At The Amazing Meeting in July of 2010, astronomer Phil Plait gave a memorable talk informally labeled DBAD or “Don’t Be a Dick”. You can hear this talk on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrFRbGjUtJk
He makes the point that most people don’t move from being credulous to being a skeptic because someone jumped in their face and called them an idiot.
“Is your goal to score a cheap point or is your goal to win the damn game? … Excluding people is not a good idea, excluding people is a worse idea when they outnumber you 10,000 to 1.”
I think Dr. Plait is mostly correct. There is some controversy. At another conference later in 2010 some people pointed out that they were evangelical Christians until someone aggressively told them they were wrong. This led me to wonder if there are two different tracks. One track, the one that is most likely to work, is just what Phil says: “Don’t be a dick”. But maybe there is a second track that works sometimes; maybe when talking to the strongest believers. I don’t know because I can’t get that aggressive in front of people. My wife is still a believer. Not being a dick is kind of a marriage requirement, in my humble opinion.
Dr. Plait made a list of those who agree or disagree with him. http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/08/18/dont-be-a-dick-part-2-links/#.XHcMpndFxOo
This blog deliberately tries to follow the DBAD approach. Again, that is mostly true because I don’t have the ability to talk like some comedians – including those that I like a lot.
Here are some comedians talking about religion, less than 15 minutes. Are they being, well, you know? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wf1Cge5P8Pc&t=63s
