In that case maybe it’s better to have this thread itemize the various stories of people’s conversion from christianity. What collection of ideas, arguments, reasons, etc., that changed your mind about the god question?  Maybe with an extensive list of experiences we can formulate a common thread of successful approaches that are known to work.  I have never been a believer so I can’t share but I’m sure many others can.

I went from being a fundamentalist (although not hard-core) to a liberal Christian, and then finally to reject religion all together.  The process took many years for me, as I remained a liberal Christian for a good decade or so after I rejected a literal reading of the Bible.

What did the trick for me was not arguments from non-believers, as I could always find a way to weasel out of those.  But it was coming face to face with young Earth creationists, and then reading the Bible more deeply.  It was the conflicts between science and religion that set me on a search for truth.  So I started reading the whole bible, nasty parts and all, and also reading Christian apologetics.  It was really the incredibly weak arguments from Christians, and my realization that no Christian author, or my pastors had any remotely decent answers to my questions.  Just hand waving and faith.  So I saw no reason to keep believing.

But enough about me.  My point is that since then I have helped de-convert several moderate or liberal Christians, but have not yet made a visible dent in the brain armor of a fundamentalist.  Their thought process is locked down and there is no hope for them, except from the inside.  The best we can do is plant a few seeds of reason and hope it will sink in a little.  But don’t expect any short term results.

Liberal Christians can be helped, since they seem to trust logic and reason much more than the fundies.  But I don’t attack their religion head on.  I listen to their doubts and encourage them to trust their own reasoning process.

There is hope.  Don’t attack religion directly, but teach science, logic and reason, and encourage the believer’s doubts about the religious nonsense.

With me there was never any one thing that moved me away from my Catholic upbringing, and I’m sure that is how it is with most people. Not including the people with traumatic breaks from the religion.

Myself, I don’t think I ever really believed. I was taken to church every Sunday, was put through Sunday School, baptised, confessed, eucharized and confirmed, but I think I only ever did any of it out of a sense of misplaced expectation and a sense of loyalty to my father. My dad’s a Jesuit, though, and a computer engineer and is a very rational man. This, I think, had the biggest effect on my de-conversion. I was always allowed to find things out myself and was presented a relatively uncensored and unencumbered view of the world. And my parents always encouraged a love of learning in me. The overwhelming feature of my room are the books. All of this, coupled with living in a relatively secular part of the country (the suburbs of Portland, OR), the rational part of my mind was nurtured and the mystical part was passively neglected.

It wasn’t until I was about 16 that I started really contemplating my own beliefs. I quickly became a strong atheist. There was no god and anyone who believed so was so uninformed as to be insultingly stupid. I proceeded from there through a sort of maturing process, which, along with my continuing education, shaped my further ideas on the non-/existence of god. At this point, I’m a strong agnostic. The idea of a god is so alien, so beyond the ordinary experience of human life that anyone who claims to know the mind of god is, to me, certifiable.

I don’t think it’s beneficial to try and “forcibly” convert people from a religion. In fact, it’s probably far more detrimental. In my experience the best way to change someone’s mind is by setting an example. It’s up to us to make that example be one of rationality, openness and approachability.

As a former hardcore fundamentalist christian (I tell people if the church I was part of had been any more fundamentalist we would have been on a compound in the desert), I can tell you that there is no killer argument.  It also is not an instant process.  It is a slow process that usually takes years.  For me, it was almost five years.  The best you can usually hope for is that one day, when they are having doubts, that they will remember some of the things you said and take those first steps of questioning and looking for themselves - and maybe finally taking the step of freeing themselves from religion entirely.  You may never know if someone you debated with in the past changed their mind, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try.  All it takes is one small doubt, one moment of thinking “That can’t be right” to start someone on that journey.

Don’t give up on someone just because of their age either.  I was 35 when I became an atheist.  Arguing about religion was not what finally reached me.  It was arguing about abortion with my grandmother.  She was pro-choice, I was anti-abortion.  Once I finally heard what she was saying, starting looking for myself, and realizing that what I had been told about abortion by pastors, priests, and preachers wasn’t true, I began to wonder what else they had not told me the truth about.  So you just never know what will reach someone.

To set the stage for any reason/religion debate, I find it important to outline what, specifically, is at stake here.  How are societies invested in this push-pull contest?  Many liberal Christians worship as they do because of tradition and a sense of community duty—not so miuch because they agree with the ideology or the religious institutions.  In fact, I know many Catholics who practice their faith despite the dogma and the embattled institution.  Emphasizing the stakes of the reason/religion debate would be key for winning over the liberal faithful, because it would illuminate consequences.

For instance, the United States is the 3rd most populous country in the world.  It spends more money on its military than all the global powers combined.  The U.S. is also recognized as one of the most important political and economic influences worldwide.  (Sorry to talk only of my own nation, but I don’t know the other nations’ stats off the top of my head.)  The U.S. is also recognized as having one of the most religious cultures in the world, as specified in Letter to a Christian Nation.  If we were to list the influences that shape American culture, we would of course note television news and entertainment.  We would also note various formats on the Internet and radio.  School systems and universities are also huge influences.  But the Christian religion is right there too.  Christianity has people of all ages meeting in a public forum and regularly devoting one uninterrupted hour of their time listening to the dogmatic messages.  Many youth are also spending additional hours in “Sunday School” or youth ministry.  Thus, no one should not take lightly the content of the sermons and the quality of these messages.  The cultural impact is too great to simply accept the statement, “I don’t agree with everything ... but it’s my tradition, so I will continue to attend.”   

I like to make the comparison to consumer buying power.  If we prefer organic, locally-grown apples to industrialized, chemical and hormone-enhanced apples, then we have the right to use our buying power on the organic brands.  As the organic movement has grown in recent years, more local and organic options are overtaking the supermarket floor space.  Exerting buying power affects the market.  In this same way, we need to make liberal Christians aware that how they exert their buying power is important.  If they support a congregation that believes in a chosen people, then they are exerting their spiritual buying power towards that belief.  If they support a congregation that rallies against abortion or gay rights, then they are spending their buying power toward those rallies.  It is simple, yet I know many liberal Christians who deny the connection.

Well, I don’t know if my story is unique… but my parents were atheists. Scientists, and teachers, both. And so up to age 10, I was raised as an atheist and I never actually let go of that lack of belief. The way my parents, especially my father, taught me reason, logic, and common sense just simply made a lot more sense to me than any mythological, fantastical beliefs in gods, goddesses, magic, or miracles.

My parents died, when I was 10.

And that put my into the foster care system for the next five years, until my uncle took me in. And in the foster care system I experienced, first hand, what life in a fundamentalist, religious household was like. I wont go into the graphic details; but let’s just say it was a very unpleasant experience. And, mostly, because one of my foster fathers, who was a minister, was desperate to convert me to God.

His main argument was a belt. And if that didn’t work it was racial insults, or locking me in a closet until I learned to pray…

I never learned to pray. But, I did learn to pretend. And I became a very good “pretend Christian”. But, I never gave in to belief. And to this day I still have not seen an argument that would stand up to the tests of science, history, and rational thinking that could influence me to change my position on religion, or my lack of belief.

But, no matter what arguments I pose trying to convince the average Christian to at least open their minds to an opposing point of view, I’ve never been able to get through to a Christian. They always seem to have a counter argument that, to them, is the undisputed truth.

I do know one woman, who converted from Chirstianity (Catholicism, to be exact) to atheism… she turned her back on religion, and “God” after her sun committed suicide. But… I’d hate to think it takes something that drastic…

Christians have a very good method at converting people to Christianity. It’s called a youth group. They gather many young people together to do all sorts of fun activities, from white water rafting to mountain climbing to skiing. I don’t know how the public would respond to Reason Youth Groups or Atheist Youth Groups, but it is a very interesting idea to say the least.
I am not saying that we should gather up young people and tell them that there is no god, but to show them the power of reason and logical thinking in comparison with faith based religion might not be so bad.

Bobby Metzger - 11 May 2009 11:09 PM

Christians have a very good method at converting people to Christianity. It’s called a youth group. They gather many young people together to do all sorts of fun activities, from white water rafting to mountain climbing to skiing. I don’t know how the public would respond to Reason Youth Groups or Atheist Youth Groups, but it is a very interesting idea to say the least.

Indeed, it’s a good idea I think to try and be involved in many groups that expose us to all sorts of different people. I feel that since I’ve left the catholic church I’ve lost a big chunk of my social group. They do EVERYTHING together, the youth and the married at the catholic church I attended. I am new atheist who’s quietly proud of my updated beliefs. I see my religious friends sometimes and am hoping to meet some atheist free thinkers but they seem to be under a rock in this barren and conservative place!

I often suggest that my religious friends try to pretend they are an alien to the concept of god and religion. Look at the history of religions, their similarities, origins, their part in wars and massacres. That, and watching debates between the faithful vs Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and the lovely Sam Harris on youtube opened my eyes and helped me see how utterly ridiculous religions are.

I know for myself my de-conversion came from reading articles like the ones I posted on “The Christian Delusion” topic strain on this forum (sorry, but I had to re-post some of the links because I got the wrong addresses)

One word: equivocation. That is, redefining the terms of the discussion (not “argument” nor even “debate”) so that you are not perceived as antagonistic, and so that the believer can consider alternative points of view without overtly rejecting the most powerful statements they have been psychologically conditioned to endorse.

It may seem like a weaselly approach, but it softens the blow.  And yes, it is sort of a way of lying while “technically” telling the truth. But for me personally, equivocation is a powerful psychological tool against cognitive dissonance (and inter-personal arguments). Having been raised in a strict southern baptist family, I spent my childhood being indoctrinated into a powerful belief system that cannot be easily abandoned without great psychological distress. But I have always found cognitive dissonance intolerable, and over the years I just could not force myself to believe the nonsense I was being taught in church. I have always had a curious mind, which I believed was a gift from God with which he intended me to use in order to discern truth from falsehood. God gave me a brain, I believed, because he wanted me to use it. To use a Matrix analogy (and with respect to the previous poster), when the moment of truth came, I summoned my courage and chose the red pill. Consequently, I am no longer a member of any church (although I do like the Unitarians, nice bunch).

If I spelled out my specific beliefs today, 99% of Christians would consider me an atheist, or agnostic at best. But at 36 years of age, I still cannot bring myself to say that I don’t believe in God. What I can say is that I don’t believe in the God of the Bible, or I don’t believe in the traditional Christian concept of God. But thanks to the magic of equivocation, I can still honestly say that I believe in God. It’s just that I now think of “God” as “The Universe” or “Ultimate Reality”, or any of a dozen other abstract, vaguely defined terms in the sense that Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking used the word. I can also say that I still believe in miracles (like babies and love at first sight), even though I completely reject the existence of any “supernatural” forces (no virgin births or parting of red seas). The way I look at it now, I see “God” in the images from the Hubble space telescope, in the eyes of my little girl, and in the courage of heroes who rush into danger to save others. For me, the term “God” has come to mean roughly “the intangible forces that produce beauty, love, and good things in general”.

Focusing away from my personal story, several good points have been made here that I’d agree with. 1) It takes time. 2) The proposed questions are more important than the proposed answers. 3) The social bonds of churches are considerably stronger than the theological reasons for belonging to a church.

I think the 3rd point is the most significant. It’s very hard to walk away from an organization that functions as a powerful social bond between you and your loved ones. Nobody wants to start trouble with their friends and family, and for many Christians, rejecting their faith amounts to rejecting their family. But what you often end up with are “closet atheists”, who just go through the weekly motions to maintain peace in the family.

But I’d also add a 4th point, that exposure to outside group influences (like non-religious friends and secular culture in general) tends to have an eroding effect on the influence of the church. In any case, social support is at the heart of the matter.

In my own life, becoming an atheist came about by actually doing what Christian ministers told me to do — read the Bible.  I began to read it, to question its origins and to react in horror at some of the atrocities (Joshua The Genocidal Maniac ring any bells?).

Once the Bible was debunked in my mind as being any kind of holy book, the remaining tenets of the faith began to topple over time.  Although I no longer buy in to her philosophy, I have to admit some of the arguments put forth by Ayn Rand in her non-fiction works did help me make the transition from theist to atheist. 

My point in bringing that up is simply to show that exposure to a variety of ideas can also have a powerful impact on believers.  Exposing Christians to Buddhist, Hindu and other ideas (especially secular ones)  will help them see that they may not have the market cornered on religious or philosophical truth.

Finally, atheists who wish to at least facilitate must stay consistent in their relationships with believers. Show them that we also behave in a moral manner without benefit of absolute truth or holy inspiration.  I am walking this same path in my relationship with my still-Christian wife. I’m not out to de-convert her but I do try to offer secular answers when I see she is receptive to such conversation.

It’s a slow process but worth it.

Good Luck!

Taking down a believer from that cloud is close to impossible. They only can decide when it is time to come down and when the time is right, they will.

I have a friend who is almost there. For years and years I have been trying to help in the process. This is a guy that is very close to being an atheist, and even then, all of my atempts at completing the process have been futile. This is of course a single instance and can not be used as a rule, but if it has been hard to convert an almost non believer, it is way harder to convert the one that does fully believe! Or maybe I suck as a converter…

And this is because religion is like a drug. It “fills” your heart with so much hope (AKA crap) that it feels great! Why would anybody wish to abolish that feeling when it is basically free? Or so it seems… All they have to do is blind their brains to the preachings and be done with it! In return they get life after death (whatever they choose that to be), love of a super duper awesome God (which is the same as being loved by Red Riding Hood as she strolls down the forest), salvation from sins (it is great to be saved from a total damnation that does nothing and from a sin that never took place) as well as some other bonusses as protection from hazards (except those poor souls that do get into hazardous situations every now and then) and the power of prayer!!! Yeah, that last one rules. At least about 50% of the time…

What do we have to offer? No life after death; We die and we rot. No God watching over us. Some times we will have “good luck” sometimes it will be bad. We do not have to worry about salvation or damnation, that’s for sure, but when it comes to analyzing life it seems like we are alone.

Now everybody on this group is perfectly happy with these last statements because our happiness in life is to understand the universe and know how it all works. It brings us joy to see that the universe makes sense and how we can utilize this sense on a repeatable fashion. We do not need to be saved from a hazard that does not exist and from a certain doom that will not happen. We are happy with life as it is and we have chosen to enjoy it as such.

When believers realize life is very livable without supernatural forces and there is no need for a celestial being to be continuously watching over us, then they will go down from the cloud. Do have in mind that although we can not pull them down from the clouds as we would like, if a good bunch of us does make a lot of “noise” they will eventually look down and say “I’ll be darn! There is people down there!” That is the first step…

I guess the best we have to offer is a life (however, short and mortal it may be) with less delusion.  Some will see the intrinsic value in this, others simply won’t.

One thing that may have already been covered in this thread is the strong pull of neuro-chemistry.

Seems more research is revealing that belief and unbelief vary according to how one’s brain is wired. I can certainly see in anecdotal cases that some people I meet seem to be more apt to engage in “magical thinking” while others tend to be inherently skeptical.

i have a frien who was brought up in eastern europe and is still a peasant at heart. I lent him a couple of books a couple of months ago, i cant remember which ones but i watched as he started reading a first chapter that highlighted new testament inconsistancies. His eyebrows were jumping up and down like catapillars on a trampoline!

Hes been qute thoughtful ever since.

Through the background of my own expierience (obviously), I’ve always felt that the ultimate motivation for one to believe in almost any given religion is fear.  Generally, the fear of loss.  When life takes our loved ones from us, religion tells us that they’re not gone forever—in some cases, people will insist that they never even left us at all.  It’s a hopeful, yet insane, point of view.  I was raised in the Seventh Day Adventist church, and in a very religious part of the USA.  It wasn’t until I was older that I figured out that fear was the only reason I had for believing any of it.  Fear of Hell, fear of social rejection, whatever.  My point is that I don’t think, looking back, that I was ever converted to Athiesm by an outside influence.  I was born with a drive to be fair in my thinking, and that is precisely what took me away from the church, but I don’t think that most people, at least not hard-core believers, are wired that way.

When you’re dealing with fear, your’e dealing with an awful lot.  As long as people are afraid, then they have all the “reason” they’ll ever need to find ways to “prove to themselves” that God, in whatever form, exists.  To doubt the truth of that is to accept the possibility that perhaps our loved ones really are gone forever, among other equally unpleasant things.  This is the reason for what I’ve come to call the Eternal Disadvantage.  When people are afraid, they don’t feel the same obligation to honest inquiry that the rest of us do.  As independent thinkers, many of us feel that we owe it to ourselves to be as receptive and self-honest as possible, which is probably how most of us ended up here to begin with.  When the other side feels no such obligation, then the pauses we take to consider our thoughts are interpreted as a sign that their side of the argument must have merit, no matter how rediculous it is.  In the mind of most of the Christians I’ve spoken to about this, it seems like the important thing is to “win,” not necessarily to make any sense.  Consequently, whoever can continue saying it the longest or succeeds in saying it the loudest is usually the percieved winner in a faith-based argument.  So, I tend to agree that the best course of action is to resign to a gradual erosion process.  The world is, after all, getting smaller, and most importantly, more educated.  As long as that’s the case, I think that blind faith in scripture is doomed to eventually disappear.

For those of us who don’t have that kind of patience, we can always try bribing the fundamentalists with candy.