.....On how those with an Agnostic/Atheistic world view, MUST COMPELLINGLY DEMONSTRATE RELIGIOUS UNDERSTANDING, and POLITELY ILLUSTRATE THE REASONING UNDERSCORING THE POINT THAT THEY ARE LOGICALLY HELPLESS To Hold Any other belief then the one they currently hold....

It is the tendency for people raised religiously very young, who reject religion on their own thinking and without being persuaded to do so…. To, in time, develop a very hostile and harmful attitude of superiority towards religious people &  religion in general, and a disdain for any influence it has on society at large. This stems from having necessarily put so much thought into ALL related parts of what essentially makes up the bedrock of your entire world view. Not a light and breezy topic. I know all about this tendency because I have it very, very strongly, and its hard to remember sometimes that A) I used to be the person I find myself nearly helpless but to feel a combination of pity/disgust/disdain/sorrow for their not being able to break free of the crutch... and B) That even though you are certain that religion is a net negative for all of the human race, and that it just DESTROYS society after human society and pollutes men's ability to think clearly…and so on and so forth…(You can see how easily I slip into that mode, just for access to a quick way to be descriptive in my explanation)--- You HAVE to realize that only people that have deeply explored both sides this coin and who have believed both at one point or other, have done the amount of thinking you have on it.

We make a grave mistake when we wholesale reject a viewpoint that isn’t as luxuriously black and white in its ostensible morality, we still tend to reject the people who are partial to it in the same way we would people who fit the profile of something much more patently black-and-white in its rejectability for which you find no compelling reason not to be utterly disdainful or loathesome towards: (AKA “Violent Misogynists”, or “Hate Crime Perpetrators”, "Pedophiles", or "Unremorseful, Anti-social Psychopaths/Serial Killers/Etc."  — To be firmly and strongly opposed to allowing these people any compassion is to simply reflect the only acceptable choice one can have as a member of a society built on cooperative achievement and mutual trust. Got a problem with violent jihadism? Join the enormous, gigantic club. But, when our behavior reflects that we feel this kind of distaste and have assigned this kind of blanket emotional rejection of another group of people who have chosen to classify themselves by a label that is far more ambiguous in its moral clarity, as if it only consisted entirely of things which we feel no appreciation, love, or tolerance for, we unfortunately become PRECISELY the thing to which we MOST disdain about people who have rejected everybody else and condemned them for not being adherents of the same belief system.

We most disdain being caught up in a belief system that actively encourages religiously condoned prejudice, and which encourages religiously based discrimination and denial of civil liberties while absolving themselves of any blame by invoking as a justification, God’s agreeance with their own disturbingly inappropriate interpretation of religious text.  Despite the fact that you can be personally, fairly certain in your belief system, once you patently reject any possibility of your own strongly held certainties *POSSIBLY* being wrong, then you reach a point where you exhibit disdain for others not as clearly “advanced”, “evolved” or as “intelligent” as you have decided your beliefs have proven you to be. You've simply switched faiths but maintained no higher level of evolution in your manner and understanding of others. In short, you are one of the people who absolutely inspire hatred among the religious for your patent dismissal as foolish and ricidulous the things which they hold as most near and dear to them.

When you are as smugly certain that only foolishness resides in the beliefs you once held. You tend to forget that belief is not actually REALLY a choice. Belief is the ultimate logical and necessary end that your brain has to come to, after its path has travelled enough mileage on both sides of an argument to be helpless but for you to discover that a decision has been made, that you didn’t really have a choice in. Because the religious necessarily safeguard their own minds from potential sources of doubt which might lead to disbelief, and even police their own thought processes in an automatic, lifelong pursuit of a mistaken belief that by avoiding thinking about the alternative entirely, you can maintain true belief based on your ignorance to anything else all together. Its only the people that have put real, unashamed, unobstructed thought into both sides of a situation that are truly allowed to stake out the claim that they BELIEVE something, because to believe, truthfully, is to wholeheartedly immerse oneself into finding anything with validity pertaining to the subject at hand. If you fear questioning your own beliefs because of the limp wristed excuse that the devil might get the better of you and you’ll spiral into a morally devoid character with no real faith remaining, then it shows the extent to which you’ve successfully left any REAL attempt at learning what you REALLY believe, supplanting it with a sustained, doomed to fail attempt at excluding any thought OTHER then one of belief in Religion A. 

That is not belief. It just showcases a talent for being so good at lying to yourself that for years, you can really think that you believe what you profess to believe, not realizing that until you allow your critical thinking cap to fully run the numbers on all choices, with all information unimpeded and unbiased, then you cannot claim to really believe what you believe you believe, and make a believably convincing argument that will compel somebody who has done the requisite footwork in critical thinking. They cannot help but sniff out your fearful lack of a mental counterpoint, because once you’ve sorted all this out for yourself, the confidence your argument inherently possesses doesn’t rely on insistent talking points, lacking the depth one gets when they really struggle with a question of this magnitude. When you know what all the cards in a deck are, inside and out, its super easy to spot a poker player who has only played with decks with dupe after dupe of all red face cards. Its impossible to fake the comprehensive, personal awareness of all aspects of the hand your opponent might deal you if you’ve never been willing to accept that unless you learn about all the cards, your system of spiritual choice-deprivation only plays well when you’re debating with the choir. Not someone from outside of it altogether

Once you recognize that THIS is reality, like it or not, then you MUST logically recognize that if you don’t respectfully, and with a willingness to be accomodative to the fact that your debate partner isn’t CAPABLE of debating their point on the merits, yet, until you have convinced them they cannot truly hold a belief as near and dear, until they are willing to explore the foundation and depth of their belief, and have been willing to subject it to their critical, doubtful mind and explored other possible paths of interest. 

Your goal, as a thoughtful person, is not to alienate and increase the vastness of the moat which divides you and the people of other persuasion in their beliefs, the way they do to you. Rather, you only enforce their certainty of the wrongness they associate with the stereotype everyone has for the “militant atheist”—and once you’ve enforced that as your own label, you’ve become your professed enemy—to a T.

Rather then show disdain for your fellow man’s belief system because you find it primitive and pathetic, PROVE to them that your belief system is a classy and intelligently rigourous, ethical one to be in, by being able to politely articulate what in your beliefs compel your disagreement about certain points in theirs. Be able to explain, I know there is no way to be 100% certain of either of our POV, on this, so please know, that Im only defining what, to me, is the most compelling argument, when I strip the fear away, and unabashedly dig into what I really can’t help but believe to be the truth.  You will like yourself more, and represent your class of belief system much better for ALL the others who share it with you, instead of enforcing the divide by dismissing religious people as unevolved buffoons. 

It makes YOU and the person you debate with better people, both, for providing you both with a mandate, and a reference point for unconditional respect and civility, even in the face of beliefs you clearly find foolish. And you may just convince somebody to run the rigorous self-assessment on their own faith and thinking and the strength and personal logic of their underlying beliefs---which would then mean that you have compelled your fellow man to do something for themselves that they have always needed to do, but never had the courage to carry out. And this means, whatever the outcome, that you’ve done them a HUGE service and is, on its own, enough to encourage self-sustaining, patterned behavior which is founded in respect and understanding, when debating agnosticism/atheism, with somebody who believes they can reject your view in favor of theism.

Its only if people represent an inherent capacity for understanding and politeness in explainingly beguilingly compelling reasons for a person to question their own beliefs, that we can say we display BETTER moral courage, decency, & respectful behavior, not to mention make a more solid claim to empathy and sympathy and understanding of others, and the current limits of what others CAN believe. We are trying to first expand THOSE limits in any discussion or debate, knowing the rest will follow on its own if you can. Otherwise, we’re only becoming our own worst enemy and doomed to be perpetuating the worst kind of partisan BS, forever & ever & ever..... 

Amen.