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[Hanslanda]

Most of those are anti-christian. What I pointed out in the other thread is that many new atheists seem to make the mistake that religion = Christianity. You can bash, destroy, and ridicule Christianity until it's a smoldering pile of rubble, but that will do squat in discrediting the concept of religion as a whole.

Your first link, for example: All his supporting points are attacking concepts promoted mainly by Christianity and a couple other major religions. But his conclusion is that ALL religion is incompatible with science, which is bogus. Deism's an excellent example of that, as it was created by Enlightenment scientists: A sentient something-or-other made the universe. No further assumptions or assertions past that. Absolutely nothing science can ever prove will go against it. For that religion (and infinite more possibilities), they are compatible.

Indeed. This is a good point. Strangely enough, I found a lot of Muslim-hate when I found these, far more so than any other specific religion. Muslim hate is one of my pet peeves, because people assume that the minority of crazy extremists paint the whole religion as crazy extremists, when they are not. Then again, my first link makes a point about crazy extremists and religion being capable of excusing such behavior, however remote and tenuous the excuse might be.
Anyways, just wanted to share those with you.

[scriver]

Any questions?

This is false and, ironically, extremely ignorant. There "Dark Ages" is a myth created by Renaissance idiots (Roman fanboys, all of them) and has no historical basis, not to mention that it originally just referred to the lack of knowledge about the early medieval years the Renaissance scholars had access to, and the inclusion of "scientific knowledge" into the term was just baseless corruption. Roman "science" stagnated during the latter half of the Empire's timeline, and the passage over to High Middle Ages instead saw a rise in scientific discoveries to a point that hadn't been seen in Europe since the earlier Roman years.

And this is of course disregarding the fact that during the Islamic Golden Age, the propagation of scientific knowledge and discovery was seen as one of the most important religious duties among Muslim rulers, and that the Renaissance people were all just as religious as ever before (Deism did not become common until the Enlightenment Era), meaning that even if there was such a thing as "the Dark Ages" it had very, very little to do with religion and even Christianity.

[Hanslanda]

Any questions?

This is false and, ironically, extremely ignorant. There "Dark Ages" is a myth created by Renaissance idiots (Roman fanboys, all of them) and has no historical basis, not to mention that it originally just referred to the lack of knowledge about the early medieval years the Renaissance scholars had access to, and the inclusion of "scientific knowledge" into the term was just baseless corruption. Roman "science" stagnated during the latter half of the Empire's timeline, and the passage over to High Middle Ages instead saw a rise in scientific discoveries to a point that hadn't been seen in Europe since the earlier Roman years.

And this is of course disregarding the fact that during the Islamic Golden Age, the propagation of scientific knowledge and discovery was seen as one of the most important religious duties among Muslim rulers, and that the Renaissance people were all just as religious as ever before (Deism did not become common until the Enlightenment Era), meaning that even if there was such a thing as "the Dark Ages" it had very, very little to do with religion and even Christianity.

This would make sense. After all, I don't recall Romans wearing plate armor and using windmills. The late Roman Empire(s) were pretty corrupt and stagnant, so it should come as no surprise that they'd regressed technologically as well. Also, thanks for the tidbit about the Islamic Golden Age, that's going into my 'Reasons you shouldn't hate Islam' file.

[scriver]

Also add that that pursuit (which was the word I was thinking of when I used "propagation", by the way ) of knowledge laid the foundational foundation for science as we would come to know it during the Enlightenment Era as well. Of course, a lot of it was also just taking old Greek knowledge and introducing it to old (and new) Indian knowledge, and then making 1+1 equal 2. But still, they came up with some pretty major things on their own as well. As a general rule, if something sciency has an "al" in the foremost part of the word, it was thought up by or introduced to us by the Muslims.Al-gebra, al-chemy (which, of course, gave us chemistry), even y al-cohol (the scientific term).

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Though pretty much nothing of the ideals that sparked the Islamic Golden Age has survived into modern day Islam. The need for rapid technological development kind of "migrated" to Europe and caused the Renaissance not long after the Islamic Golden Age ended.

[Hanslanda]

@scriver:
Mind = Blown

[Scoops Novel]

Out of curiousity; has anyone here ever successfully convinced a religious person that they were wrong, and what happened next? I mean it's theoretically possible, but usually seems to occur when you have the zeitgeist of pondering how you life doesn't match up with your religion.  I would postulate it's very hard to convince someone who hasn't recently had a traumatic event (not that that is, necessarily, by any means the best time to raise such questions) or some other cause of uncertainty, who is also willing to debate. In other words, anyone achieved this with someone who's content to some degree?

[scriver]

@scriver:
Mind = Blown

...Sarcasm? I can never tell 

[Hanslanda]

@scriver:
Mind = Blown

...Sarcasm? I can never tell 

No, it was truthful. I didn't know about the 'al' thing.

[10ebbor10]

Out of curiousity; has anyone here ever successfully convinced a religious person that they were wrong, and what happened next? I mean it's theoretically possible, but usually seems to occur when you have the zeitgeist of pondering how you life doesn't match up with your religion.  I would postulate it's very hard to convince someone who hasn't recently had a traumatic event (not that that is, necessarily, by any means the best time to raise such questions) or some other cause of uncertainty, who is also willing to debate. In other words, anyone achieved this with someone who's content to some degree?

I'm pretty sure it's rather hard, as you ain't going to be able to convinve the fundamentalists, and the beliefs of the more moderate factions are actually quite alright. (Depending on your definition of most of the words in the previous sentence, of course.)

Has anyone ever convinced an fundamentalist atheist that his view of religion might be wrong?

[Siquo]

Though pretty much nothing of the ideals that sparked the Islamic Golden Age has survived into modern day Islam.

Which is too bad, but (and I'm usually the religion-defender around here) mostly the religion's fault.
Scriver, most of your images are strawmen, of course (bashing just one aspect of (christian) religion), yet still funny. You forgot one that I liked, though

Out of curiousity; has anyone here ever successfully convinced a religious person that they were wrong, and what happened next?

You can't disprove "religion" all at once. The only thing that does work is showing them actual proof of stuff they believe in, and where they are wrong (this will work if you can lead them up to it, so they can actually understand the proof given). They'll probably still believe in God, just not in that single thing anymore. If you can't dispriove the thing they believe in, you've got no reason/right/way to convince them otherwise, anyway.

[10ebbor10]

Though pretty much nothing of the ideals that sparked the Islamic Golden Age has survived into modern day Islam.

Which is too bad, but (and I'm usually the religion-defender around here) mostly the religion's fault.
Scriver, most of your images are strawmen, of course (bashing just one aspect of (christian) religion), yet still funny. You forgot one that I liked, though

Nope. The radicalization of the Islam was caused by a rather tragic experience for the entire islamic empire: "The invasion of The mongols."
Which happened in the 13the century.

Also, for the Christian Dark age being a black spot in scientific progress. It really is a fable. Quite a lot of Europe's most important architectural buildings where build then, and religion was a corner piece in keeping the large empires of among others Charle Mange toghether.

If you want a dark period caused by Christianity, skip a few centuries forward, to the sixtheenth century. That's the time of the inquisition, and the burning of witches.

[Sheb]

Was it? I was under the impression that the recent radicalization of Islam was due to post-colonialism and the collapse of the socialist/Arab nationalist alternative.

[scriver]

Yup. Things like these come and go, but the current fundamentalism dates back to a couple of ideologues in the early 20th century (maybe late 19th if you want to stretch it) and it didn't gain popularity until the 40's-60's. So it's very much a modern phenomenon, even though the mongol invasion probably caused a whole lot of regression in it's time too, but it's rather unrelated to how the culture/philosophy/theology of today came into being.

[palsch]

Out of curiousity; has anyone here ever successfully convinced a religious person that they were wrong, and what happened next? I mean it's theoretically possible, but usually seems to occur when you have the zeitgeist of pondering how you life doesn't match up with your religion.  I would postulate it's very hard to convince someone who hasn't recently had a traumatic event (not that that is, necessarily, by any means the best time to raise such questions) or some other cause of uncertainty, who is also willing to debate. In other words, anyone achieved this with someone who's content to some degree?

Depends on the topic.

I used to focus strongly on creationism/evolution debates. There a certain subset of people are actually open to real debate. I wrote an essay on this a few years back. I can post the whole thing if people are interested, but a relevant section;

The final group, and the ones I'm interested in, are those who are genuinely interested in science, but who have been taught that they have to accept Creationism for religious reasons. These are the ones who seek out debates. They are genuinely curious and interested in the science. Most of the time they are also fairly angry or hostile, because they can't believe people accept such lies as evolution when the things they have been taught so obviously debunk it. These are the people you can actually talk with and win over.

The problem is that wining can still be painful. A lot of the time their belief in creationism is very closely tied up with their religion. Showing them that what they have been taught is bunk is likely to badly damage their trust in the authority figures who taught them that. That goes from their parents to their teachers to their ministers to their God. There are lots of people who lose their faith based on piddling details of evolution that they can no longer deny, but that they have been taught they must deny in order to be a Real True Christian. They can't imagine anything in between.

Personally I know of at least one case where I convinced someone their Young Earth position was wrong and got them to turn away from certain creationist authority figures they had been relying on (think Kent Hovind). In another I was contacted long after the debate when they had completely left the faith. They had messaged me to thank me for being a significant part of that (enough to track me down and message me after literal years), although I'm not sure what other factors were involved. That one made me a little uncomfortable.