's another explanation. And you're being kind of obnoxious in the way you express it.

//Is the only "nice" thing to do is give up argument and attempts to convince others entirely?//

How about you bring that straw down to my allotment, where I can probably find a useful thing to do with it?

The only people I've seen talking about giving up argument are the straw merchants. Everyone else is talking about not automatically assuming everyone else would be perfect if they were just like you.

//"Yeah, but remember, we don't want to try to convince him otherwise. That could make him sad, and making other people sad is wrong. And anti-pluralistic."//

Seriously, go build a house for the first little pig or something.

I like the way you shifted from Froborr's description of a traumatic experience to "making people sad". Nice minimising there.

//Or is religion its own special category where trying to convince others is wrong, and its okay with other strong.//

Nope, nothing special about religion. You will not convince me, for instance, that writing with my right hand is better. You will not convince me that I shouldn't save old newspaper clippings. You will not convince me that I am capable of casual sex. No matter how much you think these things would benefit me if you could argue me into them.