How do you talk to people you totally disagree with?

Talking politics or religion was always discouraged in polite company. The idea was that these divisive topics would create unpleasant disagreements whose tone and timber would be unacceptable. As much as this has always been the case, it seems like current political and religious discourse has never been more divisive. It seems as if folks are more interested in feeding their echo chambers rather than developing ideas, learning new things and engaging in productive discourse.

Megan Phelps Roper was convinced that her small family church, the infamous Westboro Baptist Church, had a monopoly on truth. She believed that they alone knew what God wanted and that everyone else was going to hell. All this changed when she started engaging people on twitter, including David Abitbol, founder of Jewlicious. She ended up leaving the Church and in this wildly popular Ted Talk, Megan outlines the methods used by David and others, to get through to her, past her hate. Enjoy!

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