A mother may not see her son has a bad side though it is undeniable.
A politician may not see the harm he does with bad policy and stands by it.
A religionist may follow a faith that abuses his children and steals and seem to get more dedicated the more the religion is exposed before his eyes.
From these examples, we see that anybody can be trapped in a biased position, any position.
A religionist is especially prone to this if there are teachings like these:
* Our message is the only hope for this world.
* You will lose salvation unless you commit to us and our understanding of God.
* You will lead others into sin.
* Satan puts lies in your head. Let us tell you what to think and believe.
* God prompts you to believe us so it is very insulting if you do not.
* You want lazy cheap mercy and pardon and you have a God that suits you for that. The community largely will feel duty bound to affirm what God has done and forgive as well.
* You will make the world better by believing and acting on your belief even if the belief is false.
You may think of more teachings that may induce the religionist who is getting doubtful to keep silent or to keep their mind narrow.
The teachings above pressure you to put a wall up against anything that threatens them.
The truth is not about us. We have to live with it for it is too big to go away. We are annoyed at that which is why we like escapism and all of us to an extent live in make-believe. Religion is the main we we do that.
While you say you humbly obey what God wants you to do, the fact is you are standing as judge over God that God is right. So there is an arrogance there that you will relish. And as this arrogance is not obviously anti-social you will be supported in it. To turn your inner feelings and notions into God is turning yourself into God. The silliness of that is dealt with by outsourcing, projecting.
How we think comes from how we think with others in our community. The person fears separating and fears new facts and won’t absorb them. The new is seen as a threat to the equilibrium.
People prefer to resist what is too challenging for they think their ideas and labels somehow are them, part of their identity, and part of who they are. They will protect their self-image before they protect knowledge and evidence and truth.
With that attitude, you see facts as asking you to be in a camp other than the one you are in.
Plus they are not waiting for us to pour knowledge into them and evidence. They already have those. It is just that they have made a narrative out of all that, a construct. Something new getting in threatens to unravel. That can be upsetting so they may put up resistance. There is a cascading effect. One truth can unravel the picture the person has built.
The issue is giving people evidence and facts that show they are wrong without making them more resistant. If their confidence in their wrong or harmful beliefs get worse then that can be serious. You will never know however if this confidence is just an act. It often is.
Understand that there is a self-harming side to human nature. That needs to be addressed. They need to see how facts will harm them unless they admit them. Self-harm gives a feeling of relief. You like how the hurting is in your hands as if that is going to keep hurt that is not in your hands at bay. You are trying to manipulate the harms you suffer and reprogram how bad you feel about them. It cannot work. The relief is temporary. You are in a vicious circle. You may get worse and start hurting others like you are hurting yourself.
If you are really about maximising unity with others you simply have to see that your defensiveness is harmful and holding you back. In belief, putting what others think before anything else is unwise.
Those who worry about the harms and lies of religion try to help believers become agnostics. The appeal there is how agnosticism seems humble and middle of the road.
The Eller book Liberatheism says agnosticism is not a position but a method and a process. It is not a middle position. It says it is not “a hesitation between theism and atheism.” It says the agnostic who never prays is in fact in practice an atheist. As it says also in the book, agnosticism is not a thing to be but a thing to do. Everybody is agnostic with many things. There are many things we won’t claim for we don’t have the right evidence.
If you want rid of how philosophical or ideological identity is a problem that may be the answer for you..
It is helpful to ask the believer to give you evidence for why they believe a particular core doctrine. They may reach negative atheism as a result.
Eller points out that being a negative atheist means you simply have no belief in God not that you are saying, “There is no God.” He says it is implying however that arguments for God do not work in your opinion. The positive atheist believes there are no Gods so arguments for God more than do not work but refute him. So a positive case for atheism can be made. Both are building the case against God differently.
So he says they are not different types of atheism but different tactics of atheism. The negative atheist is like the defense attorney who finds gaps and errors in the prosecution's case. The positive atheist sees and offers evidence for belief that there is no divine like the defense attorney who wants to show the crime has been done. Like you have negative defence - showing the prosecution's evidence doesn't work - and positive defence - showing that the evidence is that the crime happened - you have negative atheism and positive atheism.
If you see your atheism as mere lack of belief and as something godless to do, you avoid the pitfalls of identity. Nobody identifies as "I-do-not-believe-in-tooth-fairy-ist". So atheism here would not be a label in the way Jew or Catholic would be.
CONCLUSIONS: Why are persons be immune to facts? Why might a religious person go on as if they never heard or seen the proof that there is no God and that their faith is a lie? We have outlined dishonest and egotistical reasons that can stop a person from wanting and loving and discerning truth. Help the person see that their real or main identity is in being a person who knows their own mind and give them the tools to think. Remember that facts might not seem to change a person's mind but a seed can be sown and grow.