People like to make fun of religious fundamentalists for seeming to spend half their waking hours preaching on Facebook, in person, via e-mail, etc., to people who they barely even know telling them about the evils of homosexuality, abortion, Muslims, and women wearing pants. The natural response, of course, is to laugh at them, to wonder how someone could possibly be so deluded, and to wonder why they seem to spend all their time obsessed about these things; in some cases, people might even speculate that their obsession is due to a kind of repression, such as people who are constantly obsessed with the ‘evils’ of homosexuality possibly being in the closet themselves. You laugh, you maybe feel sorry for them; if you’re feeling particularly brave, you even reply to them and try to show them (and possibly others) the error of their ways, and then you move on.

But… step back and think about it. Put yourself in their position, and suppose you were a fundamentalist Christian who constantly sees the world in terms of good and evil, who perceives everything around them as part of this epic struggle between the forces of good and the forces of evil. Every single person you see that doesn’t follow your particular brand of Christianity is doomed by God to an eternity of brimstone and hellfire, when if only they would accept that you’re right and listen to you, they would instead be enjoying an eternity of unimaginable happiness when they die. And to make it worse, the signs that you’re right are all around you! It’s just common sense, why won’t they listen to you? So you spend as much time as you can afford to proselytizing to the unwashed masses, telling them about your Lord and savior Jesus Christ, all in hopes that at least one person will see the light and be saved from Satan and his minions. And in fact, it would be extremely bad of you to not try your hardest to convert these poor lost souls (not to mention Jesus’s command to be fishers of men).

This isn’t me trying to say that people should stop doing what they do when confronted by the aggressively religious; by all means, confront, debate, ignore, troll, whichever you choose to do. Just don’t assume that they’re acting out of irrationality; to them, it make perfect sense.