Assignment Update: Deconverting Christians

Just a short post to let you know that this week’s assignment is coming along nicely. The question was about what approach is more likely to “win over” less committed Christians to atheism. Hemant Mehta of Friendly Atheist and Brian Sapient of the Rational Response Squad have had a bit of back and forth on precisely this topic.

I’ve decided to tackle these issues by taking a step back. I am in the process of going through as many deconversion stories as I can manage in the time, and identifying the key thing that resulted in that person deconverting. Thus far I have noticed several key themes including

• disillusion caused by a church’s insufficient answers to simple questions,
• disillusion with the hypocrisy of the religious institutions,
• the realisation of fundamental contradictions in religious dogma,
• and the realisation that god was not answering prayers

I will be discussing these themes, how common they are, and what this means for promoting the deconversion of Christians and others. The post should be ready by some time tomorrow, or Monday morning at the latest.

Update: Having some problems with my internet connection; I might be late posting tomorrow.

Update: Assignment completed.

1. Christians fall for the most silly things
2. Responding to the Lane-Kirby Letters
3. What works in deconverting Christians?
4. Defining Atheism
5. Happy Blood Worship: The Easter Post

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