He calls me pathethic for thinking that we may have something after death. He thinks his body will become food for the worms and there is nothing after death, exactly nothing. I'm sorry if I don't think i'm the pathethic here lol
Your friend's remark about "worm food" brings back memories for me. I had a good friend from college who used that very phrase. He had exactly the same line about the purpose of religion: a tool used to calm the masses and keep them obedient, by either scaring them with hell, or calming them with promises of heaven. And it's especially effective, according to him, at keeping poor people complacent by assuring them that treasure in the life to come, is better than treasure in the life they have now.
I had many discussions with him, and I certainly never "broke through" that I was aware of. I haven't talked to him in probably five years.
What I did notice, though--and I've noticed it with at least 3 other people I've known well--is that although they present these feelings with confidence and dressed in the language of reason and logic, beneath all their supposed logic usually lies a lot of pain. In at least two cases, each guy was raised in a home that experienced some great strain due to (or involving) religion, or religious hypocrisy. Every Sunday they heard sermons about loving each other, and the rest of the week, the family undermined each other in various ways. They grew up seeing that religion was used as a convenient way to cover up the real problems that people had, and when they were old enough to make their own decisions, they walked out.
Over time they came to embrace the whole "worm food" ideal (and in a bizarre way, it is an ideal for them) as almost a badge of honor: "I'm mature, smart, and realistic enough to embrace my own nothingness, my own meaninglessness, and my own mortality--unlike religious people who just aren't grown up enough to deal with things the way they are."
So I will guess that your friend probably has some bad experience with faith, somewhere in his past. People don't proudly talk about how meaningless they are, unless there's something more going on at the core.
How to reach him? I don't know, but the answer probably doesn't lie with persuading him to accept a different set of facts. His mind is closed. It will be like shooting pellets at an armored car. Rather, continue being his friend, show him Christian love and friendship of the kind he probably hasnt' seen before. See if you can get him away from his fortress of intellect, and get to the heart. I'll bet--if he lets his guard down--you'll learn that the real reasons for his belief are very personal, emotional, and existential. That he's built this armored shell to protect a wound that still hurts. And pray for him.
It's enough to know that the "pathetic" belief is the one that has no hope--his. If he insults you, bear it patiently. If nothing else, maybe one day he'll tell someone else, "All those religious people are pathetic hypocrites! Except this one guy Wryetui. He's still pathetic but at least he puts his money where his mouth is."
