Hello there. I've joined the Atheist Republic quite recently, having searched for a long time for a place to drop by that explores Atheism and Theism in a mostly reasonable way. I'm an Atheist, and a committed one. That's always been the case, and so I've never had the experience of being convinced from one position to another. For much of my life I made little of it, but these days I'm more forthright with my views when certain subjects come up.
I probably would have remained quite quiet about my beliefs, as offending others is something I've never set out to do, but over the last couple of years the theists have tracked me down and poked me until I responded. I wrote about that here:
http://www.richardwright.org/2014/02/that-atheism/
You might enjoy it.
I was wondering then whether other members have had similar experiences of being unexpectedly shouted at for their position on matters of faith? When debating gods and monsters, I'm sort of prepared for negative or even hostile reactions. When I'm not, and I get those anyway, I'm often taken by surprise and don't know how best to cope.
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Personally, my experiences with arguments in terms of faith have always been either with friends or acquaintances. My experience is this:
If a friend is the one you are debating with, they will most likely know your beliefs beforehand. They will be cordial and at least pretend to listen to you. I've always taken the liberty of doing the same.
If it's an acquaintance, or especially some rando on the internet, that's when the claws come out. Subjects like this get me to a point where I'm loud and argumentative; I'm a competitive debater and it's difficult not to. That scares people, especially when you know more about their religion than they do, and they will shut up and leave with a negative opinion of you. But, fun fact, they're going to shut up and leave with a negative opinion of you no matter what. So, you could take the moral high ground, calmly refute whatever they say and leave with your superiority, but it's never going to make them think you're good and if they started the argument, it won't change their opinions.
Overall, as much as I love to talk about religion and question things, I think it's best to just remind yourself that those people won't be the ones to converse with. You just don't want to get into that- it's pointless and it wastes your valuable time. Until people realize that we're not all horrible, terrible human beings, they won't stop trying to prove us wrong. And people like that aren't worth your energy.
That's an interesting point but when it comes to the internet the conversation is not only with them in most cases and what is said is for the others who will read and see both or all sides of any particular argument. It makes an interesting dynamic, that goes beyond one on one conversation with a person in real time.
By the way though for some it is easier to take out the claws when dealing with denizens or mere acquaintances but I get into the biggest arguments about religion with the ones I care about and those who live closest to me. I get the whole point about it being a waste of time but if I care about an issue and simultaneously care about the person to some degree its really hard not to.