brahma

This is to those who are recent converts to atheism... was there a single incident or book that made you see the light? I ask because in my case there was.

I used to listen to the Art Bell show that aired from 12:00 am to 4:00 am - impoverished graduate students have little to show at the end of 3 years but their insomnia. Anyway, somewhere between all the UFO sightings and anal probing incidents, Art occasionally has some great guests. One of them was Mathew Alper who was talking about his book <a href="http://godpart.com" target="_blank">The God Part of the Brain</a>. I ended up buying the book and I recommend it to anyone who is looking for a physiological explanation for theism. Though IMHO it is amatuerish in its layout, the subject matter and arguements presented are very good.

I am interested in knowing of other books/incidents/shows that caused people to radically change their beliefs, the thing that pushed them over the edge.

Forgive me if this topic has been posted before and point me to that discussion.

Thanks.

The Resistance

I'm sure something like this has been posted before, but I don't know where. I'm happy to answer anyway.

I don't think one thing pushed me over, it took at least a year before I completed rejected Christianity.

When I was 17, i started to question my Catholicism. Just before I graduated from high school someone said they were agnostic. I hadn't heard the word before and when someone talked about it, it made perfect sense.

I thought about it, read the Bible, and eventually realized Christianity was wrong.

Back when this message boar was getting started about 2 years ago, I got involved in these debates on the Secular Web and eventually elsewhere. It has only deepened my opinions and spread my knowledge base. I undrestand better the Christian mind and the mental mechanics of faith.

Hugh Jass

No single thing,sorry. I have been a luke-warm atheist most of my adult life but fairly recently read Dan Barker's 'Losing Faith in Faith'(three times!) and this was an epiphany of sorts as it got me off my butt and into the debating mode. I no longer let christians make their absurd postulations in my presence without challenging them. I have also been reading everything I can lay my hands on and am now going to get a copy of the book you mentioned.
Thankyou,

Sandy

Scotty

I have determined that I had a questioning mind for the unexplainable after I started reading Doc Savage novels in 3rd grade.
The reason is that everything in the stories, no matter how strange and varied always had an explaination.
This lead to a healthy level of skepticism about the unexplainable. Although I accepted Christianity for many years, the unhealthy hatred of everything not Christian really drove me away.

So really, only within the last two years did I drive every last remnent out, and I am 36 now. So, it wasn't an easy trip, I hope other people realize it much sooner, they will be much happier and healthier.

-Scott

sighhswolf

Brahma,
On my part it was a slow gradual shifting
of attitudes, and capped off by the realization
that human nature remains the same regardless of
what one my "say" are their religious convictions.
I found out in an extreme way that even the most
dedicated christian will when provoked respond with hate, and vengence, and will try to destroy
another person's life with lies, misdirection,
and misinformation.
Even the most pious individual will engage
in abuse in their relationships.
Physical abuse has outward signs manifest on the
individual's body.
But there is another form of abuse, one that has no outward signs of recognition, and that is mental and verbal abuse.

This is an insidious and covert affliction that
destroys a persons self image, and because it leaves no outward signs no one but the two individuals themselves know the truth, and there is no way to prove to anyone outside of the relationship this abuse is taking place.
I was in a relationship as the one above for 25 years.
All outward indications pointed to a good relationship and the charade continued for years.
She was the perfect Mormon wife, spent every second of her free time with church activities.
She was a teacher and an example for other church
members due to her dedication.
She attended all of the kids school functions.
And she worked outside of the home and had a good career with an insurance company.

But she was not what she seemed to be.......
She was vindictive, condesending, and patronizing.
All the religion in the world, all the church work
and prayer, and all the teaching she did was a fraud.
I will not burden you with the details, but simply
I felt alone and unloved and isolated in the home that I worked my butt off to provide for her and my kids, it was the "real" hell.
When I finally decided that I was not going to live this way any more, she and the lawyers took eveything I had, after 25 years of 6 and 7 day work weeks, 24 hour a day responsibility, and providing a good home for her and the kids, I was left with the clothes on my back, my old broken down pickup truck and my guitar......thats it.
I had no job, and no money.
She had a very good job making a good salary, but
the Judge decided that since I was the one to leave the relationship that I needed to be punished, based on her presentation of events.
So they ordered me to give her the house, a car,
sign away any and all rights to her retirement pay
and ordered me to pay for her lawyer and give her
half of my retirement pay that I received for almost 20 years with the same company.
And the capper was that I was to pay her alimony
while I was unemployed and she was making a very good salary.
Now the point to this story is that it doesnt matter how religious you are, how much time you spend in religious study and in church, none of those things actually changes your "true nature".
No amount of dedication to organized religion
can transform an individual into a good and decent human being, if they did not fit that catagory in the first place.

After going through all that stuff, I am now firmly convinced that all these folks that claim a revelation from god has changed them for the better are either lying to themselves or lying to others.
And I dont care how religious they seem to be,
you can never see the true personality of another person until they are faced with adversity or see the chance for gain at someone elses expense.
If you look at the evangelical ministers who have public exposure every day, how many of those preachers have not been involved in questionable
or unethical conduct?

My deconversion was a long and very painful experience that I will pay for......... for the rest of the time I have on this earth.
If it wasnt for an Atheist that took me in out of the kindness of her heart, I seriously doubt that I would be writting this here today.
But as for your question, humans can mask their true intentions, and I found that being "truthful" "ethical" and having compassion and showing kindness to others is not the exclusive domain of organized religion or "faith"
or any kind.
This is readily seen throughout our world in leaders and countries and the world population as a whole.
Wolf

livius drusus

Gore Vidal's book Julian broke my last tenuous links to theism. It's an excellent epistolary novel about the last non-xian Roman emperor and when I finished it, I realized with a sense of liberation and release that I had no god belief.

MassAtheist

Like others, my deconversion was a gradual process that took place over about 10 years. While there is not one single book that put me over the edge, I would say that Leviticus was the most influential thing I read.

Jamie_L

I had a long, slow drift from unchruched Christianity to atheism. It started in grade school, and ended shortly after college. At my first professional job, I met some Christians who were actually people of amazing kindness and integrity (contrary to the run-of-the-mill Christians I'd known all my life). I was so impressed that I pulled out a New Testament and tried to "get back to God."

I was about halfway through the NT when I came across the Skeptics Dictionary while surfing the net. It cliked with me so well that I never picked up the NT again. For a few years I was somewhat wishy-washy about admitting to myself and others that I had abandoned religion, and then I read Carl Sagan' "Demon-Haunted World". That was the last straw. Now I'm a true-blue atheist, naturalist, materialist. Amen.

Jamie

Hedwig

Damn! Jamie beat me to it!!

I haven't even finished Sagan's "The Demon Haunted World" and I'm pretty much convinced.

As an aside, is Dawkins any good?

BLoggins02

Two words: September eleventh