Over the weekend, I had a pretty long conversation with an old friend of mine who up until recently was a Christian. In fact in the ten or so years that I have known him, this was the first conversation we had together in which we were both atheists and he is still having difficulty […]
Filed under: de-conversion | 6 Comments »
I was at a presentation earlier this week and the speaker mentioned that he doesn’t like to argue with religious believers. Interestingly enough, during the question and answer part of his presentation two religious believers attempted to argue with him and one atheist questioned why we should even bother arguing with religious believers at all. […]
Filed under: argument, atheism, de-conversion | 1 Comment »
I get e-mails, messages, and comments from Christians all the time either telling me flat out or eluding to the belief that I will be tortured for all eternity in Hell. It is more than them just stating a belief however; they are also making the claim (either upfront or covertly) that I should be […]
Filed under: de-conversion, God Fearing, hell | 4 Comments »
Last week, I was visited by two Jehovah’s Witnesses and I actually ended up having a nice long conversation with them (usually they try to run away). In any case, they tried to use all the standard arguments and I was able to easily refute them. But that wasn’t my goal. One of the guys […]
Filed under: conversation, de-conversion, discussion, Jehovah's Witness, Religion | 3 Comments »
When I criticize religions like Christianity, I almost always criticize the system of belief rather than the believers in the system. There are reasons for this however many Christians don’t see this distinction. I view the belief system of Christianity as a living system, like a virus. They system adapts and changes in order to […]
Filed under: Belief, de-conversion, delusion, Religion, Religious Manipulation | 5 Comments »
When atheists and Christians discuss religion we often talk past each other. That being the case, I came up with an idea that might change that. I think we should try to meet Christians halfway… as long as they are willing to meet us halfway. Here is how it works. First, we offer to meet […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, conversation, de-conversion, delusion | No Comments »
Back in my college days, there weren’t a lot of atheist t-shirts out there. I had a shirt that I got from Hot Topic that said, “i am god” in all lowercase letters. There is an interesting story with this shirt and what happened when I wore it to my Christian friend’s Creationism program. My […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, atheism, conversation, Creationism, de-conversion, god, Personal, Religion | No Comments »
Over the years, I have helped to de-convert many people away from religion. One would think that if the religious really believed what they claim to believe then they would consider me to be a worse criminal than most serial killers. A murderer takes away someone’s life, but I have taken away people’s eternal afterlife. […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, Belief, de-conversion, death, delusion, hell, morality, Religion, Soul | 2 Comments »
I always find it interesting when Christians tell me right from the start that they will never be convinced that they are wrong. But what is really interesting is that they then project that stone wall mentality onto me. They tell me that they will never be convinced or that neither of us will be […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, Certainty, de-conversion, Religion | 4 Comments »
What do Christians hope to accomplish when they start an argument with an atheist? Do they think they are going to convince us with no evidence that some ridiculous ancient story is obviously true? They know that we know a lot about religion and we have probably heard all their arguments before they even come […]
Filed under: atheism, conversation, de-conversion, debate, discussion, ignorance, Religion | 9 Comments »
My friend and aspiritual leader, Jake recently wrote a post on his blog, AfterFaith.com, that reminded me about an issue I’ve been wanting to write about for some time. Lately, I have been getting a lot of e-mails from recent de-converts from religion and I wanted to talk about the betrayal many of them feel. […]
Filed under: atheism, conversation, de-conversion, Decline of Religion, Religion, Religious Manipulation, Self-Help | 3 Comments »
I have often written about the psychological reasoning for the born again experience and the path in which many religious people take towards losing their religion. But today I want to talk more about the trends involved in the exodus from religion. There are two pretty interesting trends that I have noticed in regard to […]
Filed under: atheism, de-conversion, People of Reason, Personal, Religion | 3 Comments »
Last week, I was having a conversation with another atheist who isn’t as vocal as I am. She asked how Christians can believe this stuff and commented that they must be stupid. I found myself in the odd position of defending Christians. It is not that Christians are stupid, but rather that the system that […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, conversation, de-conversion, discussion, ignorance, Religion, Religious Manipulation | 14 Comments »
So last night I was at the monthly meeting of the Freethought Society and our President Margaret Downey was speaking about how she de-converted and got active in activism. Afterward, she invited others to briefly give their de-conversion tale. So when I was up, I talked about how I came from a mostly secularized Jewish […]
Filed under: atheism, de-conversion, jews, Personal, Religion | 3 Comments »
For most atheists, when we get into conversations with the religious, we tend to discuss facts and evidence. When we argue, we use logic, reason, and point out fallacies. But when the religious argue, they use personal connection. Religious people will try to get to know you. They don’t really care about the details of […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, conversation, culture war, de-conversion, Personal, Religious Manipulation | 3 Comments »
Whenever someone makes a life and death decision, there will be a theist around to claim that someone is “playing God.” The thing is that when it is a life or death decision, we aren’t playing. Unlike theists, atheists view this life as the only life we have. We don’t view life as a game […]
Filed under: de-conversion, Religious Manipulation, responsibility | 1 Comment »
I get into a lot of conversations with a lot of fundamentalist believers. Even though I love these conversations it sometimes seems like I am having a conversation with a wall. We have all had these types of conversations. But sometimes we forget that there might be flies on that wall and they might benefit […]
Filed under: atheism, conversation, de-conversion, discussion, Jehovah's Witness, Religion | 5 Comments »
I know the Anne Rice thing is getting old. The story has been around for a few weeks now and I just can’t let it go. Like I did with Stephen Baldwin, I have written an open letter to Anne Rice. I am confident she will read it since she has been so accessible in […]
Filed under: conversation, de-conversion, faith, Religious Manipulation | 1 Comment »
Last week, Interview with the Vampire author Anne Rice made news when she publicly left Christianity… but remained “committed to Christ.” Pretty soon after her announcement, I wrote an Examiner article on the subject. I even started to follow Anne Rice’s facebook page. I was surprised at how approachable she was for someone of her […]
Filed under: conversation, de-conversion, facebook, Progressive Christians, Vague Higher Power | 1 Comment »
I am pretty well established vocal atheist. On the scale of atheism, I am often lumped in with Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris as a “New Atheist” or “militant atheist.” I prefer to see myself more as a “bad cop” of atheism. So imagine my surprise when I found out that on at least one issue […]
Filed under: atheism, Current Events, de-conversion, People of Reason | 4 Comments »
Last week, I got into an interesting conversation with a fellow atheist about de-converting Christians. My new atheist friend expressed the opinion that he thought moderate Christians were easier to de-convert and I expressed the opinion that I thought fundamentalists were easier to de-convert. I am not actually sure that either of us could prove […]
Filed under: atheism, conversation, de-conversion, Religion | 2 Comments »
Tomorrow (Saturday), I will be attending the Wizard World comic and sci-fi convention in Philadelphia. I attend this convention every year because I love sci-fi. This year I have learned the Stephen Baldwin will be at the convention. Stephen is the fundamentalist Christian Baldwin. So I thought I would write him a letter and hand […]
Filed under: conversation, de-conversion, faith, Preaching, Religion | 1 Comment »
When I was in grad school, I was already a vocal atheist and was pretty knowledgeable about the greater atheist community. One day a fundamentalist Christian friend of mine was excited to tell me that the most famous atheist in the world had just converted to Christianity. Antony Flew was so famous that I had […]
Filed under: Anthony Flew, conversation, de-conversion, death, deathbed conversion, Evils of Christianity, Religion, Religious Manipulation, Vague Higher Power | 33 Comments »
Ever since I was in college I have had evangelical Christians coming to my door to “witness” to me. Many of these evangelicals like to tell me about how they became “saved,” “Born again,” or whatever other cult-term they come up with. I like when they tell me about their story. It is a perfect […]
Filed under: conversation, de-conversion, delusion, discussion, missionaries, Preaching, Religion, Religious Manipulation | 2 Comments »
Over the break, I got a lot of e-mails asking me about my de-conversion story. To be honest, my story isn’t that interesting. I was never a fundamentalist nor did I have a lot of family pressure to stay religious. But it’s a new year, so I guess I’ll tell the story. First, it is […]
Filed under: atheism, conversation, de-conversion, Religion, Religious Manipulation | 6 Comments »
Many times when I am engaged in a conversation with a fundamentalist Christian, he or she will ask me to read one of their apologists. They convince themselves that if only I read this other book, the Bible will make perfect sense. If only I read this other book all the immoral, unscientific, false history, […]
Filed under: conversation, de-conversion, discussion, morality, Religion | 7 Comments »
Yesterday, I discovered a great 7 part de-conversion story on YouTube. I don’t even think that the guy is finished with it yet, but I really like the way he has done this series so far. So today I am going to be lazy and just post the playlist for this series. When one video […]
Filed under: atheism, de-conversion, People of Reason, Religion | 8 Comments »
Many theists complain to me that I shouldn’t criticize religion because it makes them happy. They accuse me of “trying to take away their happiness.” I find this accusation to be a sad attempt at a conversation stopper. For starters, I don’t think I am trying to take anyone’s happiness away any more than drug […]
Filed under: atheism, de-conversion, Evils of Christianity, god, morality, Religion, the bible | 7 Comments »
I get asked a lot by both Christians and atheists alike, what is the book that I would most recommend to people in order to de-convert them away from god-belief. The answer I always give surprises a lot of people. While some people would expect me to say, Richard Dawkin’s book, The God Delusion, I […]
Filed under: atheism, conversation, de-conversion, Religion, the bible | 7 Comments »
Many times when I am in a discussion with religious and/or atheistic moderates, they tell me that, “some people need religion.” They also often tell me that, “you can’t reason with a fundamentalist.” These are interesting opinions and many of my readers may even agree with them. I however do not. I think people are […]
Filed under: atheism, conversation, de-conversion, Religion | 5 Comments »
