What are we arguing for???

I’ve somehow just started reading atheist blogs, and I’m puzzled by the amount of time and energy that is spent arguing with and about the faithful.

My question is: when was the last time any of us actually won an argument against someone, the result of which was that the loser changed his or her mind???

It’s not like we’re having some sort of debate, and we’re likely to be swayed one way or another (like say a democrat turns into a republican after watching one of their debates? Or, in this case, a believer opens her eyes after reading an argument on an atheist blog where each side badmouths the other??? ) What’s that about? What’s the actual point?

What’s being debated isn’t the merits, or lack thereof, of something like the best way to skin a cat, but rather the structure upon which so many people rely in their daily lives!

I don’t know, I think there are myriad ways to bring people around to consider reality from a different angle, one where when cause is not obvious, it doesn’t mean there’s some otherworldly power in charge. It could just mean that we haven’t gotten around to explaining it yet… It might even mean we never will (or at least during this, our only lifetime. Ok, that’s a hard one to swallow, I know. That’s the downside to the twenty-first century, having to drop science as a substitute for religion… What, No Definitive Answers?!? No all-encompassing theory of everything, from soup to nuts?)

The way I see it is that there must be an equivalent to my challenge for the faithful: I will drop to my knees and believe in God the day I come face to face with him and he shows me some of the really incredible stuff he’s said to be able to do. (And I don’t mean for that to seem in any way disrespectful of anyone’s beliefs… Just, you know, like show me a parting of the seas or something, that isn’t a tidal wave)

So what would it take to change a believer’s mind?

So far, I’ve only come up with one thing, which is to shed light on the cognitive mechanisms by virtue of which we could not not have become religious.

And that is exactly what I’ve decided to do by coming back here.