religion is narrative, a form of language and communication

The language of morality, love, and meaning for christians is christianity. The language of morality, love, and meaning for muslims is islam. The language of morality, love, beauty, and meaning for naturalists is materialism.

For an atheist to go to a devout christian and say christianity is wrong is like some white person telling me that the korean language is wrong. "The Korean language is bullshit!", he shouts. How offended would I be?

"Why is korean wrong?! You're wrong!! English is wrong!"

Just like how there is no point in going around debating who has the best language, there is no point going around debating who has the best religion/worldview, even if you can prove your worldview is the better one.

Religion like language is ultimately a tool, a means to an end.

The best way to approach a korean person is to speak his language. Likewise, the best way to approach a christian is to speak through his language, christianity and its narratives. Try framing what you want to get across using christian narratives and vocabulary. That I believe, is the most effective way we can start building bridges between us rather than destroying them.

See below for an example in a different context:

We are reluctant to change our worldviews For the most part, when we are confronted with a challenge to our worldviews, we react by rejecting it out of hand. This is due to the dissonance of this new worldview to the one we already possess. Rather, what we prefer is to confront worldviews that coincide and amplify our own. However, on occasion we do change. This is when we confront a worldview that overlaps our own in certain critical respects and then veers in a different direction. An example of this sort of worldview change is found through the leadership of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. Starting in the 1950s, King found an America - particularly the South - that was mired by Jim Crow laws that kept African Americans in a second form of slavery. The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution abolished slavery and the Fourteenth Amendment guaranteed equal protection under the law to everyone—not just to people of European descent. King took on the monumental task of challenging the shared community worldview that allowed Jim Crow laws to flourish and for segregation to seem natural. This was no easy project. As argued above, people are inclined to be conservative in changing their worldviews. But this does not mean that it is impossible.

Dr. King was the perfect candidate for instigating worldview change by overlap and modification. This is because Dr King overlapped with much of the dominant white culture: (1) by being an ordained minister in the Baptist Church; (2) he was a man of intellect as evidenced by his doctorate from Boston University; (3) he led marchers non-violently singing religious hymns familiar to most Americans. In these ways, his worldview was like theirs.

On the other hand, what he was suggesting was racial equality and integration, which was not a part of the dominant culture’s shared community worldview. But when mainstream America watched the scenes on their televisions of these non-violent protestors being savagely beaten by armed police, being bitten by vicious police dogs, and physically assaulted by fire hoses, then Americans began challenging their personal worldviews. In 1964 a major civil law was passed while in 1965 the voting rights bill was passed. Both pieces of legislation would never have occurred had not there not been a dramatic shift in the personal worldviews of most Americans. It took a crossover figure like Dr. King to effect such a change through the overlapping worldview and modification approach.

- Michael Boylan

There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it.

- George Bernard Shaw