How to Convince People to Agree with your Philosophies

You can't. I apologize for the misleading blog title, but you can't.

Here's why:

People are really stubborn. People hate being wrong and people would rather lie than be wrong.

Theists, you can't really convert atheists to theists and same to atheists, you can't really convert theists to atheists.

Every single atheist I have talked to has discovered through independent research and questioning that god doesn't exist. I know many atheists that openly try to get people to learn their perspective and learn that god really doesn't exist, but it doesn't work because people are not just going to up and change.

Getting into arguments about this stuff online is really pointless too, because you aren't going to change the other person's mind.

When was the last time a Jehovah's Witness actually convinced you at your door?

People change their religions when left alone. When I was a Christian I probably wouldn't have become an atheist if a group of atheists approached me and maybe if they had, I wouldn't have ever become an atheist because I would've had this prejudice against them. Maybe I would've.

Just stop telling me about your religion or beliefs because it's not going to change mine. If I am interested in them, I will ask you. Do not get proactive about this kind of stuff.

This doesn't even have to be about religion or theism/atheism. This can be about anything.

Even a kid trying to convince another kid the colour blue is better than the colour green wouldn't be very successful.

Of course there is the odd time when trying to convince another person of something does work but that is not the likely case.

Even though I realize I can't convince all my theistic friends and family to become atheist, it won't stop me from talking about atheism whenever I want to. I am just not going to try to proactively hand them brochures or lecture them.

People aren't just going to switch sides. It takes time to make these decisions. My change from Christian to Atheist was gradual. I was an Anglican Christian, Christian, Spiritual Christian, Spiritual, Agnostic, Agnostic Atheist and now I am Atheist. This all happened in maybe a 3 month time span.

People don't just wake up and think "I'll try mormonism!" or answer the door and think "Sure! I'd love to attend the Church of Latter Day Saints!".

Open-minded people might. But even they aren't going to let go of their stability of their beliefs until they are ready to leap.

It's not impossible to convince other people, but it is highly unlikely.

If you actually came here to find out how to convince people of your philosophies, here is one tip:

Get close to them, but not close enough in which you will argue with them because then they won't talk back and they aren't overly comfortable with you so they won't question you too much. I find this works well with door-to-door people because they get friendly with you but you don't know them well enough to punch them in the face when they say something you think is stupid.

AND FOR GOODNESS SAKES don't be hostile towards another person if you are trying to get them onto your side of a belief system. This happens all of the time on the internet and it doesn't fucking work out so stop wasting your time.

This was a very professional blog post. It was just in my mind for a few days and I just spewed it all out right now. Sorry, I am not editing it.

Do you have any techniques to convince people? Do you think I am wrong in thinking it is hard to convince people to agree with your philosophies?

Truth and Lying

The past few days I have been pondering on the subject of truth.

I was thinking about how important truth is to our society and how easy it is to become susceptible to lies. It's the easiest thing to hear a fake fact like "39% of people have yellow kitchens" and take it as truth just because it sounds real. This is called truthiness or wikiality. I recommend you do some reading on the word "wikilaity" which was coined by Stephen Colbert.

As I said, I was thinking about the importance of truth and since it's so easy to believe lies online that we are a society that is very-much-so based on lies as well as fact. I realized this a while ago and when I did I basically stopped myself in my tracks right there. I was mesmerized by this idea but I carried on with my life. When I realized this once again I thought "I should stop lying" but doing this is so hard. It is natural to lie.

We lie to ourselves all of the time. "Yes these pants fit" "Yes I can afford them" "Yes I can wear them to work" "Yes I can put them in the laundry" when really the answer is no. It's just stretching the truth.

I was thinking how these little lies aren't that bad. We can lie a little lie once in a while. I remember as a kid thinking how every small lie would always snowball into one big lie. This hasn't happened to me too often. The only time things snowball is when I lie about where I am because for some reason I have a hard time doing this.

I think lying is so common that we do it subconsciously. I am an atheist and I know god doesn't exist, so when I look at a (thinking) theist I think they are probably subconsciously lying to themselves. Maybe not, that is just my opinion. I just think perhaps theists will hear the facts but they just don't care and so they brush them off with lies.

Is it that bad to lie? I think sometimes it is, like when theists lie to themselves. This changes society as a whole. Perhaps 15% of the world population is non-religious/atheist/agnostic and approximately 29% of Canada's population is non-religious/atheist/agnostic but if people keep lying to themselves that number isn't going to increase as quickly as it should. Although in the past 10 years it has basically doubled.

See that? Those statistics up there. They could be lies because they seem easy to believe. I take them as fact, as truth. But the truth is I read them somewhere, a couple of sources but I don't know for a 100% fact whether or not they are fact. They could be made-up.

Plus surveys aren't reliable anyways because people can easily lie on them. People answer surveys based on the way the question is asked. If they are answering a survey based on ice cream consumption by a fitness guru at the gym they are probably going to lie saying they eat less ice cream rather than asking customers at an ice cream store, even if the same people were surveyed at both places.

So how can we tell truth and lies apart? We can't. This is why I am a skeptic. I try to accept as few things as possible as fact. I think we all have a good idea over what is real and what isn't but as a skeptic, I know that you can never really know.

We don't know. Another one of life's mysteries.

Everything you read out of a textbook can't be taken as fact. You may learn it in school but teachers and textbooks make mistakes, surveys are flawed and science experiments can go wrong.

"Man went to the moon" you say, but do you even know there is a moon? How do we not know that the government isn't projecting it into the sky. You haven't been into space to tell the difference, have you?

This is getting way too in depth for what I really wanted to talk about. Let me backtrack.

I want to say I think that little lies to ourselves like "This one chocolate bar won't hurt" are okay but they aren't. Lying to ourselves and lying to others doesn't lead to truth. Even if you think a small lie won't hurt anything, like being just one person lying about your religious stance or lying about your bra size while taking a survey, it does affect everything. You are a member of society, and even though you only represent one person, do you think you are the only one lying? No. Maybe. But it is unlikely.

Unlikely. This actually leads me to a new point (sorry for straying again) but certainty and impossibility don't exist. I used to just say that nothing is impossible. Anything can happen, you won't know until you see it. For example, you must be american born to be president but perhaps I will be the president if that law lifts (because I am Canadian). It is highly-unlikely but not impossible. I recently realized certainty also doesn't exist. You don't know that you aren't being controlled by little wires. You can't even know for sure that you exist.

Even though I just said even small lies are bad, will I always tell the truth? It is unlikely.

Anyways. Sorry for making your brain hurt.

See that? I just apologized for something I am not sorry for. I already lied.

Do you think it is okay to lie? When?

What does truth mean to you?