Proxima Centauri

I have read a great many deconversion stories. The most common pattern is a long period of questioning before a person finally decides that he/she can no longer believe in God. This questioning usually takes place alone. People do not generally seek support from other unbelievers before they have fully stopped believing. We have little chance to alter their attitude towards atheists or agnostics until deconversion is complete.
Not everybody who comes to doubt Christianity deconverts. Many keep believing despite their doubts, decide God is testing them etc.
How do we increase the likelihood that people who have started to doubt religion will deconvert fully before they have contacted us? We can help them by ensuring that they have other alternatives besides becoming atheists. I know atheists face a great deal of social disaproval. I know this disaproval is totally unfair. The fact is we can't easily alter religious people's nagative attitude towards atheism until they have stopped being religious people.
If a religious person is asking himself/herself, 'Must I really stop believing in God? Must I really become one of those wretdched atheists?'it is less likely that person will deconvert. Sorry, atheists I don't want to insult you. I'm just trying to look at things from the point of view of some one who, we hope will deconvert.
It is best if potential deconverts have a wide range of options. They can start to see themselves as deists, as agnostics, as humanists or as atheists. That way each person losing faith can choose an option which is comfortable for that individual. That way a higher proportion of those with doubts will deconvert.
Some will stop believing in any specific religion but still believe that there is some (spiritual) force behind reality. Later they may come to see that any such force is totally unknowable and become agnostics. They can instead come to see that the force they believe in is indistinguishable from the impersonal scientific forces believed in by atheists and change in that direction.
Please, atheists if some of us are happy as deists or as agnostics let us stay that way. We are giving an example to doubting religious people which some will find easier to accept than atheism.

IvanK

Adopting a terminology introduced to me by Tom Flynn I call myself both agnostic and atheist. Agnostic because it's the more forthright, honest and thoroughgoing philosophical position. Atheist because, on balance and given the available evidence, no I do not believe in the existence of a god or gods as described by any of the available religions. Besides which I think people questioning their religious upbringing desperately need examples of others who are living reasonably happy lives without god beliefs (which is what a-the-ist means after all).

Personally I wouldn't recommned to anyone the kind of internal struggle needed to change the habits of mind associated with theism. And I do believe that being more visible, through this site and in other ways, can only help others going through that overcome the vertiginous terror associated with losing their former theological moorings to reality.

Agnostics and deists I can live with quite comfortably, but then I'm married to a Catholic. If all the rabid true believers decided tomorrow that they weren't quite so sure about what their gods wanted or just who was damned to eternal perdition it would be a better world, one which freethinkers ought to be able to embrace with no reservations.

The Resistance

First, you have to learn to identify them. They'll probably be someone you know well enough to causally learn that they are doubting their religion. Often however, many people keep their doubts to themselves even from their closest friends out of fear of being attacked. (I know I did.)

Second, you have to remember not to take an agressive stance because you might frighten them back.

Next, I suggest causally discussing certain parts of their religion that led to doubt. Maybe go after a particular part oftheir religion that discriminates against them personally. ie. women, homosexuals etc.

You can point out problems from the Bible. Most likely they've only read what they've been told to read.

Discuss philosophical problems like how can there be a God with evil in the world. It'll stimulate their thoguht processes on the subject.

Again, don't attack like a Jeovah's Witness, that's sure to be counter-productive. Be casual and friendly.

I believe their is an excerpt from Dan Barker's "Losing Faith in Faith" book that discusses this very issue. It's posted on the Freedom From Religion Foundation website. (I don't remember the address.)

Perchance

I also call myself agnostic, mostly because I can't stop doubting. I am drawn to the atheistic side of the arguments, but I always wonder if that's only a result of what I WANT to believe, rather than what I truly do believe or what is there- one reason I don't know if I would ever be able to fully "committ" to being atheist.

God's never mattered to me much. I understand that some people talk about a hole in their lives (either one that is there because they've started to doubt or disbelieve in God, or one that would be there if they abandoned their religion), but I've never felt it. In fact, I can't really comprehend how I would integrate religious worship into my life. It's something simply foreign to me.

I do think that "deconverts" should have other options open, while at the same time being able to listen to accurate and fair information about atheism and atheists and come to their own conclusions. It may depend on what the person can handle. I have trouble coming to a certainty, for example, and would always distrust it if I did manage to find one. There may be other people who would find this kind of uncertainty terrifying, and, while not religious anymore, would need to become strong atheists in order to solidify what they believe about the world.

In the end, there may be nothing we can do for one specific individual unless we know him or her relatively well, but I think we can be a general information source for "deconversion" and "the other sides of the story."

-Perchance.

Clarice

I think America certainly offers a good enough mix of people, and enough tolerance for different beliefs, to allow someone to gradually deconvert. My deconversion went roughly like this: Catholic, heretical Catholic, anti-Catholic believer in an intervening "higher power," casual dabbler in paganism, deist, atheist (negative/weak/practical), naturalistic pantheist.

I have to agree, that was probably a lot less traumatic than returning from Communion one day and suddenly thinking, "this whole god thing is utter bullshit!"

Seeker630

Daggah

It's really quite simple: if you don't possess a belief in god, then you are an atheist. Most agnostics do not possess such a belief (some do). Why are you agnostic guys and girls avoiding the proper terminology?

Doesn't believe = atheist
Belives = theist
Doesn't believe and doesn't think it's possible to know whether there is a god or not = atheist agnostic
Believes, but doesn't think it's possible to know whether there is a god or not = theist agnostic

When did this misconception about agnosticism simply meaning "doubt" about the existence of god arise, anyway? The meaning of the word is clear!

Non-praying Mantis

Hate to tell you this, Perchance, but you already ARE an atheist. Living your life as if God or gods does or do not exist, is the practical definition of atheism!

NPM

Perchance

NPM:

Ah, but is it the impractical definition of atheism? In other words, I may live the physical life of an atheist, but do I have the mental life of one?

A lot of atheists here have very good arguments to back up their non-belief, and a lot of them rely on science, philosophy, personal experience with religion and how it doesn't seem to fulfill any of its promises, and other things that (just like religious worship) are foreign to me. I get lost trying to follow some of those arguments. I can make my own, but mine are always

a) absurdly simple

or

b) turning out to be faulty.

I would like to commit to having no belief in God, but I don't have the arguments to back it up. And every time I think, "I ought to learn more science. Let's go read some science"...

I get distracted by a poetry website instead. .

-Perchance.

Proxima Centauri

Sorry, I disagree. The meaning of the word agnostic isn't clear. I think its used in slightly different ways in different parts of the English speaking world. This causes confusion when English speakers from Britain, the USA, (Canada?), Australia, etc speak to each other on the Internet. We all are inclined to blame English speakers from other parts of the world if they don't use our definition.
I have been told that the proportion of agnostics in Britain is higher than anywhere else in the world. The originator of the word Agnostic was the Nineteenth Century British philosopher, Thomas Huxley, (doubting Thomas?). I suspect people who are unsure whether not God exists are more likely to see themselves as Agnostics rather than weak Atheists if they are British.
It will probably take 5 or 10 years before we develop a common form of English on the Internet.

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