From time to time, you hear about someone who criticizes entertainment, but with a twist: they’ll attempt to use religion in an attempt to prop up their smug sense of self-righteousness.

It’s usually something inane, like ignorantly accusing Pokémon of being satanic, or some other mainstream video game of having harmful moral side-effects.

Oftentimes, gamers will cite studies that conclusively show that such claims are bogus. This is an effective defense, but in the long run, the busybodies keep coming back, and that’s because they love picking fights.

This can leave quite a few people perplexed. Just what does a person have to do to drive these people off, and keep them away?

The problem is that people respond to them by remaining on the defensive. In order to have a lasting effect on these people, you have to go on the offensive, with a counter-argument that’s especially designed to make them sorry they messed with you.

Here is what you say: You point out that they are complaining about specks that they perceive in other people’s eyes, when there are beams in their own eyes (figuratively speaking, probably).

Point out that if their own Christianity is like what most people call Christianity, then it has the following doctrinal problems:

• They observe Christmas, Easter, and a handful of other holidays with obvious pagan origins rather than what the Bible says they should observe,
• They likely also ignore the fourth commandment, and observe Sundays instead,
• They likely believe that God is a trinity, a concept the Bible nowhere teaches,
• Their church likely demands more in tithes and offerings than they are entitled to.

There’s more, but that would usually suffice. Then you follow up with this:

That your entertainment wasn’t intended to inform a person as to what their religious, ideological, or philosophical ideals should be, so your entertainment is actually more harmless than their religion.

That one-two punch scores a knockout, in most cases. The first argument wouldn’t work so well on the few Christians that actually do keep it Biblical, but they should also be smart enough to understand that going after a person’s entertainment is actually counterproductive.

After delivering this, you’re done talking to them. They might try to bait you or argue against what you said; it’s a fight they’re after, after all. At this point, they’d be looking for any way to save face. So, don’t take the bait. By engaging them no further, you deny them that opportunity, and their main takeaway becomes what their religion gets wrong.

This works as well as it does because it forces the false Christian to confront what they’re afraid is true about their religion, and the possibility that the truth about it is no longer being obscured by the dark mists of history.

In case any of you are wondering whether I’m Christian, yes, I am. But I’m interested in seeing the Christian world return to the real thing. Also, it would be better if those who claimed to be Christian stopped bothering with pointless, counterproductive fighting over stuff that isn’t causing any harm, anyway.

Spiritual bullies are like any bully; if you’re only on the defensive, they can just keep going at it without any repercussion. To defeat them, you need to dish out a strong counterattack, preferably one that highlights their shortcomings and makes them learn some respect.

Then you leave them to contemplate what just happened.