The Atheist Blogger

Well, you could try harder, but wouldn’t being Atheist or even skeptical make you a tad indifferent?

Why even bother sowing any seeds? Just let people go on with their life.

“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).

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.

Atheism? Buddhism? Christanism? Throw them all together and let the best ideas win.

@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: “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 : 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.

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!

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.

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.”

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.

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!

(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)

For me, it was learning about science and actually taking the time to read the bible. What a shock that was!

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.

Because (sorry for this) I think religious people are dumb.

If logic can stare you in the face, and you still pretend its not there, that is pure ignorance.

If I said I created the internet, is the existence of the internet proof enough for you to believe me?

All of the reasons mentioned in the blog work with showing people a little bit of logic and leading them to a deconversion, but I don't think that looking at the stats to see which methods work best will be of much help (although there is little difference in the percentages anyway) because every Theist, or Christian in this case, has something different that will make them take a step back from Christianity and take a logical look at things, leading to their deconversion.

For example, when I deconverted, it was the top three things on the list that led to my deconversion, and I didn't really notice the other problems until later on. For other former Christians that I know, those top three things on the list wouldn't concern them as much as something else on the list, and it would be that which led to their own personal deconversion. Introducing Christians to the whole range of problems has got to be the best method of showing them the truth about Christianity, because then the more important problem for them (whatever it is) will not be overlooked.

The fact that everything as we know it exists is not evidence of a creator…one could easily say that the everything is evidence of the nonexistance of a creator in the same way (i.e. just making a statement and not providing any evidence to back it up). Unless you can actually prove that everything in existance would only exist if someone had created it (and I've yet to see anyone do that), then your argument is based on flawed logic.

Another flaw with your argument is that if everything can only exist with a creator (thus being the so-called "evidence" that you mentioned), then surely that creator is evidence of a higher creator, and so on, and what you get is an infinite amount of creators from your original argument. Would it be logical to believe in an infinite amount of creators? Me think not.

You can't just say that something is evidence, you have to explain why it is evidence, exactly why does the existance of the universe prove your theory that a creator exists?

Not only in forcing a religion on your child are you preventing them from learning (as if they have got the message you have been trying so hard to force into them they will be scared of anything they see as unchristian, or unmuslim, or whatever), but it will leave them prejudiced against those of other faith…they will, in essence, be monsters.

It's a free world, and people should be allowed to be religious if they want to be, but they shouldn't be allowed to force it on their offspring…a child should be free to choose what they believe when they're old enough to understand…and not when they are too young to understand and threatened with eternal torture.

Not only in forcing a religion on your child are you preventing them from learning (as if they have got the message you have been trying so hard to force into them they will be scared of anything they see as unchristian, or unmuslim, or whatever), but it will leave them prejudiced against those of other faith…they will, in essence, be monsters of their parents design.

It's a free world, and people should be allowed to be religious if they want to be, but they shouldn't be allowed to force it on their offspring…a child should be free to choose what they believe when they're old enough to understand…and not when they are too young to understand and threatened with eternal torture.

Not only in forcing a religion on your child are you preventing them from learning (as if they have got the message you have been trying so hard to force into them they will be scared of anything they see as unchristian, or unmuslim, or whatever), but it will leave them prejudiced against those of other faith…they will, in essence, be monsters of their parents design.

It's a free world, and people should be allowed to be religious if they want to be, but they shouldn't be allowed to force faith on their offspring (in the same way that they shouldn't be allowed to physically abuse a child)…a child should be free to choose what they believe when they're old enough to understand…and not when they are too young to understand and threatened with eternal torture.

As soon as the adherants of Christianity, Islam, and all other faiths learn to be more moral people, there will be no need to try and change people's beliefs.

As it stands however, I, as an Atheist, want to live a good life and spend it being as good a person as I possibly can…and in order to do that I can't turn a blind eye on the suffering of others, or anything that leads to a person living their entire life with a skewed view of reality that is not of their own free will.

This approach of waiting till a child is old enough seems to be a common one on atheist parenting blogs. Influence without indoctrination and telling your kids "I believe X. Some people believe Y. You can figure out for yourself what you believe and I'll always love you." But religious people are too scared of their children hell, or too concerned with controlling their child's behavior (instead of shaping their character).

Meh, I googled my grandma's name and realized I'd been raised in a cult. Within six months I was an atheist. Once I started to critically examine my beliefs (even with the shoddy critical thinking skills I had) they just fell apart.

Still, I think people have to be in an emotionally "safe" or receptive place to really internalize doubt (rather than just reacting to it). If I hadn't already been so disillusioned by my google search and other problems in the cult, then the best treatise on logic and evolution and the total lack of evidence for god would have been useless.

The issue is very sensitive because on one hand it is hard to make the evangelical parents see that they are indoctrinating their children with unproven dogma, as they were indoctrinated themselves as children and can't take a rational look at things. On the other hand, we can't allow the children to go through the same process because we know they will end up like their parents. It's always going to be a hard issue to deal with.

I have to hand it to you Angie, all of that is a massive achievement…something I doubt I could ever do. Well done, it's something to be proud of.

Aw, thanks. I have to say that "out" atheists really helped (hence my large online persona now, trying to help others escape mental slavery)

I'm doing a post on one aspect of this later this evening. I'll try to remember to link it here for you

Everything you are doing is positive.

Everything you are doing is positive for a better world. :)

Thank you. I'm sure it will be excellent.

You may say that it is "pompous" for us to believe that our way of life is better than that of a religious person, but you'd be wrong again. If our way of life and our way of thinking had no more benefits for the world than a religious way of life you would be right. However, seeing as our way of life is based on science, logic, and evidence, and the religious way of life is based on faith, our way of life has a lot to offer the world whereas the religious way of life has nothing but blindness to give. If it wasn't for natural science, logic, and evidence, we wouldn't have most of the things that we take for granted today…no television, no computers, no internet…we wouldn't even be able to have this discussion. If everyone in the world lived religiously, we'd be stuck in the stone ages, and therefore it is in the name of progression that we want people to learn rather than to be ignorant.

Great response Angie. :)

Thanks Saul :)