Recently, I re-watched the Disney/Pixar animated film “Bolt.” I originally saw the film when it came out because I had…
Category De-Convertion
Religious believers send missionaries all over the world, they go door-to-door, they have pamphlets, t-shirts, bumper stickers, etc. They are out there trying to “save” non-believers and make us believers. But then they get offended when atheists start to spread the facts about reality and try to de-convert religious believers.
One thing about religion that I always found damning is the way religion has warped the minds of parents when their children leave the faith. More than anything else, this speaks volumes about the cruelty of religion. That is why I think it is important to tell these stories so that others can bear witness to them.
What or who was instrumental in your de-conversion? This to me is an interesting question for a few reasons. First, I’m fascinated by why people believe what they believe and why or how they lose those beliefs. Second, knowing what was instrumental in people’s de-conversion could help in de-converting others. Third, I have no real frame of reference for this question.
There are a lot of great books written by atheist authors over the past few years. While I can’t say that reading any one particular book was the key to my own de-conversion from Judaism to atheism, I have heard from a lot of fellow atheists about how this book or that really got them thinking critically about religion and lead to their de-conversion. None of those books are going to be on my list.
Many Christians love to tell their stories of how they got saved. I think it is also valuable for atheists to tell our stories of how we became damned to eternal torture… I mean how we de-converted from religion to atheism. The thing is that I think atheists and Christians have very different processes for how we came to our present position on the existence of deities. I don’t really want to know how someone got saved, but I would like to know what convinced them of their beliefs. That is not necessarily the same thing.