When not to argue with an atheist

I have had many great conversations with kind, thoughtful atheists who were passionate about the truth and loved nothing more than to engage in a good dialogue. So far as I could see, they were interested in faith but had some serious intellectual hangups. We shared a mutual respect and learned from one another.

Then there are those other atheists. The kind that call you a "faith-head" and seem to have a never ending stream of insults. "Believe in God?" they mutter. "Might as well believe in Santa Claus, or a flying teapot in outerspace, or the flying spaghetti monster."

These more personal attacks typically have little by the way of substance. But after pointing that out, I have learned that in many cases it is best to drop the conversation here, at least as regards matters of faith. Better to switch to politics ("So how do you think Obama's doing?") or economics ("Do you agree with Stiglitz's critique of the IMF?") or pop culture ("Too bad about Jon and Kate, eh?"). 

The reason is simple: when people resort to personal attacks, insults, caricatures and the like, they typically are not particularly interested in dialogue. Rather, they are anxious to build themselves up by tearing others down. Why? I don't know, but in most cases I suspect there is a personal history there. People have been hurt and they want to lash out and hurt somebody else.

That's okay. Many atheists have been hurt by very "religious" people. And they are not the only ones. Moreover, everybody lashes out at one time or another, so atheists are certainly not unique here.

All I offer is a reminder, that when an atheist insults you it is not the time to descend to the same level ("I always knew you were godless!"). Nor is it the time to keep arguing ("But you haven't responded to the first premise of the kalam cosmological argument yet!") Rather, it is the time to smile and suck it up. Keep the conversation going, be kind and generous. And once the anger is spent you can get back to rational argument.