I know how to talk to a fundamentalist. Well, I know how to talk to the kind of fundamentalist I used to be, so I guess I know how to talk to myself. But that is something.

I started preaching in high school, and by college I was really good at it. I would walk up to you on campus, convinced that you were inwardly seeking exactly what I had to offer, and ask if you were saved, knowing that you would be so happy to finally meet someone so interesting, someone whose life was together, unlike yours. I was breath of fresh air.

It would be your lucky day when God directed you to sit next to me on a bus.

Maybe you didn't consciously admit that you wanted the truth I was offering, but after sensing the Spirit of God in my words, you would realize that, "Yes, this is what I have been yearning for!" You were merely living in "the world," and I was handing you the privilege to leave that sad, lowly, hopeless, empty domain and move into God's fraternity. What a blessing that there were people like me on campus who had the goodness and courage to make you such a wonderful invitation.

It was more than that, of course, but you get the idea. You probably thought I was a kook, but I knew I was a humble servant of the creator of the universe, so laugh all you want. The bible predicts that we obedient messengers of Jesus would be misunderstood and persecuted. If you called me names, that proved the bible is true! It also raised my status in His eyes, which were more important than your eyes.

It was exciting to get doors slammed in my face. It was affirming to hear ignorant college students arguing with me, trying to use the flawed and misconstrued "facts" of mere science, which are always changing, to combat the transcendent truth of the bible, which never changes.

Not all fundamentalists are the same. They often fight among themselves about various doctrines. They also differ in their style. Some are peaceful, loving, gentle believers who are genuinely good people trusting that their joyful and meaningful lives will be attractive to you. They figure it is God who is the judge. Others are intrusive proselytizers who sense a duty and a right to confront you in order to change your sinful ways and bring you into heaven. Fundamentalists fall across the bell curve of personality types like the rest of us. Some are intelligent and informed. Some are more emotional. Some are more empathetic and compassionate, more kind and respectful than others. The one thing that unites them is their commitment to the authority of the bible, regardless of how they interpret the "truth" of that book.

Fundamentalists pretend to love you sinners while hating your sin, and fancy themselves as doctors (or agents of the doctor) who can fix what is wrong with you. Like many doctors, fundamentalists rarely imagine they can learn anything from the patient. They walk through life diagnosing what is wrong with everyone else, smiling with the certainty (some might say smugness) that they have the secret to life, and if you challenge the reality of their so-called relationship with Jesus, they will simply say "you don't know." (And that may be true. Most of you nonbelievers don't know what it is like to "talk with God." But I do know, which is why I can write about this. It's quite a powerful experience, which I can reproduce today, with all the attendant feelings of being in the presence of a superior being-but as an atheist I now know that "talking with God" is purely psychological and points to nothing outside of the brain.)

It would seem that a true two-way dialogue between fundamentalists and nonbelievers, with radically different approaches to epistemology, is difficult, maybe impossible. But I am going to tell you exactly what you could have said to me that would have made a difference, things that I now wish someone had told me years ago.

Before you jump in with arguments swinging, I want to caution you to back up. Ask yourself what your agenda is and how it relates to their agenda.

Their goal is to convert you. Therefore, by not converting, you have already won. If you are not the arguing type, don't worry. You can just say, "No thanks, I don't believe that. I am happy. I don't need what you offer." Then walk away. That might be more effective than squaring off for a prolonged one-way argument where they can show off how much they know, trying this and that (changing the topic), and feeling like a very important servant of God, going back to their church to boast, "I was unafraid to confront Satan face to face." If you simply walk away, you deny them the chance to feed their attention-seeking needs. They want to feel important and useful to God. They hate to be ignored.

And what is your goal? If your goal is to simply counter them and let them know there are happy, informed nonbelievers in the world, then that is easy. Just be yourself, say what you think, and don't worry if they change their minds. Be relaxed about it. You are not the one with the problem and you can't solve everyone else's problems. If you try too hard to change their mind, it can make you look uneasy, like you are "protesting too much," which they most certainly will take as a sign of insecurity. It can also validate their "war" (as the hymn says, "Onward, Christian Soldiers", hardening their resolve. Many nonbelievers are happy to live and let live, and don't care what fundamentalists believe. Most of us nontheists will complain only about the harmful behavior (not ideas) of believers, because people should be judged by their actions, not their beliefs. If a religiously motivated action is causing unnecessary harm, then moral people will challenge such behavior. Otherwise, belief is a private matter. Tell them a little of your opinions, then leave it at that.

If your goal, however, is to convert them, then you have a lot of work to do. Well, actually, we can't "convert" anyone. We all have to come to our own conclusions. If you were raised religious, like me, you know that your de-conversion came from inside, not from an atheist evangelist. But still, some of us atheists and agnostics do feel a need, or responsibility, to champion reason, science, and kindness, and would like to improve the world by persuading others to abandon superstition and dogma.

There is one other thing you should realize before you start talking with a fundamentalist, and this might save you a lot of grief and wasted time. Regarding religious and moral matters, fundamentalists have binary brains. Their mindset is absolutistic. There is no gray area in their skulls when it comes to Jesus and the bible. (I didn't say "gray matter," but maybe sometimes it feels that way.) To a fundamentalist, everything is black or white, yes or no, right or wrong. Jesus is reported as saying, "Because you are lukewarm-neither hot nor cold-I am about to spit you out of my mouth." If you use gray talk-relativistic, situational, tentative, hypothetical-it will translate to black. They claim to have 100% certainty and they will demand it of you. For this reason, fundamentalists are just as dismissive of liberal Christians as they are of atheists. If you say anything that admits less than perfect truth or absolute moral values, they will pounce on it and say, "Aha! You don't know!" If you say, "You don't know either," they will smile and reply that they have a personal relationship with Jesus, the author of reality, so it is you who is in the dark.

I used to say those things. And I believed them. I know that you can't shake that mindset with a few arguments on a sidewalk. However, there are some things you could have said to me which would have made an impact when I was a fundamentalist preacher.

http://www.secularstudents.org/node/2181

Unless you have time to waste (in which case you are truly ready for your upcoming exams), I would suggest you avoid all those interesting side discussions and go on the offensive, hitting the jugular-the bible. It is the bible, after all, upon which all of fundamentalism rests. If the bible is true, they have a case. If not, their whole house of cards falls. I would have been very impressed if you had said something like, "You might have a point if the bible were reliable. I would be happy to believe what you believe, but I when I study the bible, as you recommend, I come away concluding that it cannot be the basis for any truth, and here is why, " If you would have pointed out some contradictions in the bible, using chapter and verse, that would have impressed me immensely. I would not have converted immediately to atheism (ha!), but my momentum would have been slowed. After all, bible reading is what fundamentalists are urging you to do, and if you tell them "Been there, done that," with specific examples, then they can't pretend that your problem is due to ignoring their "Good Book."
If you had quoted the bible to me, I would not have admitted that I was impressed. I would have fought back, claiming that you are taking things out of context or reading a bad translation or failing to see the big picture, wondering how in the world someone could read the bible and not fall in love with it. But the important thing is that you would have me on the defensive. I would know that you know that if the bible falls, my whole fundamentalist world view crumbles. I would also know that you have taken me seriously. You went right to my source and looked at it for yourself. I could not complain that you are afraid to look at "the facts."
I am not recommending that you become a bible scholar. Just familiarize yourself with some of the basics of bible contradictions, scientific and historical errors. [b]After all, as much as they trumpet the bible, few of them actually read it carefully. "Bible study," to a fundamentalist does not mean what it means to a scholar-it means "reading the words of God in order to feed on his wisdom." Bible study, to them, does not mean examining the manuscripts on which translations were based, or the fluctuating historical context in which those words were written in order to assess the reliability and worth of the claims that were written, or noticing the parallels with other religious texts, or noticing the evolution of the text (insertions, deletions, replacements, scribal mistakes), and so on. The fundamentalist takes the authenticity of the bible as a given, as a starting point. Then they read from it, often flitting from verse to unconnected verse, like a bee looking for nectar. (They are not all that sloppy, of course, but they all treat the text as "holy." Bible "study," to a fundamentalist, is not study-it is worship.[/b]
In my new book, Godless, as well as my 1992 book Losing Faith in Faith, I detail a handful of useful bible contradictions (some discussed in great depth), which you might use as an easy starting point, if you are not too familiar with the "Word of God." I also lay out the arguments that weaken the likelihood of a historical Jesus, and the case against the resurrection of Jesus (a very important issue to fundamentalists).
Morality
Fundamentalists are extremely fixated on the "sin" issues. They imagine, as the bible teaches, that the only way to be truly good is to follow God's laws. We humans are born with an innate tendency to evil-"original sin"-and only Jesus can cure that. The world's problems are due to disobedience and selfishness and an unwillingness to submit to the rules that our loving Father has laid down for us. Most fundamentalists also believe in a literal Satan who tempts us away from the holiness of the family of God. Homosexuality, abortion, free love, adultery, drug use, cheating on tests, crime, and dozens of other "sins" are a direct result of our godless selfishness and arrogant waywardness. But if you are "born again," you become an entirely "new creature," and are now one of the good people, the "in crowd" of brothers and sisters of Jesus. Your life now has real love. It is more moral, more compassionate, and less "sinful" than the lives of nonbelievers.
That's what I used to preach, with no empirical support. It is a powerful insider's belief, a glue that separates "us" from "them." After all, don't you want to be a good person? Don't you want to be saved from sin? Don't you need real love in your life (as opposed to mere carnal, human love)? Wouldn't any good person desire to go to heaven?
You nonbelievers are outsiders, nonparticipants, unsaved, still trapped in your evil human nature, needing a make-over, a regeneration, a new birth.
So on that issue, here is something else you could have said to me that would have had an impact. It would not have changed my mind on the spot, but it would have been excruciatingly relevant. "You born-again Christians preach that faith in Jesus helps you to live better lives, but in fact, you are not more moral than nonChristians. Your lives do not have more happiness or meaning. As a group, you are not healthier. You have no fewer financial problems. You commit just as many crimes, take just as many drugs for depression, watch just as many X-rated movies, report no greater satisfaction in life, and actually have a higher divorce rate than nonChristians. You contribute less to charity." (If they ask for documentation, point them to such studies as conducted by the honest born-again sociologist George Barna, who concludes in his book The Second Coming of the Church that "We [born-again Christians] think and behave no differently from anyone else."
Show the fundamentalist that, as a nonbeliever, you are happy and ethical. If you contribute to charity or do volunteer work for a good cause, let them know it. Since even Jesus agreed that those who are not sick don't need the doctor (Matthew 9:12), you can simply say you are healthy, thank you. If salvation is the "cure," then atheism is the "prevention."
Also, point out that for all their talk about the need for moral absolutes, Christians do not agree on what those absolutes are. Take any current moral issue with which society is struggling, and you will find praying, bible-believing, devout church-going Christians on both sides of those issues. This is true of abortion rights, man-lover rights, stem-cell research, the war in Iraq, birth control, gun control, the death penalty, doctor-assisted suicide, the teaching of evolution, animal rights, environmental protection, state/church separation, and so on. Where is the "absolute moral guidance" they talk about? Why do bible believers not agree?
You don't need to get sucked into a long philosophical argument about moral absolutes or ethical relativism. Atheists and agnostics disagree about these things, and so do theists among themselves. You can just point out that even if they are right about the need for moral absolutes (they are not, but that is beside the point), there is no empirical support for their claim that Christians are better people.
- - - - -
There are other issues that may be more relevant to other types of Christians, but if you want to talk the language of a fundamentalist, then concentrate on the bible and morality. Don't let them think they have the upper hand. Don't allow them to pretend that you are the one with the problem. You don't have to talk with them, of course, and in many cases it is probably best to just ignore them. But if you think there is a chance the fundamentalist knows how to listen (and not just preach), then remind them that a true dialogue is a two-way street and that you are happy to listen to them if they will also listen to you.
Otherwise, get back to studying for that math exam.
http://www.secularstudents.org/node/2227

Articles by Dan Barker, former Preacher (for 19 years ).