Sure a whole lot of people are deceived but the genuinely deceived can often be convinced with contrary evidence. The willingly ignorant ones are different.
They know, (or knew and forgot after long enough abandonment of truth to forget what it looks like) that they made an internal choice to turn from pursuing truth to going along with whatever lie fit their desires more at the time.
It's the ultimate sign of weakness, trying to avoid seeming weird, trying to fit in, thinking it will help you get something you want, or avoid losing something you have- going along with what you know is wrong and eventually integrating it as "your truth". Then, because your spirit on some level knows you're standing on lies, it utterly hates anyone who it sees bearing real truth.
Christians about John 3:16 and that's great, but you don't often hear them quoting 3 verses down where it says "And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil."
That's what it comes down to. People living in and under lies utterly hate anyone who has even an iota more truth than they do, I'm not just talking in a spiritual sense, even if you're an agnostic or atheist who just doesn't accept the obvious lies and propaganda, all truth is like a light that shows them that their whole way of being is a lie built on lies.
They've constructed an edifice of lies to reside in and any truth near it threatens to collapse it all. Truth is seen as an existential threat to them.
Facts will seldom work on them, because it's a spiritual problem most of them will double down forever until they first make their and other's lives hell then eventually literally wake up in eternal hell, but whatever seemingly tiny percent of them that can be saved, I think, have to be convinced spiritually, and the only way I know how to do that is to live in truth in front of them and expose them as often as you can the purest source of truth you have access to and that is God's Word. Tell them the truth of what God has said. Use a real Bible that hasn't been jewed up with "modern discoveries" the most recent english translation that sticks to the 5800 all corroborating ancient manuscripts and not the two new ones that differ, is the regular King James Bible.
And on that somewhat separate subject... I know there are plenty even on here who hopped off the truth train when they saw Jesus coming up but Christ is the final stop on that line. It's just so easy to look for a comfortable excuse to deny Him, calling it Jewish fables or copium (but those of us who have been saved and truly trust Christ know better and none of it works like they think it works.)
From what I've seen the Christ they are rejecting is always a false Christ constructed by the various so-called Christian religions. A fake Jesus who asks you to earn it when in your heart you know you can't, not the real Jesus that offers absolutely free salvation to any who trust Him.
"He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God."
"That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved."
"For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:"
And the Old and New Testaments agree.
"For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness." From the beginning Adam and Eve, to Abrahman, to Christ, to you and me, it's never been about anything but believing God.
The Bible is pretty clear, despite what most religion says, that God will accept you if you just truly believe Him. Not like the devils as a fact accepted, but in your heart like a message to a young soldier at war from a wise and loving father back home.
That can be extra hard for people who never really had someone like that in their lives, I think that's why a lot of people who do really care about truth struggle with that ultimate question of Jesus and just find it easier to call it all cope.
yesiknow 2 points 3 hours ago
Amen