Reddit reviews Why I Became an Atheist: A Former Preacher Rejects Christianity (Revised & Expanded)

I've become rather obsessed with deconversion narratives recently

Why I became an Atheist

Deconverted FYI I recommend the audiobook

Godless

Farewell to God

Yeah I’ve been to that site. A great resource! For me, it started with 2 things.

1. Clicked on a tweet from Dawkins and Gervais that said something interesting. I was really curious to listen to the “other side”. I thought about the fact that that there are people out there who believe the exact opposite as me. They said, “how lucky for you to be born in the right place to believe in the right thing”. That affected me. I thought about people born in the west. Their beliefs. We’re they wrong? Could they change my mind? Should I change theirs?
   
   
2. A couple of recent tragedies. A suicide of the son of a close friend and a young 21 year old girl dying in the hospital. I heard that her family were circled around her praying and singing How Great Is Our God. She died that night. I thought, if the whole point is converting people, wasn’t that a missed opportunity? And just life, you know? The access to information and science. I could no longer believe in a creation story or miracles.
   
   I started reading Why I Became An Atheist , researching and taking the blinders off. Really explored questions in the past I would just shrug off. It would eventually lead me to being an atheist during Easter! I had to preach what I no longer believed. That struggle was tearing me apart. You got to realize, my whole life, paycheck, everything was wrapped in my faith.
   
   It was recently that I resigned my position to pursue a business I started. It’s scary and I no longer have the certainty, which as you know is comforting. Especially in tragedy.
   
   I have found peace in a different kind of faith. One that is fully inclusive, celebrates humanism, love and life. I don’t hate the Bible or Christians. I see it all very differently. I’m in a better place now. Thanks for asking! There’s so much more, over a years worth of journeying.

I'd like to suggest "Why I Became an Atheist: A Former Preacher Rejects Christianity " by John Loftus. A hugely underrated book,imo.

http://www.amazon.com/Why-Became-Atheist-Preacher-Christianity/dp/1616145773/ref=dp_ob_title_bk

John also writes on http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/

Thanks for the feedback and thoughtful reply! "Condemns most" refers to several indications that the (currently) 2/3rds of the world that does not believe in Jesus will be lost.

 

I do think it's a position reasonably supported by the text. Not that I agree -- I find it morally reprehensible that any "good pagans" and/or the vast billions raised without much exposure to Christianity would be lost due to being born in the wrong place/time. William Lane Craig, a leading apologist, has written a thoroughly repulsive response on the topic: God already knew they'd be lost, so he put them in those places -- and, he says, for all we know, the ratio of saved-to-lost is is perfectly optimal. Ugh!

 

To your point, I'd have a hard time agreeing that Mk 9:40 and Lk 9:50 "whoever is not against us is for us" indicates Jesus believed people could be saved without him. For starters, he contradicts this in Mt 12:30 and Lk 11:23 "Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters." In context though, both seem to refer to doing miraculous works (casting out demons) and aren't discussing how to be saved at all.

 

In addition, there are ample NT verses saying Jesus saw himself as the only way to be saved:

• Jn 3:18 and Mk 16:16 "whoever believes in Him will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned"
  
• Jn 14:4 "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."
  
• Jn 3:36 "whoever does not obey Him does not have life; the wrath of God remains on him"
  
• Mt 7:21-23 "And they will say 'Lord, did we not do many mighty works in your name?' And I will declare 'Depart from me; I never knew you, you workers of lawlessness'"
  
• Mt 7:13-14 "the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. The gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few."
  
• Acts 4:12 "there is salvation in no one else; there is no other name given among men by which we must be saved"
  
• Jn 17:3 "and this is eternal life: that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent"
  
• Rm 3:22-23 "The righteousness of God is through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. There is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus"
  
   
  
  Many contradictory religions claim exclusivity. If Christianity let go of the idea of needing Jesus to be saved, it's a slippery slope to not needing him for anything -- just be a decent person and live your life. But in holding onto the need for Jesus, it ran headlong into another huge problem: if it's all about "accepting God's free gift of love", then a serial rapist can accept Jesus and be fully saved on death row, while a lifelong moral non-theist will go to hell for not accepting the gift. This completely devalues any of our actions and puts all the emphasis on "believing on bad evidence" instead of what you actually do with your life.
  
   
  
  It's all a moot point, however -- as it's likely "Jesus", if he existed, never said most of the things attributed to him, and some epistles attributed to Paul were written pseudonymously also. The whole idea of a "final judgment" wasn't from the Old Testament (which focused largely on earthly kings and national victories); rather, it was borrowed from Zoroastrianism eschatology during Babylonian/Persian captivity, which is around the time the Jews rewrote their national history to better fit their unfortunate circumstances, leading to inclusion in Jewish inter-testamental scripture such as the Book of Enoch, which was accepted as scripture for hundreds of years and was quoted by and influenced the thinking of New Testament writers who were making all this stuff up at the time.
  
   
  
  So, yeah -- who cares what Jesus said anyway, it's a lousy plan that wasn't even original! :-)

IMO, the best of them all is Why I Became an Atheist by John Loftus.

Loftus is a former evangelical preacher.

A descent selection so far from the other comments. I'll throw in a few, as well:

​

• Carl Sagan - Demon Haunted World
  
• Greg M. Epstein - Good Without God
  
• Michael Shermer - Why People Believe Weird Things
  
• Sean Carroll - The Big Picture
  
• John Loftus - Why I Became an Atheist
  
• A.C. Grayling - The God Argument
  
• Kenneth Daniels - Why I Believed
  
• Robert A Burton - On Being Certain
  
  ​
  
  Some of the above is specifically related to atheism, while others I've used to help shape and inform my understanding and my worldview. Out of the entire list, the Carl Sagan book and the Sean Carroll book rank highest, for me, in level of importance. Those books didn't just change what I think, they changed how I think, and I am forever indebted to them.

>1) How do we explain that we all seem to know what is right and wrong? Why do we believe that being a human entitles someone to rights?

Evolved Morality.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_morality

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/morality-biology/#EvoBioDebMor

 

>2) Why do we all look for and want meaning if this is a meaningless world?

Again, evolution.

We are hardwired to find meaning where there may be one because at some point it was advantageous to our survival.

 

>3) How can we know what is true? If our brains have evolved to ensure our survival and not necessarily tell us what is true... how can we be sure of anything?

The thing is that "being right" is part of the survival process. Or at least it became a part of the survival process at some stage. And since we know that we as humans are prone to making errors we have taken steps to doublecheck our beliefs to make sure that they are true (or at least that they map to reality).

 

>4) How do you as an atheist defend the fine-tuning argument? The chances of a world existing with life, even existing at all, is incredibly low. Did we really just get extremely lucky?

I personally dont defend the fine-tuning argument, I reject it for multiple reasons.

First of all, its proponents assume that the constants we see today could be different, but there is no real proof of that.

Second, even if they were indeed different that does not mean that life would be impossible. Life in the form as we know it may be impossible, but other forms could still arise.
http://web.uni-plovdiv.bg/marta/life_in_the_multiverse.pdf ignore the multiverse part, focus on the fact that even completely removing the weak nuclear force would still allow for the universe to form

 

>5) What do you think is the best argument against Christianity? Can you recommend any good literature that argues for atheism? I am not sure if Dawkins and Sam Harris books are any good or not. Looking for more honest/less biased writers.

Tough question.

For general overview of theistic arguments and why they all fail in one form or another I would recommend John Shook - The God Debates

For a bit more specific arguments against Christianity I would probably go for Loftus (although he can be a dick sometimes imo) Why I became an Atheist and The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails. Loftus is a former preacher and apologiest so he has really good insight into Christianity. Think Matt Dillahunty, but this one writes books. And has a huge ego :P

>(Have you read John Loftus’ Outsider Test for Faith?)

Not the book, no, but I'm vaguely familiar with the idea. Loftus's book Why I Became an Atheist was the first serious criticism of theism I read, although it has been years since I read it now.

If they really want to do this, they should read and discuss a book like 50 reasons people give for believing in a god or Why I Became an Atheist.

Allowing you to write a short argument and then not respond just isn't very useful. Either the argument has to be robust (like book length or longer) or you need to be able to dialog.