WARNING: THIS ONE MAY STING A LITTLE
The sucker punch religious folk like to throw at non-theists and humanists is that innocent little question: “But if you are atheist, you believe in NOTHING, right?”
To the free thinker, this question is about as silly as they come. However, to someone whose life is defined by what dogma they follow, having nothing to dictate to them what to think is a bazaar concept. The proper response to such a query about the absence of belief is to point out that not having to categorize one’s thought conclusions according to a buffet of organized religions does not mean that a person is devoid of conviction.
Diving into the meaning of belief would be another novel approach. If someone believes in a deity, they cannot prove its truth, but rather throw logic to the wind and bridge the gap between reality and fantasy with ‘faith’ or ‘believing’. So to turn their logic around on them, you may ask if they believe in Alien beings on the planet Mars. If the answer is no, you may ask: “But if you don’t believe in aliens, you believe in Nothing, right?” (As though not believing in something imaginary leaves a person devoid.) You may substitute Aliens with Santa Clause, Fairies, Magical beans; anything that requires the leap of ‘faith’ from reality to fantasy.
Belief is a funny little word. In the christian circle, it is as necessary as air, water and food. Without belief, nothing said in any religious content would hold up to logic and reason. Believers say things like “God gave me faith” as though it was a gift and not a brain malfunction that allowed them to throw out their better judgment in order to fit into a select group of people who claimed to have all the answers so long as their followers had ‘faith’. The best remedy for this is to help the ‘believer’ to recognize that faith and belief are defects in the mind and are not things whose absence causes voids. I like this analogy:
Say a drug addict and another guy were having a conversation. The other guy is trying to convince the addict to quit. The addict says: “But if you don’t do drugs, then you must not do anything ever, right?”
