> You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into.

this is a pithy think to say but its really not true, and every person that has lost their religion and been convinced by rational argument is a counter example.

> this is a pithy think to say but its really not true, and every person that has lost their religion and been convinced by rational argument is a counter example.

And what of people that were convinced by rational argument that a God must exist? To some (Aristotle, Plotinus, Leibniz, etc) it is irrational to deny such existence:

* https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35592365-five-proofs-of-...

You also seem to imply that rationality is a single monolithic thing:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whose_Justice%3F_Which_Rationa...

Do people really lose their religion because of logic and reason? I’ve never seen this. There is usually some deeper story. If someone asks me why I don’t believe, despite being raised in the church, I’ll simply say it didn’t make sense and babble on about reason and logic if they push. This is just a shield to avoid sharing the truth with people I don’t trust on a very deep level.

I always interpreted it more as saying that the person has to reason themselves out of their position.

A similar saying that I think I picked up here would be, "I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you."

I had a little chat recently with a glaciologist and he told me about a student who had come from a very religious family. The guy had to learn all about the formation of Earth, etc, and decided to give up geology because it would put him at odds with his family and friends and he decided that they were more important.

So, you could say he rationally decided to keep his irrational beliefs.

> every person that has lost their religion and been convinced by rational argument is a counter example.

Do you know any specific examples of this? All examples I know are like people collected some experiences, they needed some mental map for it, and they've built one that doesn't involve religion. In the process of building they really listened to rational arguments, but rational arguments were not the reason for the change, they were the means.

The author of the article complain that people do not listen to their arguments, but if we take a closer look, and look for bigger things, not things like the best way to write bubblesort, people are not ready to change their views while in an argument. They could listen for arguments, but they wouldn't change their position. It would be stupid to change the position in a heat of an argument. It may be stupid to change the position as a result of an argument. People needs time and may be a lot of conversations to look at things from different angles, to think it through. And after that it is very hard to pinpoint what was the reason of the loss of the religion. People talk with other, get new ideas, and they live their lives applying these ideas to the reality. Sometimes it leads to changes in their worldview.

People aren't convinced by rational arguments. Someone who does not believe in god will not be convinced to believe by a proof of god's existence, and someone with faith will not become an atheist because someone debunks the proof.

The rational arguments form a structure that beliefs can hang on, but the core process of changing ones mind is not rational. Like many people, I have changed my thinking on many topics over the course of my life, and arguments that I used to find convincing I now consider to be filled with holes, and arguments I used to think were paper-thin now seem stronger than steel. You can find a rational argument for most beliefs, and you can tear down a rational argument for most beliefs.

Reason just isn't how we form our beliefs at all, it's how we convince ourselves that the things we believe are true.

But you DID NOT reason themselves out of a religion. You might have planted a seed that then the other person developed on their own. Still no small feat, but it's fundamentally different.

This is conflating all religious following with lack of reason. There are those that are fully unreasonable and those that find it reasonable from their current perspective.