One of the things that I noticed about fundamentalist
Christians was how quickly they wanted to curtail the conversation when you
brought up facts or statistics that
would disprove their narrative of the world. You could bring up statistics about the lower rate of atheists in
prison compared to the general population and this seemed to have no
bearing on their belief system. Those I spent time with did not want to hear
about these “satanic” statistics.
(When I was initially venturing towards unbelief, I noticed how atheists would endlessly remind me of statistics. They would use statistics to back up some of their viewpoints. (They would mention how there is a lower rate of atheists in prison compared to the general population). Atheists made no hesitation to discuss statistical differences between two different groups (Atheists vs Theists).... Anyways,...I digress.
Whenever I would bring up facts or statistics to certain fundamentalist Christians, these individuals would hurl terms like “infidel”, “Unbeliever” or “Heretic”
at me. This would stifle the progress of the discussion—it would stop the
conversation. Then they would say, “You
know you’re just being a (heretic” or “You
know you just hate Christians”. This was a clever strategy to employ so
that certain things about their religion would not be discussed or exposed. It was a convenient tool so that facts
could not be discussed or heard and other possible explanations for events
would not be evaluated.
Since being around
this kind of mentality, I am able to notice it in other situations as well.
In fact, I observe how people use it in so many other belief systems or
narratives that they hold dearly and do
not want to be evaluated. They will
then throw pejorative terms like “racist” “infidel” “hate monger” “heretic”
“bigot” or “sexist” at you—not because you actually are any of these things,
but because THEY FEEL UNCOMFORTABLE discussing facts, statistics, science,
history and they do not want to consider the possible implications that come
with these things.
Like the Church who placed Galileo on house arrest at the
end of his life, they would rather change the subject or deny the exploration
of the topic because it may put chinks in their cherished belief system/narrative.
