When someone takes an idea as a core part of their identity, it gains power over them. An attack upon that idea becomes an attack upon themselves personally. A validation of that idea becomes a validation of themselves personally. This creates a perverse incentive to validate the idea wherever possible, even when the explanation makes no sense. Your thought patterns short-circuit, and you become unable to see the incongruity in your own arguments. In fact, this human failing is exactly why we developed the Scientific Method in the first place.
What I'm saying is: This person isn't actually a troll. He's not doing it to mess with you. He really does believe what he's saying, and you cannot convince him otherwise until he relinquishes the core idea that led to it, which in this case is his religion.
> What I'm saying is: This person isn't actually a troll. He's not doing it to mess with you. He really does believe what he's saying, and you cannot convince him otherwise until he relinquishes the core idea that led to it, which in this case is his religion.
That's a really good point. I partially hoped that at least there would be a good counter argument to gain an insight into why the individual has formed such ideas.
I even linked to the BYU paper that was counter to my beliefs, which had interesting points that can create a thoughtful conversation.
However, I didn't realize that regardless of how I said something, I was attacking a core idea of a person, which isn't a good way to start a conversation.
> This person isn't actually a troll. He's not doing it to mess with you. He really does believe what he's saying, and you cannot convince him otherwise until he relinquishes the core idea that led to it, which in this case is his religion.
What you are really saying is that is his/her core idea is wrong and this leads to behaviour that clothes itself as trolling ("cannot convince him otherwise until he relinquishes the core idea that led to it, which in this case is his religion").
He/she could easily say the same thing about your core idea, so I fail to see how this adds to the discussion.
What I'm saying is: This person isn't actually a troll. He's not doing it to mess with you. He really does believe what he's saying, and you cannot convince him otherwise until he relinquishes the core idea that led to it, which in this case is his religion.