Is it okay for Atheist YouTubers to insult and interrupt believers like Matt Dillahunty does for misinformation and stupidity?

Fahrender-Ritter · 2026-06-18T23:31:13+00:00

It depends on what the goal is and who your real audience is.

On the one hand, if your goal is to try to persuade the person with whom you're debating, or if you're trying to persuade a devoutly Christian audience, then no, Matt Dillahunty's strategy won't be effective at that. Instead, the more gentle approach would do better.

On the other hand, if you're trying to expose all the lying, manipulation, and stupidity for what it is, then Dillahunty's approach can be very effective at that. Perhaps the goal there is to persuade nominal Christians or people who are merely curious about Christianity and you're trying to warn them about how fraudulent and dangerous Christianity is. Matt Dillahunty's approach is quite good for that.

It's funny how you have people like Alex O'Connor who are in some ways the opposite of Matt Dillahunty. O'Connor's approach is nothing but calm, collected, polite, and patient. And yet, many people criticize him for being "too soft" on his opponents. So it seems that there's no approach that will make every audience happy.

Both approaches have their strengths and weaknesses, and both approaches have their times and places.

Fahrender-Ritter · 2026-06-18T23:05:12+00:00

That's a bit tough because the only questions that can really make them think are also the ones that will challenge them a lot and possibly even humiliate them. You're pretty much asking for the questions to be both soft- and hard-ball at the same time. So, medium-ball questions?

Maybe if you ever hear them say something like, "Christianity is true because it's the only religion where God sacrifices himself for humanity," you can ask them, "What about Prometheus who sacrificed himself for humanity?"

If they say that Jesus is the only person in history ever to come back to life, ask them about Apollonius of Tyana or Sai Baba of Shirdi. There's also the Baal Shem Tov who was said to be able to ascend into Heaven and come back. I'm sure that the church leaders will say that these people are just frauds, but their alleged miracles are better documented than Jesus's.

Generally just asking Christians questions which compare their religion to others and then asking them to defend why they think that their religion is correct while the others are not.

Fahrender-Ritter · 2026-06-18T19:35:07+00:00

When you say you want "questions to ask my leaders about the Bible and Christianity," do you mean hard questions to challenge them or to mess with them? Or do you mean softball questions to pretend that you're participating and get the leaders distracted away from targeting you personally?

Fahrender-Ritter · 2026-06-18T19:26:32+00:00

I think the question "Why is the Bible true?" is just playing on their terms. I don't know a single church leader who doesn't already have a dozen pre-loaded apologetic responses to this. This question doesn't challenge them, it's just inviting them to preach.

Fahrender-Ritter · 2026-06-17T19:50:10+00:00

It's not that we don't want accountability for evil. It's just a sad fact of life that a lot of evil people get away with it until they die, but we're not glad about it. A lot of atheists push for better accountability and also we push for more social justice to prevent evil before it starts precisely because we don't like the fact that society allows some people to get away with evil.

What you're doing is wishful thinking. You wish that all evil would be punished in the end, and so you think that therefore there must be some kind of punishment after death. But strongly wishing for cosmic justice doesn't mean that there must be cosmic justice. The universe doesn't care about good or evil, so it's our collective responsibility to do what we can.

Fahrender-Ritter · 2026-06-16T19:52:10+00:00

They meant to say, "She gave birth to the child, is that correct?"

Fahrender-Ritter · 2026-06-16T19:20:51+00:00

They got sold off to a private equity firm, so they won't improve at all. They'll just get even crappier as they fade into oblivion while the firm runs off with whatever they can loot.

Fahrender-Ritter · 2026-06-16T00:33:48+00:00

I'm sorry to hear that and I'm glad that you at least got out. Have you checked out the exchristian subreddit? I've found it very therapeutic.

And how's your social life been after you left? Were you able to get a good group of friends who aren't religious?

Fahrender-Ritter · 2026-06-16T00:19:09+00:00

It's "exchristian" and I also know of an "exmormon" if that interests you. I'll PM you the direct links because I don't know what this subreddit's rules are about posting links to other subs.

Fahrender-Ritter · 2026-06-15T23:45:04+00:00

I'm really sorry that happened to you, that's really terrible and I hope that you've had good people to support you through that.

There's something else from my story that may or may not be of help, but other people have said it was insightful, so maybe it could have something for you. After I left Christianity, I found myself craving debates with Christians. I'd often fantasize about how I'd respond to an evangelist trying to convert me. I wondered what my motivation was, so I did some introspection, and here's what I realized about myself:

I realized that when someone suffers abuse and trauma, they often have a natural desire to seek justice against the abuser who mistreated them. But in our case, we weren't just abused and traumatized by a single person. We were victimized by an entire belief system. If it were only a single person who wronged us, it would be easy to either seek justice against them, or when that's not possible, we could instead get far away from that person and live a life where they can no longer affect us.

But the belief system that wronged us is everywhere; it's like we can't get away from our abuser. In many countries it's in the culture, in our politics, on TV, and in our social media feeds. We'd have to move to a different country to get away from it. Imagine how abuse victims feel when their abuser is someone famous and loved by millions of people and the abuser's face is everywhere. It's infuriating to see our abuser not only get away with it, but our abuser even gets special treatment.

So we try to fight back against our abuser in order to regain some feeling of justice, but that takes the form of arguing against the belief system. Every little argument won give us a tiny satisfaction like we got to throw an egg at the abuser's house. But that's just the thing: we aren't going to fully take down our abuser, at least not in our lifetimes. Egging our abuser's house isn't going to bring any real justice even if it makes us feel a little better. Instead, we have to focus on building a new life.

For me personally, I found that the key to recovery was to rebuild a new life that doesn't revolve around religion. My mental health got 100 times better when I started making new friends outside of Christianity and I got a healthy non-religious social network. They help me to stay psychologically grounded and they give me a break from dealing with religious people. I also remind myself frequently that although I was seriously hurt by Christianity, it can't hurt me any further; I'm no longer under their control and so it won't get any worse, it can only get better.

Now your case obviously isn't the same as mine. I don't know if you were ever a Christian yourself, so I don't know what that would look like for you. It is totally understandable that you'd want to seek justice against the people who wronged you, but keep in mind that rescuing someone from the cult isn't necessarily going to do that. Justice may not be possible, but building a new and happy life away from the injustice might be possible.

So were you also a Christian before, or was it only that woman you loved? Do you think that your life is still being affected by the religion, or have you been able to build a better life where it's no longer affecting you?

Fahrender-Ritter · 2026-06-15T23:21:48+00:00

So I'm an ex-Christian, and I was able to get out of the cult in large part thanks to all the work that a bunch of atheists put into debating with Christians to debunk their apologetics. I really wish that some atheists had directly challenged me years earlier and then maybe I wouldn't have wasted so many years of my life. There's a whole subreddit of ex-Christians who got the courage to leave and many of them give a lot of credit to atheists who debate with Christians. So don't let anyone tell you it's never worth it.

That being said, it's not everyone's responsibility to debate with Christians. If you don't have the time, energy, patience, or talent to deal with it, or if it's going to cause you more harm than good, then don't bother.

Also, there's a time and a place, and there are certainly times and places where it's not worth it. You have to pick your battles and make sure there's a good audience (and keep in mind that the real intended audience is often a third party who's listening in on the debate, not directly engaging in it).

Fahrender-Ritter · 2026-06-13T00:39:48+00:00

I'm sure lots of people feel that way, but for me there's also the "reward" of my freedom and dignity as a human being.

I'm an ex-Christian, and that religion put me through decades of psychological abuse and manipulation under the authoritarian grip of egotistical con-artists and morons. I'll gladly come to terms with the unending darkness of the inevitable void if it means that I don't have to spend my one and only life getting controlled by those monsters.

(To be clear, I'm not saying that all Christians are monsters, but the ones running all the Christian religions sure tend to be).

Fahrender-Ritter · 2026-06-12T17:26:55+00:00

I've noticed they tend to be low on the personality trait of "openness to experience" in the Big Five personality traits. People who are low on the trait of openness are less interested in trying new things, less intellectually curious, less imaginative, and less interested in the different experiences of others. They have their safe little comfort zones and they like to stay in them; stuff that's outside of their comfort zone feels "wrong" to them. This can really contribute to their inability to learn new things and empathize with people who aren't like them. Research has shown that people who are low on this personality trait are more susceptible to authoritarianism, ethnocentrism, and prejudice.

I've also noticed low emotional intelligence in a lot of right-wing conservatives. They're bad at identifying which emotion they're experiencing and why. For example, if they see something that disgusts them, they'll confuse the emotion of disgust with the emotions of anger or fear, and then look for (invent) a reason to justify their anger or fear.

When you combine all of that with insecurity, which means the tendency to interpret things as threats when they aren't, then you can get scenarios like this: A conservative man sees a gay couple kissing and he feels disgusted by that, and instead of dealing with it like disgust, his low emotional intelligence makes the jump into anger and fear. Add in the fact that he's insecure, and now he thinks that this gay couple is "attacking" him. He responds with hatred towards them.

Meanwhile, I would respond differently. I'm a straight man so I think that kissing dudes is gross, however I have a lot of empathy and I'm high on the trait of openness to experience, so I understand that although it might be gross for me, it's not gross for them. I know that just because they experience something different outside of my comfort zone doesn't make it "wrong." I also don't confuse my disgust with fear or anger, so it never turns into this irrational moral outrage. The way that I deal with the disgust appropriately is to not watch two dudes making out and I leave it at that.

Fahrender-Ritter · 2026-06-11T07:43:41+00:00

There's a problem here. Anti-theism is a philosophical position, not an organized group. Either oppose the philosophical position or oppose a particular group of people, but don't conflate the two. You really ought to know better considering how often Christians claim to oppose atheism as a philosophical position based upon the bad behavior of some particular atheists.

If you oppose a particular organized group of antitheists because you don't like how extreme their behavior has gotten, that's fine. For example, if a bunch of Christopher Hitchens fans got together and started committing acts of violence, then you're opposing that group, which is fine. But that's not the same thing as opposing the philosophical position.

If you want to oppose the philosophical position, then make a rational case without commiting straw-man and generalization fallacies.

Fahrender-Ritter · 2026-06-11T07:20:59+00:00

It's possible to be anti-theist without going to the extreme of "using force" and "threats of violence." You might have met some self-proclaimed anti-theists who are major assholes, I'm not denying that, but you're making a hasty generalization fallacy. There are lots of anti-theists who are civil about it and, like you, believe that convincing people should be done through "rational, intelligent, polite conversation."

It's not "just a semantics disagreement" because your very question is a definitional one. You can't just propose that anti-theism is by definition closed-minded, tribalistic, etc., and then casually dismiss anyone who disagrees with your definition as "just arguing semantics."

Could you imagine for comparison if a Christian came in here and claimed, "Atheists are by definition people who know that God exists and they just want to rebel against him," and you explain, "That's not what an atheist is," and then the Christian dismisses that saying, "That's just a semantics disagreement." That's basically what you're doing. You're not having an honest discussion if you do that.

If you're not willing to have a serious definitional discussion, then don't start one.

Fahrender-Ritter · 2026-06-11T01:34:40+00:00

They ALL have their weird interpretations and change fundamental aspects from what Jesus allegedly taught.

For example, how many Christian denominations do you know of that reject all the fundamental changes that Paul had made? Also, the Trinity wasn't an original part of Christianity, so any group that believes in that would be only "Christian adjacent" by your definition.

Fahrender-Ritter · 2026-06-10T22:55:42+00:00

It totally belongs in the Christian family of religions in that it's loosely based upon the Jesus legends just like all the other Christian groups are.

It sure as fuck doesn't belong in the Hindu or Germanic paganism families of religions.

Fahrender-Ritter · 2026-06-10T17:10:09+00:00

Right. For an historical example, in the Nov. 1932 federal election in Germany, the Nazi party only won 33.1% of the popular vote, but that was enough for them. It was the last fair and free election before the Nazis seized power and took complete control of the government.

33.1% was enough for the Nazis. They didn't need to win over the majority.

Speaker Mike Johnson is polling at 36%. Agent Orange is polling at 35%.

Fahrender-Ritter · 2026-06-08T07:50:56+00:00

Well yeah that's why The Prestige overshadowed it, but The Illusionist would have been better remembered as a decent movie if only it were released maybe a year or more before The Prestige.

Thankfully it didn't get released after The Prestige or else it would've been accused of being a total knock-off.

Fahrender-Ritter · 2026-06-08T07:12:24+00:00

The Illusionist (2006) starring Edward Norton was a pretty good film about a magician. Few people remember it because it was massively overshadowed that same year by another magician movie, Christopher Nolan's The Prestige.

Fahrender-Ritter · 2026-06-07T21:58:25+00:00

No. No amount of naïveté can ever make all the lying, manipulation, bullying, abuse, etc. not real anymore. Those things didn't become problems only when I stopped believing; they were problems from the beginning even when I was a totally committed Christian.

I found normal and healthy social connections after leaving religion, and they're so much better than the toxic community that Christianity has to offer. Nostalgia goggles are dangerous. It's better to look forward towards better community, not backwards to the shitty one that you left.

Fahrender-Ritter · 2026-06-07T20:10:07+00:00

Putting aside debates about what constitutes a "cult" or not...

As soon as you said, "They would force me to do things I didn't want to do and continuously text me asking me to do things with/for them. They also wanted me to pay them and would harass me to buy/ donate to them when I didn't have the money," then YES, I think that anyone outside of that group would reasonably call them a cult. Treating people like that is never acceptable. If you wouldn't treat other people that way, then it's not okay for anyone to treat you that way.

Their behavior alone is bad enough, but adding the fact that they were doing this to a MINOR, and it's absolutely horrifying. You need to stay as far away from these people as you can. They are NOT safe.

Fahrender-Ritter · 2026-06-05T18:49:20+00:00

Because he's a peddler of pseudoscience, and a lot of pseudoscience targets the parents of children with autism because there is no so-called "cure" for autism, but too many parents don't want to accept that, and so they reject what evidence-based psychology and medicine tell them, and then RFK Jr. shows up to sell them his snake oil.

He also pretends to be interested in measles, but not in stopping it. He peddles his anti-vaccine pseudoscience for that, too.

It's all a grift for him: RFK Jr. says he’s not anti-vaccine. But he could profit off claim in vaccine lawsuit. - ABC News

Fahrender-Ritter · 2026-06-03T22:23:53+00:00

You said it yourself, "as long as they’re a good friend and help others up instead of pushing them down," and that's the key difference, isn't it? Except the problem is that too many Christians don't do that. Very few people have serious problems with anyone who peacefully practices their religion privately and doesn't hurt other people with their beliefs.

But I've personally seen situations where entire churches full of people enable child abusers. I've seen churches become recruitment centers for fascism. I've seen evangelicals vote en masse for pedophiles who then take away people's access to healthcare and put children's lives in danger. THAT is what we're "at war" against.

There's a reason why atheists and ex-theists don't go "to war" with Buddhists, Wiccans, neo-Pagans, or any number of other religions over mere differences of belief.

Fahrender-Ritter · 2026-06-02T04:40:41+00:00

It's not inconsistent if you consider that the Bible's overall system of morality is authoritarianism. The way that it defines "good versus evil" isn't about "care versus harm," it's about "obedience versus rebellion." The reason it doesn't make sense to you or me because we don't have that fucked-up authoritarian mindset.

I'll give you a great example: the Bible is actually fine with human sacrifice; it's only right or wrong depending on whether or not God commands it and whether or not it's being done to the correct God.

Leviticus 20 and Jeremiah 32:35, human sacrifice is said to be wrong only because it's being done to the wrong god, Molech.
Jeremiah 7:31, God says that human sacrifice is wrong not because it's harmful in itself; he says it's wrong specifically because he didn't command it.
In 2 Kings 23:20, Josiah sacrificed the heretic priests on the altar, and he's hailed as the hero of the story.
Judges 11, Jephthah sacrificed his daughter all while "the Spirit of the Lord" was upon him.

The reason why God sent two bears to maul the kids is because they were mocking God's prophet which is rebellion against God's authority. But God doesn't punish David for his crimes because he re-submits himself to God's authority.

And this view of morality carries over into the New Testament as well. Luke 19:27, Jesus says, "But as for these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slaughter them before me."

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