A popular line of thinking for many Christians is that what gives their lives meaning — their god — is the only thing that can give any life meaning. This implies to them that anyone who doesn't accept their god must necessarily also lack any meaning in life. The absurdity of such "reasoning" can be demonstrated by moving the context from "meaning in life" to something a bit more down to earth, like what people enjoy eating.

Tracie writes:

The idea of saying, “Wow, I really can’t fathom what motivates a person who doesn’t believe in god…?” would be like saying, “Man, if you don’t like apples…why even bother eating?”

Now, if I, for example, truly was a freak about apples, it certainly could make sense for them to say, “If I couldn’t have apples, all the joy of eating would be gone from my life.” But it would only be considered sensible in jest to claim that if someone else couldn’t have apples, that I couldn’t imagine why they would bother even eating any longer (or to suggest they couldn’t have a reason to eat or like something else as much as I might like apples).

It’s this very glaring, and common, issue with Xians that they are hard pressed to grasp “other people” and that other people might view the world in a different light or through a very different framework. It makes me sad, because it’s very limiting to not be able to see the world from someone else’s point of view—if only as an exercise in understanding others.

I’m very glad this person is writing to ask—but there’s something sad about the reality that something so simple should be so elusive due to such harsh indoctrination (that makes it impossible to grasp how someone else might see something differently than we do).

[original post]

What Tracie describes here is something which I have frequently noticed in many Christians: an inability to truly put themselves in another's place and imagine what it might be like for them. Most of the time, I don't even detect an interest in trying and in the few cases where such an interest does exist, too often it only consists of imagining the truth of various prejudices and assumptions they have derived from evangelical literature and apologetics. It's like they are wearing mental blinders which prevent them from even realizing that others can live very different lives under different assumptions and beliefs — and be quite content doing so.

To be fair, though, this isn't a problem with just Christianity. I think everyone does it to some extent and is seems very widespread in America. So many Americans seem unable to understand that there are even other ways of doing democracy, never mind that some people aren't very interested in democracy to begin with. The idea that there are other cultures which do things differently are which still meet people's needs is ignored or denied. Christianity, though, appears to make things worse because it insists not only that it has the Only Truth, but in fact that everyone else already knows Christianity is true but is in denial. I don't know if there is any limit to the arrogance which such attitudes can engender.