Catch-22 was originally to be called Catch-18, but Mila 18 got in the way of that, and a process of deliberation yielded 22 as a good substitute - in fact, as explained here, as the ideal number for Joseph Heller's purpose. Anyway, there's an article by Katha Pollitt in The Nation, in which she floats a strangely disabling thesis for anyone who wants to argue against religion. Here is one expression of her thesis:
[I]f all you can offer people is reasons to quit their religion - which also often means their community, their family, their support system and their identity - you're not going to have many takers.Here's another expression of it:
[I]t's probably the case that once you've described yourself as a nonbeliever, believers aren't going to take your view of their faith too seriously: you've written yourself out of the story.I don't know what, if anything, Pollitt thinks follows from this, but I hope it isn't that we should all lock ourselves into one or other 'community of belief' and argue only amongst ourselves, as insiders. Of course, we won't then be able to argue against the beliefs we all share that make us insiders; and there'll be no point in outsiders arguing against these, since the insiders won't listen to them.
Catch-23: If you're an atheist, you won't convince a religious person, and if you're religious you won't want to.
Or instead: People do sometimes persuade others. There's nothing wrong, in any event, with their trying to.
Question: Should religious people cease trying to convert unbelievers?
