A couple of Jehovah's Witnesses came by this weekend. Nothing eventful, but in hindsight I'm a little disappointed that I let them off easy. I think it's because they complimented my daughter's politeness a few times so I was in a jovial mood.
They went through their intro and asked me if they could share some literature with me. I said I didn't believe in God, or that the Bible was inspired, so sharing scriptures was not likely to move me.
They asked if I had always felt that way, or if I used to be religious. I said I was very religious until my mid-20s, but at that time I realized that ever since I was three years old, God was just a fact of life that I had never questioned myself. (This got agreeing nods, but I'm sure the same is true of them. One of them also had their young son there in a stroller.)
Then they asked if I agreed that the Bible had many good things to say about how to live one's life, raise children, yadda yadda, and here's where I (later) wished I'd answered differently. I said, 'Sure it contains some nice sayings, but that doesn't mean the sayings came from God. Humans are plenty capable of coming up with deep/useful words on their own. For example, probably the greatest saying in the Bible, the Golden Rule (do to others what you would want them to do to you) was written in a different form by many other cultures 500 years before Christ.' They agreed, offered me their literature one last time, and left.
I wish I had gone on the offensive a little more. It was a friendly conversation and I think I could have been a little more pointed without crossing the line into giving offense. I should have said, "Sure, it contains some nice sayings, but if we're going to infer God's character by those nice things, don't we also have to infer his character by the really horrible things in the Bible? Things like commanding and committing genocide, allowing his people to own slaves and treat other humans as property, forcing women to marry the men who rape them, and killing people for picking up sticks on the sabbath?"
Not that I don't think they have ready-made excuses for these atrocities--all Christians do--but maybe it would have been another piece of straw added to the camel's back.
Probably the single biggest factor in my deconversion was arguing online (in the old AOL days) with the godless atheists. When I was a believer I never lost a theological argument (you can't lose if you're unwilling to concede the tiniest point), but there were times I was frustrated when they brought up arguments that I didn't have ready answers for. I would go over the conversation, wondering what I could have said differently. Sure, eventually I came up with a tortured excuse for my stance, but I could only ignore the cognitive dissonance for so long. Eventually, without even realizing it, I was forced to admit-without-admitting that my answers were lousy, and I started doing a little furtive reading about other viewpoints.
It's not my goal to deconvert JWs or anyone else. But I think religion is a net negative in the world, and if I can get them to start (or continue) the internal dialogue that leads them to really think about their beliefs, I consider it time well spent.
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