Start with kindness and curiosity. If you don’t feel ready to enter a conversation firmly centered in kindness and curiosity, then leave it for later.

I confess that I’m biased here. In my mind two of the worst consequences of religion are: First, it enables people to be cruel and hurtful while feeling righteous, and second it shuts down inquiry by replacing childlike curiosity with childish answers. So I’m not really interested in promoting non-theism if we can’t do better than that.

But these two attitudes also are fundamental to genuinely moving people—to opening the possibility of growth in both the other person and yourself. People who find you genuinely likeable and who feel safe with you are far more likely to embrace ideas you have to offer.

So, the biggest gift you can give in terms of loosening the bond of belief-ism is simply being yourself in a way that is appealing and that messes with all of the scary stereotypes of atheists that Christians have been fed. Above all, don’t be an asshole. Remember that if you win on rational grounds but lose on emotional grounds, you lose. Change in beliefs requires change in emotions, and although this goes both ways, an emotional shift often comes first. Scientists are just starting to understand how powerful motivated reasoning can be. Where there’s a will there’s a way may overstate the matter, but we can say this with confidence: Where there’s no will, there’s no way. So, the bottom line isn't whether I win the debate or have the last word, but whether I and my ideas are appealing. Moving emotions moves minds.

If you can loosen the bonds of certitude and then pique curiosity, people often can do their own work in getting to a very different set of conclusions and priorities. When it comes to loosening certitude, creating dissonance with the person’s own self-image can be powerful. For example, for a believer to assert that the Bible is the literally perfect and inerrant Word of God requires not only a belief in the inerrancy of the Bible but also a belief in the infallibility of the Catholic Church and a belief in his own infallible ability to judge what is infallible. Christianity teaches humility, in fact prides itself on humility. Use the core values of Christianity itself to create opportunities for growth. —Valerie Tarico