Debating Christians with different personalities

[Brian63]

When you disagree with various people when discussing (or debating) some religious issues, different attitudes of theirs can easily appear. With some Christians who are evangelizing to you and trying to witness to you, they will often butter you up and be ultra-polite and put on a constantly-happy face, in part because they think you are just angry or hateful towards God for some past trauma, and need to have a more pleasant image presented to you. That has the best chance of converting you. Personally, I find that approach annoying (because they usually do not really address the real issues and views I hold in the process) and not really sincere (not giving me their honest opinion on the issues to any significant degree), but at least those people mean well for you. So credit to them for that.

Then there are other people, particularly found in online debates about religion between theists and atheists, who have a more bullying personality and want to insult you and paint a portrait of you as dishonest, stupid, etc. Because you know, that's what Jesus would do…or something…The idea of tribalism is certainly a huge factor in this as well, when you as the atheist are an outsider to the regular community, and so the rest of the community will engage in that behavior towards you. The "higher-ups" and leaders in the community will especially demean you and poison the well against you to an enormous degree, to try and get everyone else in their tribe to dismiss you out of hand, without giving much thought to the actual arguments you are presenting. My own experience has been that when a more trollish member of the community engages in that activity, it is worthwhile to ignore them. When the person is considered one of the community's more prominent debaters though (even if they are somewhat of a prick as well), you pretty much have to respond to them to make your viewpoint heard.

Those are certainly not the only 2 types of personalities that emerge in religious discussions (especially online ones), but they are 2 very common ones on the spectrum. I still am somewhat undecided on what the best approaches are to engaging with people who have those different types of personas and attitudes, and how to interact with them. They both bother me to some extent, but I try to fight that reaction and find a way to have compassion for them instead, while still trying to determine how to best discuss the issue and argue against their (harmful) religious views.

Do you have any differences in your own behaviors when debating religious issues with people with different personality types? Either consciously or subconsciously? Do you try to mirror their own behaviors back to them, or do you try to play nice with them, no matter how insulting they are towards you? What do you find works well or does not work well, either with those other people themselves, or perhaps with other people who are just lurking the entire time (but then may privately give you feedback later)?

Thanks,

Brian

 

[Atheos]

When talking about personality vs the actual discussion itself there are huge numbers of factors constantly at play. Some of us tend to be more aggressive when discussing things. Sometimes people genuinely act like trolls, pushing buttons just to elicit that sort of reaction. I would also agree that it appears humanity has inherited (for better or worse) a primordial tribal instinct that eagerly clings to the mores of the group. Anyone (or anything) that casts aspersion on these values is perceived as a threat that must be defeated.

I don't spend a lot of time on religious boards for a number of reasons, so I can't speak to the prevalence of that sort of thing there, but I spent many years as a christian and know how hostile they can be in person when debating differences of opinion.

But I've seen the sort of bullying you describe here from both sides of the aisle. I confess to getting sucked in to that sort of behavior myself at times. There is little reason to doubt that the same sort of behaviors would exist elsewhere and even be more rampant where board policies don't protect members from personal epithets.

Personally, I'd like to become better at responding to aggressive verbiage with more of a Judo approach, but it takes a long time to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.