Just about every atheist online has the experience of debating religion and theism with Christians. These atheists can almost universally attest to the same negative experiences, too, of Christians who don't support their claims, employ numerous logical fallacies, and just generally do a poor job at reasoned discussion.

Gerald Roberts explains some of the more common mistakes, including:

Stating that Atheism is a religion
Atheists will repeatedly tell you that they are not in a religion. A religion almost always is defined to include belief in a deity of some sort. Atheism is non-belief in a deity. It isn't necessarily a "belief that there is no God," but is "not believing either way." To label an atheist as a religious person is to put up a roadblock to effective communication. It would be like someone saying to a Christian, "You believe in a mean, tyrannical being who likes to torture people." The Christian would simply role his eyes and think that the person doesn't know what he's talking about. So, how much effective conversation could there be in either instance? Not much.

Never admitting when you are wrong
Pride is a harmful thing. It caused the fall. It ruins marriages. It leads to anger and self-righteousness. It has no place in the Christian's life. Never admitting you are wrong is being prideful. If an atheist, or anyone, proves you wrong in something, be kind and courteous. Admit you made a mistake and go on. Everyone makes mistakes, even atheists. There is nothing wrong with admitting an error. It no more proves you are wrong about Christianity than being wrong about the color of a boat means boats don't exist. But, if you never admit when you are wrong, you will not be able to convince anyone in a discussion of your position. You will simply loose the respect of the one with whom you are debating.

What’s particularly interesting about this is that Gerald Roberts is a Christian, not an atheist. Many atheists have tried to explain the things that Roberts is pointing out here, but for some reason many Christians just don’t get it. Roberts, though, does get it and he isn’t alone, even if he may be a minority.

Perhaps other Christians will listen to and learn from him — when you have problems with Christians making errors like these, perhaps you should send them a link to Roberts’ post. These Christians may not listen to you, but they may listen to another Christian. That’s a sad commentary on such Christians, I know, but it’s also true.

Read More:

• Atheism 101
• What is Atheism?
• Who Are Atheists?