Frequently, believers accuse non-believers of not believing, out of ignorance. Christians, for example, often claim that those who aren’t Christians have simply not read the Bible. Frequently, however, not only is this not the case, many non-believers are quite expert on the Bible and capable of citing it in order to explain their objections.
Assuming that, since you are a Bible-believing Christian, anyone who “really reads the Bible” will agree with you, is not the case. For one thing, quite aside from you and the non-believer you’re talking to, Christians throughout history who’ve “really read the Bible” disagree about it; the hundreds of different Christian denominations that exist are undeniable evidence of that. So if millions of your own fellow Christians can disagree with each other about the Bible, you can’t expect non-believers to agree with you.
Many believers assume the veracity of the Bible’s words and cannot imagine not accepting them at face value. Words, however, are just that ... words. That the words of the Bible itself claims that it’s “God’s Word” and 100% literal truth, does not mean that it is. For example, I can say:
Everything this site says is absolutely true
but that won’t actually make it so. All it is, is a claim, nothing more.
Some believers assume that non-believers have had some sort of “bad experience” with religion which has jaded them and keeps them from believing. Aside from the obvious problem with this — it’s an implied form of “mind-reading”— it’s a way of dismissing the non-believer’s opinion using a subjective, personal assessment. This is fallacious; even someone who is biased against religion due to a bad experience, can still have valid evidence and reasons for their opinions.
Not only that, it’s simply not true that all believers could have had a “bad experience” with religion. Some have, yes; but this cannot possibly be true for all. Non-believers have had a wide range of experiences, ranging from having grown up in religious homes and spending most of their adulthood in religion, to being raised without any religion at all and never having been part of one.
Some believers cite what is called “Pascal’s Wager,” credited to the philosopher Blaise Pascal. It essentially is as follows:
Sometimes it comes in the form of:
There are other forms of this “wager” as well. All hinge on the idea that belief in God offers a benefit that can be had only through belief, but there are no benefits — and perhaps detrimental effects — to being a non-believer.
The problem with Pascal’s Wager, while it may seem cleverly logical, is that it’s a “false dilemma,” forcing a choice without presenting all alternatives. It assumes that the only God to believe in is the Christian God, and even then is a version of the Christian God who offers salvation to all believers and condemnation to all non-believers. This is not the only kind of God; in fact, Christendom offers theologies which differ from this; for some, God offers universal salvation, while for others, God offers salvation only to a particular “elect” group so that choosing to believe can’t make salvation possible. Also, there are possible gods completely outside of Christianity, gods who may save or damn based upon other considerations entirely.
Thus, Pascal’s Wager is not logical at all.
Most believers’ dismissal of non-believers is not very polite, to put it mildly. Assuming ignorance, or a bad experience, or offering a choice of two options when many more are possible, are all ways of trying to discredit non-believers. While you may disagree with them, making assumptions about them and dismissing them out-of-hand is not kind, and Jesus would not have you treat others unkindly.
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