What turns Christians into atheists?
Kieran Bennett (an atheist blogger and member of the forums) has analysed 117 Christian deconversion stories, and written a very interesting and informative essay on “What works in deconverting Christians?“.
His investigation found that:
- 14.89% were dissatisfied with some of the answers given to them by priests or other religious people.
- 14.89% saw that the religious doctrine wasn’t compatible with science and reality.
- 12.76% came to the realisation that religious dogma was “internally incoherent” and illogical.
- 10.63% read the Bible and found that for the Holy Book of Christianity, it didn’t reflect modern day Christianity at all.
- 8.51% found the corruption and scandals following the church as a persuasive argument against following their doctrine.
- 8.51% gave up on prayer and religion when they realised that nobody was going to listen, let alone answer to them.
- 8.5% thought the similarities of Christianity with so many other religions (and yet so different at the same time) the primary factor of their deconversion.
Surprisingly, less people found that an exposure to atheism / philosophy / skepticism was a factor in their deconversion (I guess we’d better try harder). Likewise, only a couple people saw the association of violence with religion and attributed it to their lack of faith.
As for how we can deconvert more people, Bennett hits the nail on the head, and comes to the conclusion that whilst we can push and prod people towards the big ideas (science, logic etc), a successful deconversion is all down to the individual. We can’t force our ideas onto people, only sow the seeds of doubt by asking the right questions.
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Well, you could try harder, but wouldn’t being Atheist or even skeptical make you a tad indifferent?
cjsdad
12 May 08 at 5:07 pm (GMT)
Why even bother sowing any seeds? Just let people go on with their life.
Wildbill
12 May 08 at 5:15 pm (GMT)
“As for how we can deconvert more people, Bennett hits the nail on the head, and comes to the conclusion that whilst we can push and prod people towards the big ideas (science, logic etc), a successful deconversion is all down to the individual. We can’t force our ideas onto people, only sow the seeds of doubt by asking the right questions.”
Wow, that’s the most Christian thing I’ve heard come out of an Atheist’s mouth in a long time. Let’s try this again:
“As for how we can convert more people, McLaren hits the nail on the head, and comes to the conclusion that whilst we can push and prod people towards the big ideas (faith, love etc), a successful conversion is all down to the individual. We can’t force our ideas onto people, only sow the seeds of faith by asking the right questions.”
It’s been interesting to watch the growth of Evangelical Atheism. I’d usually agree with Wildbill — let people live the lives they want to live. It’s pompous to assume that your way of life is better than those around you, and traditionally the Atheist movement has done a decent job reflecting that view. It seems like more and more Atheists are ditching that view, however, in favour of “deconverting” people from religion (which is how they see it, when religious people would view it as “converting” to Atheism).
Aaron
12 May 08 at 5:28 pm (GMT)
To co-opt a Christian parable, the sowing of seeds works best on fertile soil. In my experience there seems to be a consistent (minimal) percentage of people, across various faiths, who are interested in Truth With A Capital T (a phrase I’ve taken to using when discussing so-called Ultimate Truth, which is ultimately unattainable, imho). Those are whom I would consider ‘fertile soil,’ and frankly the idea of sowing seeds of doubt would have struck me as a bit preachy while I was in the middle of my search - something I would not have responded to very kindly. :) The most genuine search is the one self-motivated, I’d say.
Having said that, offering info and being a friendly, non-judgmental source of insight and experience is always a good idea. In a lot of ways I think religion would have a stronger history of success if they were truly all about being that sort of “Light” instead of condemnation and fearful criticism.
Daniel Holter
12 May 08 at 6:20 pm (GMT)
Atheism? Buddhism? Christanism? Throw them all together and let the best ideas win.
SpaceGhoti
12 May 08 at 7:01 pm (GMT)
@SpaceGhoti I’d say change ‘best’ to ‘true’ and you’d have a killer idea! (’Best’ leaves too much open to interpretation… best for whom?)
Daniel Holter
12 May 08 at 7:07 pm (GMT)
Daniel: “True” isn’t any more useful than “Best.” Both are too mythical and/or subjective to be helpful. I’ll settle for the spiritual approach that works best for me, and recognize that it may not be a good fit for anyone else.
Adrian:
As a lifelong Christian, I too am bemused by “evangelical” atheists. I understand that you want us believers to stop pushing our brand of faith onto you. I understand and agree that believers should not co-opt government institutions (including schools) to advance a spiritual agenda. However, we should address these abuses directly, rather than blame religion for all of the ways it can be abused.
If you want to address those abuses, then don’t waste your time and othher resources trying to erase human spirituality. Instead, address those abuses directly.
I do not understand the drive by some atheists to “deconvert” believers (or more accurately, “convert” believers to atheism). By espousing this agenda, you only encourage those who brand “atheism” just another kind of faith.
Stomper
12 May 08 at 7:32 pm (GMT)
@ Stomper : I sincerely mean no offense, but if you have the opinion that Truth is mythical, it probably stands to reason that you are a “lifelong Christian.”
I do think your point is valid that there are issues that deserve to be addressed directly.
My problem is not with a version of spirituality that ‘works best’ for you (some form of Christianity Lite ? … and again, no offense meant, just assuming you mean some form of ‘live and let live’). I would argue that to believe in God the way he is presented in the Bible you must believe it’s an exclusive answer or solution or “way.” That’s a significant problem in the modern world, as your beliefs come into conflict with a world that is in peril thanks to the religious among us holding tight to their beliefs from the past few millennia.
fwiw, I’m not a fan of ‘evangelism’ on either side of the debate… which is one reason places like this blog make the most sense to me when it comes to topics of discussion such as faith and reason, truth and myth - those that are interested can weigh in and engage.
Daniel Holter
12 May 08 at 7:44 pm (GMT)
“Evangelical atheism”?!?
Love the term, not sure if it bears any resemblance here though. It seems to me that whilst Christian evangelicals are all about converting people to God, an “atheist evangelical” (by the terms of this investigation) would be all about showing people science and logic and how they are incompatible with religion.
That’s quite a big difference from trying to lead people away from God…
As I said, sow the seeds of science and logic, which will in grow into the shoots of doubt and uncertainty, and finally blossom into full blown rationality.
Adrian Hayter
12 May 08 at 8:20 pm (GMT)
117 is a bit small for a sample size, especially if you cut up the data in more ways. For example: Given the person was a biblical literalist, what persuaded him/her to deconvert?
What struck me the most was how proportionate the paths were to deconversion. What a delectable menu to choose from!
theplainestguy
12 May 08 at 8:23 pm (GMT)
[...] What turns Christians into atheists? [...]
What made you deconvert? | The Atheist Blogger
12 May 08 at 9:01 pm (GMT)
Why make the effort to (de)convert? Let people live as they choose to. Christianity, at least in the US, is on a steady decline. Eventually, it will be just another religion. Just let it slip away, and be as good a person as you can.
Jon
13 May 08 at 12:00 am (GMT)
Jon,
That’s assuming that the decline isn’t caused by the massive amount of media attention atheists get. It’s a pretty big assumption, and I reckon that although the majority of deconvertees come to the realisation themselves, if it weren’t for the atheist movement, they wouldn’t even question religion.
It takes someone to stand up and say “Hey, this doesn’t make any sense” to start a revolution, which is exactly what is happening now in the context of religion.
Adrian Hayter
13 May 08 at 12:45 am (GMT)
To those who think my essay espouses evangelical atheism, you probably need to read it. At least read the conclusion. Basically what I’m arguing is that as much as I would like to encourage religious people to shed their beliefs, “Ultimately a person has to liberate themselves from religion, it is not for us to assume the role of atheist proselytes.”
Kieran
13 May 08 at 1:44 am (GMT)
[...] Atheist Blogger Adrian Hayter has a couple of posts on this essay. Related Posts:Assignment Update: Deconverting [...]
Kieran Bennett » What works in deconverting Christians?
13 May 08 at 2:02 am (GMT)
Well we know what works best in converting athiests to religion: illness and impending death. So if we can do something about those, we’ll be a long way toward deconverting the religious.
Nessie
13 May 08 at 9:15 am (GMT)
I haven’t heard of many death-bed conversions to be honest…apart from the lie about Darwin of course..
Adrian Hayter
13 May 08 at 11:04 am (GMT)
I strongly think that the desire to “convert” relgious people to atheism that seems to be very popular with the New Atheist movement is mainly driven by a back lash created when the fundamentalists started to agressively attempt to take control of the rights of everyone. If you look at the attempts in America to weaken and break down our traditional separation of church and state they are getting closer and closer to success. Our own, out of touch, president would love to have the bible take a bigger part in all of American life.
Yes, we will react to this nonsense. I had no desire to be active about atheism, whatever that would mean, till the arguments against gay marriage started popping up and then quickly followed by the stem cell decisions that are really based not on science, but on religious dogma of a small set of very vocal fundamentalists.
What choice do we have but to try to convince the majority that following religious dogma, any relgious dogma, at the exclusion of the minorities could only hurt the whole of whatever nation is involved.
Do I want to be involved? No not at all. Do I have to be involved? Do I owe it to my children, my partner, and my country. Yes!
Brooke
14 May 08 at 11:52 pm (GMT)
Sowing the Seeds of Doubt…
Kieran Bennett’s informative analysis of deconversion stories is a must-read for any atheist wanting to know what we can do to help Christians overcome faith and embrace reality. The results suggest that there are many things we atheists can do….
Atheist Revolution
21 May 08 at 11:23 am (GMT)
[...] würden Atheisten aktiv versuchen, Gläubige zu dekonvertieren. the atheist blogger - What turns Christians into atheists? [↩]kieran bennett - What works in deconverting Christians? [↩] « Mutter [...]
Warum der Christ gottlos wird | DER MISANTHROP
22 May 08 at 7:40 pm (GMT)
(From holland so please excuse me for my writing)
My view on atheists is the following;
People have always want to believe in thing to make themselves feel more secure and save. Things that can’t be explained will also named as an so called “act of God”. This was mainly done in the year 0. This was in the time that large cities like rome were very populated. What will you get when you have a large city with a minimum of bathhouses, latrines etc? Exactly, deseases like the plage. The plage is an enormous killer, it swept though city reducing there populating by sometimes 40%. Now we see the same thing in about the middleages. In every case people start to more and more believe in Christ. And why? I think because it gives people hope, because it’s the only thing they can rely on ( they think ). And as above:
14.89% saw that the religious doctrine wasn?t compatible with science and reality.
As time went by science got more sofisticated, and these people got there explaination. Religion is a thing for the man who is affraid for the unknown.
(plz reply)
martijn
22 May 08 at 8:39 pm (GMT)
For me, it was learning about science and actually taking the time to read the bible. What a shock that was!
fascination
27 Jun 08 at 7:17 pm (GMT)
I just recently deconverted as a born-again Christian. It is something i would have never imagined I would ever do. One of my best friends is an atheist. We have great conversations about religion without arguing, which he liked because his non-belief, I am the rarity that he could talk about religion with. Anyway, we were talking a couple of weeks ago about it, and he said something about how I should even bring my kids to church until they are older as to not ‘brainwash’ them and let them decide for themselves. Well I immediately became defensive, of course, because that is what I had been trained to do. So over the next few days I thought about - why do i believe in god? - because I was told to. Why does my daughter pray every night now? -because I taught her to. At any rate, it was like I was suddenly awakened to the fact that I believed because that’s all I knew to do and feared not believing because of scare tactics…well i am still here, just fine and I feel like a weight has been lifted.
NewlyFreed
4 Jul 08 at 3:39 am (GMT)
NewlyFreed,
Welcome to atheism, you’ll find a lot more reason and purpose to life here than you ever will with theism. Join the forums if you want to chat with like-minded people :)
-Adrian
Adrian Hayter
4 Jul 08 at 3:53 am (GMT)