The Atheist Blogger

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.

I attended a lecture a few months back (before I started this blog) entitled “Enemy in the Mirror: Richard Dawkins, the New Atheists and their Crusade against Fundamentalism”. It was nothing special, and the “lecturer” didn’t actually talk about anything to do with the subject. She just went on a random rant about how everyone should respect the church etc.

However, after the lecture there were a lot of questions asked from the audience, a large majority of whom were openly atheist. One such question was from a theist (towards the atheists) who complained that we argue all the time about religion and yet send our children to catholic schools and CofE schools with no problems. The parents in the audience said they do this because the results from those schools are better than those at non-religious schools, and they wanted the best for their kids.

I’ve got no problem with people doing that, they want their kids to do well. However I personally do not trust education systems that rely on religion to get students. The only reason that these students are getting better marks is because of the high levels of discipline those schools have, and the only thing large amounts of discipline does is inhibit creativity. You are taught what to think and how to think, and completely ignore the principles that freethinking was founded on.

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I just found an interesting video on YouTube by askegg which chronicles his conversion from being a Christian to being an atheist. It’s about 8 minutes long, and contains simple text (in the form of points) set to music. I think it’s a very good example of the rational thinking that leads many people (myself included) to convert from theism to atheism. If anyone is wondering why atheists have converted and stopped believing in God, this is the video for you.

A funny picture from Friendly Atheist:

I’d like to point out a few things:

- Since most homosexuals don’t molest children, are we to assume that they are ok?

- How often do I have to use a computer to be called a “computer freak”? If it’s more that 4 hours a day then he’s going to be very sick when you add together the number of people who work with one. It’s also amusing to note that the sign was probably put together by someone with computer skills, but I guess he was already “saved”.

- Are lesbians who drive cars or take public transport somehow exempt from your sickness rules?

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The Vatican seems to be getting a lot of press lately. If you haven’t heard, they are using the money you donate to train exorcists. Welcome back to the dark ages.

From the article:

Under plans being considered, each bishop would have a group of priests in his diocese who were specially trained in exorcism and on hand to take action against “extreme Godlessness”.

How much training do you need to be an exorcist? You need “holy” water and a bible. Be gone evil spirit, be gone!

The Vatican is concerned that young people are being exposed to Satanism through the media, rock music and the internet.

Be cautious rock lovers, if you’re caught listening to rock music, you will be exorcised!