Suspension of Disbelief as a Converting Tactic
When people watch movies, they’re often forced to suspend their disbelief in various improbabilities (time travel, parallel universes, cold fusion, x-ray vision, an underdog sports team winning) in order to enjoy the story. So couldn’t religious people use this to get atheists to suspend their disbelief in God?
It might have to be a movie that lasts a lifetime sort of thing, since the suspension of disbelief stops as soon as the movie is over (few come out of 12 Monkeys believing in time travel, even though they believed as they were watching).
But maybe not. If you could get an atheist to suspend his disbelief long enough to convert and start a new life in the church, with new religious friends and a God-fearing wife and a devout baby, once the suspension of disbelief eventually wore off, the convert would have to accept the beliefs he is again doubting just so he could avoid the inconvenience of a major lifestyle change.
3 years ago