Instead of 'more convincing' don't you mean 'less annoying'?
Militant anti-theosophists like them are not content with mere disbelief, or even with stating their disbelief. They are so threatened by the possibility of God, that they feel compelled to go out of their way to actually attack, with all possible alacrity, any mere mention of theology to satisfy some deep insatiable need.
Most psychologists would postulate that this stems from some deeply set insecurity with regards to religion. There are any number of reasons this could have happened. Overbearing religious parents who demand that their children pay homage to a God in which they do not believe, or even from some kind of abuse on the part of a priest, rabbi, or pastor.
Regardless of
why they do it, it is important for us to recognize that it is a compulsion over which they have little or no control. You may as well tell a river to stop flowing. Only when the actual insecurity driving the compulsion is addressed can they actually become rational on the subject, and most people in such circumstance (once the insecurity is resolved) simply avoid the subject for the rest of their lives.
The basic truth we must recognize here, is that a whole lot of abuse has been perpetrated against people in the name of religion. You and I know that those who would abuse others in the name of religion do not hold the faith in truth, but with a lack of true knowledge merely parroting the words of those who have come before them. They create an
appearance of religious asceticism, without any actual denial of the preeminence of the physical realm. Those who would abuse others in the name of God, are directly responsible for the majority of militant anti-theosophists in the world today.
It is important, then, to understand the compulsions driving this behavior and acknowledge (at least to ourselves) why it is that they attack us. By doing so, we come to the realization that no amount of reason or rationale will sway such people in the slightest. They are on a mission, and that mission is to derogate religion at all costs!
On the internet, they seem a lot more prevalent than they are in the rest of the world. I believe that this is because they are able to hide behind a keyboard to launch their attacks. People like this are as common as sand on Christian forums throughout the Internet, on usenet, on boards, blogs, everywhere. Reverse psychology does not work. Preventing their amusement does not work. The only thing that works, in my experience, it either ignoring them entirely, or allowing them to hang themselves on their own words to the point that they make
themselves look foolish enough that they cut their losses and run.
The bottom line is, get used to them. They appear anywhere faith, and particularly Christianity, is discussed online. They are as prevalent as jungle-rot in Vietnam. The only way you will ever find a place to discuss Christianity online without their interference, is through the intercession of a heavy handed moderator. An apt analogy is, if you are a pet lover with lots of animals, then you will have to deal with fleas. There are measures you can take to reduce that annoyance, but you can never remove it completely.
! Sticks and stones, O Sophocles.....
