Converts' Corner

“And I thought and thought and thought. But I just didn’t have enough to go on, so I didn’t really come to any resolution. I was extremely doubtful about the idea of god, but I just didn’t know enough about anything to have a good working model of any other explanation for, well, life, the universe, and everything to put in its place. But I kept at it, and I kept reading and I kept thinking. Sometime around my early thirties I stumbled upon evolutionary biology, particularly in the form of Richard Dawkins’s books The Selfish Gene and then The Blind Watchmaker, and suddenly (on, I think the second reading of The Selfish Gene) it all fell into place. It was a concept of such stunning simplicity, but it gave rise, naturally, to all of the infinite and baffling complexity of life. The awe it inspired in me made the awe that people talk about in respect of religious experience seem, frankly, silly beside it. I’d take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day.”

Douglas Adams The Salmon of Doubt, p 99.

“Douglas, I miss you. You are my cleverest, funniest, most open-minded, wittiest, tallest, and possibly only convert. I hope this book might have made you laugh – though not as much as you made me. . . Douglas’s conversion by my earlier books – which did not set out to convert anyone – inspired me to dedicate to his memory this book – which does!”

Richard Dawkins The God Delusion, p 117

Is Douglas Adams Richard’s only convert? Or is he just the first of many? Please write in to Converts' Corner if you have lost your religion (or have been encouraged to come out of the closet) as a result of reading The God Delusion or other Dawkins books.

Email

1

Professor Dawkins,

I recently de-converted from Christianity, the faith I have been brought up in for the past 17 years. I wanted to give an explanation as to how I came to this, and why.

At 16, I "gave my life to Christ" and was baptized. After that event, I was in evangelist mode. I passed out Gospel tracts, witnessed to people, read my Bible everyday, studied apologetics, etc. I was quite sincere in this, but about 5 or 6 months after ago, I began to experience doubt. Part of this was due to my study of the Old Testament, which prior to this I had avoided reading. In the Old Testament I encountered a God I had not seen before. You described his behavior quite eloquently in chapter 2 of your book. I sought explanations for the cruelty of a God whom I had henceforth believed to be "loving" and "just". None were satisfactory. This gnawing skepticism led up to the day I went to the public library and checked out a copy of "The God Delusion". All of my life, I have been taught that the world is 6,000 years old, created by the Judeo-Christian God, and I believed it without question. Needless to say, when I began reading "The God Delusion" I was floored. I started to see the world as it really is, and appreciate my life far more than I did as a Christian. I want to thank you for this book, which has helped remove the shaded glasses I have been wearing, and view the world in it's full light.
Best wishes to you.

Sincerely,
Ashley

2

I just wanted to tell you that I was at your book lecture in Philadelphia and thoroughly enjoyed it. I read your book and am now an officially recovered Catholic. It is nice to now that there are others out there who feel the same as I do. Science and Math will eventually provide us with all the answers we need.Thank you for speaking out.

Deb Crasnick, Langhorne, PA

3

Richard -

There are a few things my conscious would not permit me to go on without telling you in some way.

I am a 22 year old american male.

I just watched your videos. I downloaded it - but I give you my word I will be purchasing your book and videos. Anything I can get my hands on.

You have utterly and completely changed my views pertaining to religion and the world and my experience in and of this world.

I want to thank you so much.

It sounds in your video that you are sad because you think that religion will prevail. I want to promise you that I will help you in this fight - for I care passionately as well about the truth.

In the end - truth will prevail... Thank you so much for your life-changing work.

4

Dear Dr. Dawkins:

I was raised a Mormon and remained a faithful one until I was 35. Although I was taught to believe that my holy books were infallible and not to be questioned, I was also taught to have great respect for science and education. My father was a professor of Astronomy, and I even earned my undergraduate degree in Physics. Its difficult to explain to someone who hasn't experienced it the type of compartmentalization you develop that allows you to hold both of these world views at once, but obviously strong indoctrination as a child is a big part of it.

Anyway, a few years ago I decided to study Biology in more depth, since I never really had much chance while studying physics, but have always been interested. I was astounded by your amazing books, especially A Devil's Chaplain and The Blind Watchmaker, and also by the great resources I found online, especially www.talkorigins.com, to help me answer questions and doubts I had about whether Evolution really was the incredible explanatory theory it seems to be. After a year or so of study, I realized I had become, as you put it, an intellectually fulfilled atheist.

To put it lightly, this had some large consequences for my personal life. My wife has left me, my parents and siblings are outraged, and many of my friendships are confused and awkward. At the same time, I am much happier living this life to the fullest and realizing it is the only life I have, than I was living for an imaginary, unconvincing life of future bliss.

As I have gone through this difficult transition, I have been greatly comforted by books like The God Delusion and by Sam Harris's The End of Faith. Hearing these clear and unapologetic arguments for Science and Reason restores my confidence in humanity. I plan to give copies of The God Delusion and Letter to a Christian Nation to all my family and friends for Christmas this year. I have already de-converted one close friend this way, and am working on a second.

Thank you for your amazing books and for taking a public stand on this vital issue.

-An atheist in Utah

5

When you slow dance with life's big questions you tend to go around in circles, and I have danced around this issue most of my life and have finally reached a place where I am comfortable stating that I am an Atheist.I have tried many paths and have come to terms with a vision of the cosmos and the world around me that does not have any supernatural aspects.

I was raised a Catholic, but I am not sure if I ever really bought into it probably due in part to my Father (my mother is Catholic, I believe my father is Agnostic though I have never asked), by the time I reached my mid to late teens I had become fairly comfortable being Agnostic and not overly concerned with the existence or non-existence of God. My twenties brought a time of introspection and research into Christianity, Budhism and
miscellaneous other forms of Spirituality but nothing really moved me until I got sick. Battling and surviving Cancer brought a certain urgency to my "soul searching" as did the birth of my son. I found myself relapsing into Christianity to find the answers to life, and how to raise a moral and balanced boy. As I sat and listened in the pews and the books the more I felt like a fraud, going to church and singing the hymns was easy but accepting the "truths" was not. The moral teachings I found in the church were either ones I already held and believed regardless of religious teachings or a supernatural being and the ones based on scripture and religious teachings that I could not adhere to.

My search began again by digging through philosophical texts and the proverbial light bulb went off when I read Albert Camus' "The Myth of Sisyphus" in which he proposes the problem of an omnipotent god. If God were omnipotent then he would be the root of evil in the world and if Humans were the cause of evil then God is not omnipotent. This brought me to the argument of destiny and free will and it snowballed from there. Dr. Richard Dawkins has also done some great work that has solidified my Atheism, The Ancestor's Tale reinforced my view of a natural world and the Root of all Evil brought to light the damage that religion is doing in our world. The final nail in God's coffin was hammered home with the principle of belief conservation. The principle states that we cannot hold something to be true if it requires us to reject too many other beliefs that we already know to be true. For me to accept a supernatural universe I would have to reject too many truths about a natural universe, I could think of no rational reason for me to do this.

One of the major arguments for Religion is that it is the rock on which to base you morals, well I do not think morality comes from religion, I think religion got morality from people. Morality and ethics stem from a human sense of empathy and sympathy for one and another, it is also an evolutionary tool since we would not have reached he heights we have without a moral fabric to hold us together and enable us to work as societies. I also believe that teaching values and morality through the use of empathy is a much better tool that scaring them with eternal damnation, it is more honest and more tangible. A child can relate to the feeling of having his toy taken but not to supernatural repercussions for bad acts.

When I first realized I was an Atheist ( and had been for some time ) I felt liberated. Living for today and basing my life on facts and learning. Putting faith in humanity and our ability to live, learn, evolve and prosper by relying on ourselves and each other. From what I have lived, experienced and read, Atheists are not morose godless people, they are in fact life
affirming, humanity praising people that want us to do our best for our own sake not for the Spaghetti monster's.

I could go on point by point enumerating the various ideas and theories which I believe a scientific and rational view wins out over a simplified religious one but there are people that are far more intelligent and well versed in such debates that I will leave it to the experts. Suffice it to say that I hope people will continue to learn and hopefully one day they too will see the beauty in a natural universe.

Halden Johnson
Ottawa, ON

6

As a science teacher at a catholic school in Belgium -I'm retired now- I could teach evolutionism without problems but I never realized that it had such 'religion annihilating' power. Not that I was a very devout catholic. Since my student years I felt that religion and science didn't fit well together. I suppose I was some kind of deist: God made the world and retreated from it. But when I saw Richard Dawkins giving his christmas (winter solstice?) lectures on TV I saw somebody who understood evolution like I never had understood it. I've bought and read several of his books and now also "The God Delusion". And "the shells kept falling from my eyes".

Thank you very much,

Rik

7

Subject: My Conversion thanks to Douglas Adams and The Selfish Gene

Dear Professor Dawkins,

Up until a year ago I was an agnostic, and both religion and atheism seemed absurd to me. How could anyone claim to have The Answer, when the very nature of God was so elusive? I was (and still am) a huge fan of Douglas Adams, but whenever I read his thoughts on religion I would cringe. I could never find any faults in what he said, but he seemed a bit pretentious. We can't know for certain that God doesn't exist, so why not just leave it at that?

However, I was still interested in what had turned Mr. Adams into an atheist. Who was this Dawkins fellow he always mentioned? I checked The Selfish Gene out of the library. I didn't expect much. After all, I already understood evolution well enough -- our ancestors were slime mold and we were alive because our slime mold ancestors adapted to the environment and the best survived. Ho hum.

It was the most electrifying book I had ever read.

The elegant simplicity of evolution utterly shocked me, and the world suddenly seemed to be a brighter place. By the time I had finished reading The Selfish Gene I was an atheist. I'm still struggling to comprehend why it took me 23 years to begin to understand evolution and its implications. I've always loved science, and I've encountered innumerable bland explanations of evolution. Perhaps the thought of being related to monkeys kept me from thinking too hard about it.

I needed someone to point out that evolution uplifts us as humans. It doesn't reduce us to monkeys or make life meaningless. Instead, it makes us the only animals that have ever figured out why we exist in the first place. I have you to thank for that.

Thank you for all your work as a champion of rational thought, and for helping me understand a little more about the world.

Sincerely,
Pete Schallot

P.S.
My copy of The God Delusion arrived in the mail last week. It warmed my heart to see that you dedicated it to Douglas Adams.

8

Having read your brilliant book The God Delusion,I felt that I had to write to you.

I have been raised a muslim since the day I learnt to talk.In my early teenhood,I was a religious person.I prayed 5x a day,read the koran whenever possible and fast during Ramadhan.

At the age of 17,I decided I have had enough of religion.I became agnostic whose belief in god was waning over time.Near the age of 18,I became an unsure atheist.Later on,my christian girlfriend broke up with me because she felt our forbidden 3 year relationship could not last anymore.god would not be happy.

Then...I found out about your book and decided to buy a copy.The preface you wrote inspired me to the point that it shook off the fear and confusion that I was experiencing.It gave me the conviction that I was not alone.I became a commited atheist.

I do not deny that I still am worried about the backlash I might be/am facing with family, friends and the muslim community (in my country,once you have brown skin you're presumed to be a muslim).But I am stronger.Your book has inspired me to enjoy life better and marvel at the wonders of life,without any need to attribute it to a deity.Thank you and all the best.

Shafi'ie

9

Thank you Mr. Dawkins for giving me the keys to unlock the chains of religion.

I was raised Catholic, and sent to church when I was seven. I soon dismissed Catholicism as nonsense, but SO many people believed in god. I thought with so many people believing, there must be some merit to it. So I remained a deist because I thought I might anger god if I didn't believe in him, and suffer the consequences. But growing disgust with religious doctrines preached in the middle east and here in America, and your documentary "The Root of All Evil?" and the book "The God Delusion" sealed the deal. I was finally an atheist. The world is so much more beautiful when it isn't being overlooked by a jealous, vengeful god. I am very proud to have overcome the psychological damage inflicted upon me by religion, and when I think about it now, I see how silly my beliefs were, almost comical. Thank you Mr. Dawkins.

J Miller

10

Subject: I am out of the closet.

I was raised Catholic. I was even an altar boy for a bit (you got some money for doing it so no surprise there). I have met many Jesuit priests in my secondary education who I have liked a great deal and I respected for their intelligence.

They must know they are educating a certain percentage of people out of the faith, but somehow not themselves.

I used to tell people that I "wasn't particularly religious" borrowed from one of my heroes Harry Browne. Well add Richard Dawkins to that list!

Many of my other non-religious friends have developed defensive or diverting responses when questioned about their faith. I think my favorite is "I am a god-fearing agnostic. I am afraid there might be a god." Another, considerable more abrasive but humorous answer is "I am antaganostic. I don't know what I believe, but what you believe is stupid!"

Now, I answer that I am an atheist. It is a little scary to do this during these times in the US, but the more people that take this step the faster we can foster a culture where faith can be and is, questioned.

Matthew Gress

11

I used to be a very devote Anglican. I never believed in creation, or taking the bible literally, but never-the-less, I had no doubt (at first) in the existence of God. I served at church, and even the reactor wanted me to sub-deacon. Then I had began to read the bible, and I was disgusted. I was disgusted at the bible for what it contained, and disgusted with myself for holding it as a "good book." Everywhere I read, all I found was hate, violence, and rape. It didn't contain anything that I truely believed in. After that, I became more of Deist.

While surfing the internet, I stumbled upon a clip from the Root of All Evil?, and eventually downloaded and watched the whole think. After watching it, I had become more agnostic, and I decided to buy and read The God Delusion. It didn't take long into the book for me to fully put aside my old, backwards, beliefs. And for that, I am very, very thankfull.

I am very proud to say now, I am an Atheist.

Thank you,
Joseph Morgan, Ottawa ON, Canada

12

My story, as told here, is a lengthy one: over 9,000 words. Probably far too long for inclusion in "convertscorner".

So I shan't be shattered if you don't accept it. And anyhow, it has already been published in OPEN SOCIETY, Journal of the New Zealand Association of Rationalists and Humanists of which I - along with Richard - am an Honorary Associate.

Over to you.

Raymond D. Bradley
Emeritus Professor of Philosophy

Read his conversion story here:
http://www.sfu.ca/philosophy/bradley/Fundamentalist%20to%20Free-thinker.pdf

13

Dear Prof Dawkins,

I'm afraid I cannot say that your book/s converted me, because my own religious epiphany happened many years ago. I was 8, and at the American school in Kabul, Afghanistan - shortly before the Russian revolution. My teacher was a large and devout mid-Western American lady, who I shall not name. She seemed incredibly old to me, but then I was only 8. Anyone above 10 seemed old to me. She was an enthusiastic "fire and brimstone" evangelist. She was relentless. The text was this:

"You're f****d. Really, really, really f****d. Hell is coming and YOU, yes YOU personally, Mr 8-year old, butter wouldn't melt in your mouth Mat, will burn forever in the most exquisite torture chambers ever devised. And then there'll be a lot more than butter
melting, oh yes. There will be flames, and red-hot pokers, and extreme mind-bending pain - forever, and ever, and ever. The only thing you can do to avoid this is believe in Jesus Christ with all your might. Devote your life to him. Think about him all the time. Do what he says. Believe. Believe. BELIEVE. It's your only chance. And, to be honest, even then your chances aren't all that great. But it's the only chance you've got, so you'd better take it."

Then she passed out comic books showing these torture chambers and flames and pestilence and catastrophe and people writhing in what, to me at 8, certainly did look like never-ending pain.

It scared me out of my wits. I was terrified. More scared than I'd ever been of anything before. It filled me with dread (and a really pressing desire not to see that teacher ever again...).

But as I was in the car on the way home, I kept thinking thoughts along the lines of: "All that hell stuff sounds really, really, not good at all. I don't like the sound of it one bit. But I simply don't see how it applies to ME. What have I done to deserve all that? It just seems completely unfair and wrong and totally out of proportion, somehow. And the ONLY slim
chance I've got is believing in some bloke with a beard who died a long time ago? That doesn't seem quite enough to escape all that brimstone."

And I had my revelation, in an old car on a potholed road in a country that has since been devastated by the results of religion.

It was all rubbish.

None of it was true. Hell didn't exist. The torture chambers and never-ending pain didn't exist. The devil didn't exist. Heaven didn't exist. It was just rubbish.

I remember that moment as clear as day. The most enormous weight was lifted from me. Yes, the real world was still there, with the arguments with friends and telling off from parents and good and bad times at school - but the whole, ridiculous Christian thing wasn't something to worry about. I could get on with being a sometimes good, sometimes not-so-good 8-year old. It made me happy.

This revelation was largely possible because both my parents were and are staunch non-believers. Nevertheless, if the large mid-Western teacher hadn't been quite so psychologically distressing (abusive? I'd say yes!), you never know. The Christians could
have captured another mind in their web of fantasy, guilt, fear, repression and unreason.

But your book The God Delusion also shook me out of falling further into the grip of the over-respectful mindset that all religions require. It reminded me how falacious and downright silly religion is - and also confirmed my view that morality comes from being
human, not from being religious. Religions actually allow people to act in a way that is brutally immoral, despite the apparent "morality" that they wrap themselves in. It is not right to kill people or persecute them because their beliefs differ from yours. Yet that is what most religions, as a baseline, believe; even if many don't act on it as much as they used to. But the potential is always there. Humans seem prone to an "us vs. them" approach to life, and religion gives this mindset a perfect vehicle.

So, let's keep the good bits of religion - which are based around very human morals and codes of behaviour - and ditch the supernatural claptrap.

Wish this was possible... Maybe it will be, one day.

Cheers,
Mat

14

Catholic boarding school

I spent two years in a Catholic boarding school. Up to then I sort of believed in God. But, after those years with the teaching priests I was well on my way to atheism. Last month I read your "The God Delusion" and Sam Harris's "Letter to a Christian Nation". There is no turning back.

Sincerely,
Expat in Bangkok

15

Refugee from the Roman Catholic Church

I am a bedraggled refugee from the "Holy" Roman Catholic Church, now a Card Carrying Atheist. Like Prof. Dawkins said about poor little kids like me, I was born a "Wee Catholic" and as a baby baptized into it against my will. I showed my displeasure by biting the priests's thumb regardless of the fact that, as I had no teeth, I could not draw blood. At the tender age of six I was bundled off to the Nuns for brainwashing. That was achieved with the aid of the cane. Two years later I was sent to a Roman Catholic College run by the dreaded Jesuit Fathers. They come third to the Christian Brothers and the Marist Brothers as sadists. Sunday Mass of course was the "cross" I had to endure. I lasted 30 years until I could stand no more. In the meantime any faith I had in Roman Catholicisn was dashed by the Second Vatican Council when the Tridentine Mass was banned and replaced by the heretical Novis Ordo Missae accompanied by guitars and whacky hillbilly "hymns". I am an organist though never a church organist.

In the meantime I took a keen interest in Astronomy and Astrophysics thus realizing that Genesis was all crap as is all the bible. In the last few years with the aid of the Internet, I have seeked out the truth about religion and it's origins and found that Judeo/Christianity is based on two religions in the Middle East: Egyptology and the myths of Sumer. The bible badly rehashes many of the Egyptian myths. I am now proud to be an Atheist and very content as one.

Robert Tobin

16

Richard,
My story begins when I am still in 7-8th grade. I always watched star trek TOS and TNG after Saturday evening mass. The things I was hearing from the priest and on the show didn't seem to blend well with each other. Nevertheless, I tried to reconcile this by "explaining" God and "his creation" with science. I did this all the way to 10th grade. Then, after reading some biology books, and some physics books on Einstein's theories, it hit me - I was BSing myself.

Unfortunately, my parents are devote Catholics and wouldn't tolerate me "giving up my faith" or "losing my faith". So, Still went to church, in a bad mood though. At this point I continued to read books on physics, logic and philosophy to try to prove that religion is BS. It was when I read a philosophy book (Intro to Phil by Earle) that had "the Problem of Evil" that basically proved it to me. The Problem of Evil is simply this:
1) God is All Powerful
2) God is All Good
3) Evil Exists

Basically, #3 is contradictory to #1, and 2 which proves that god does not exist!!

I finally "came out" and told my parents that religion is BS and dangerous and that I don't believe. They almost threw me out of the house. For some reason they did not and was able to finish HS and move onto college.

Now I finally feel "real" and "free" because I have belief in reality as it is, not how some "spooky incompetent father-figure" -George Carlin says it is. Thankx for being another source of truth in the world!!! If we come together - all of us "non-believers" - we can get rid of the virus that is religion!!!

-Paul
P.S. Just ordered several of your books off of Amazon.com!!! I look forward to reading them!!!

17

My own dropping out, tuning in and turning on

Dear Professor Dawkins,

Last year I was in rabbinical school at an Jewish Orthodox yeshiva. I had been studying 'ancient' Jewish texts for many years already (4 thousand years no longer seems particularly venerable) but last year, in that traditional environment, with its arcane processes and apologies for outdated views of the world based on the Torah (i.e. the Bible), I was growing more and more uncomfortable. Whatever this God was, I thought, it certainly couldn't care how my animals were slaughtered, for one thing. And my view of God didn't jibe with the others' in any event. I had been in line with Enstein's view, that the word expressed awe for the structure of the universe. Funny to be assured that this was sufficient belief to remain in the yeshiva. Also funny to see that this understanding put me squarely in the atheist/agnostic camp. In any event, I left those cloisters and haven't looked back, lucky to run into The God Delusion at the perfect time. And this led me to The Selfish Gene, A Devil's Chaplain, Darwin, Sam Harris et al. I have plenty of catching up to do. Thanks for exposing me to this rational, reasonable and exciting community.

yours truly,

Jim Plotkin

18

Dear Richard,

I came across a Q & A article about you in which you were interviewed by Toronto Star journalist, Olivia Ward, about a week ago. It had the title "The atheist as fundamentalist... Richard Dawkins on why religious faith tends to create more evil people than, say, Stalinism.

I don't need to buy your book to know I long-stopped believing in a god, any god a few short years after my mother died. I accepted religion then, without question, even attending church with my mother, listening to a sermon and being bored. In high school, as an older teenager, I went with my mother to some religious event and recall vaguely, going up to the front of the auditorium and "accepting christ" something along that line.

I am a subscribed member to the Institute for Humanist Network News organization's online newsletter out of Albany, New York. The closest city to me, Toronto, doesn't have an online version of their newsletter.

I concur with Ashley's feelings about religion. My mother was a member of the United Church of England and I only went to church with her, while she was alive.

I'm an avid evolutionist and believe our Planet was formed via microbes.

Believing in the creation of the earth and all living beings in seven days, is a delusional concept at best, despite peoples' seeming intelligence. This is more of an emotional or psychological need to believe in something other than themselves, those who believe in a "deity".

Carol

19

How I became a disbeliever

I'm male, white, middle class, Kentucky resident, and a straight. My mother took me and my sibs to a moderate Methodist church but my agnostic father did not attend. In the early to mid 1970's, attending public school, and visiting museums, and watching science TV shows, and reading science publications, and reading bad bible verses, and hearing preachers apologetic explanations, and some unpleasant encounters with hard core fundagelicals and their tracts, all combined to make me into an Atheist at the age of 17 in 1975. I immediately stopped attending church (tho' for cultural reasons I have still taken in some services) and became an outspoken Atheist (and a prudish one at that; I have abstained all my Atheist life from profanity, and sexuality, and from tobacco and alcohol and all illegal substances). The censure of those around me caused me over the years to moderate my outspokenness, but my personal inside of my brain attitude is still strong Atheism.

Mr. Andrew O. Lutes

20

Richard,

The Selfish Gene was the book that made things fall into place for me. I was an undergraduate in college at the time and while I was leaning towards atheism, there was still something logically lacking in the atheist viewpoints which prevented me from fully embracing atheism. Prior to reading The Selfish Gene I was unable to put my finger on what that elusive point was. Viewing humans as simply survival machines constructed by DNA to assist in their replication was the idea that did it for me. By firmly establishing that people are no different than any other "survival machine" we see in nature and there is nothing
intrinsically special about humans compared to other species, The Selfish Gene provided the logical link that put everything in place. It took the human species out of the metaphysical and put it firmly in the natural world. The other arguments for atheism tried to keep that human "uniqueness among species" while getting rid of the god-idea from which it was derived. In this case, both the baby and the bathwater needed to go. Thanks from another intellectually fulfilled atheist!

Rich Lawrence, Kernersville NC

21

An Atheist teaching in a Catholic School

Perhaps this will be one of your biggest surprises, and hopefully it will bring you a large amount of hope.

Eight years ago, I started teaching in a Catholic school. I would have considered myself a Christian, however not a very good one as I had doubts. I did go to church occasionally and I brought up my three children in Catholic schools, feeling that it was best to expose them to some sort of religion. After my first year of teaching elementary school, I was asked to teach middle school science. As my degree was in Elementary Education, I felt that I needed to better my knowledge of science and dove into reading whatever I could get my hands on, concentrating on biology and chemistry. I also took classes at a local college to brush up on my scientific skill set. I was also asked to teach religion. I chose also to read as much about the Christian faith as I could, so as to be a better teacher of the history of Christianity.

I dove deeper and deeper into science and religion. I started reading through book after book: Finding Darwin's God, The Selfish Gene, Ancestor's Tale, The Lost Scriptures, Etc. My home started filling with book after book and I found that it was impossible to believe in God. Here I was, teaching religion and science in a Catholic school and I wanted to shout from the rooftops that the Catholic Religion was a joke and that children needed to be taught the truths in science! Of course, I could not share my revelations with the people I was surrounded by, but I felt that as an educator, I had a responsibility. I chose to teach the truth, without coming out and sharing my own beliefs.

In religion class, I focused on the REAL history of Christianity. I showed videos such as From Jesus to Christ which discussed the true origins of the bible. I watched the children's eyebrows rise and taught them that it was healthy to question their religion. I taught them that you should never believe something that sounds ridiculous without questioning where the information came from. I did not tell them what to believe, but only taught them to research before forming an opinion. We debated lots of topics in class and I saw the expanding of their thoughts and rejoiced!

In science class, I taught evolution. When the children would question God's role in all of this, I would tell them that we were now in science class and not talking about God. I brought in some of your books and we read through the evolution of the EYE! Children saw that things could evolve without someone waving a magic wand. We talked about how our bodies were made from particles that have existed for billions of years and again I saw the eyebrows rising and the children beginning to realize that our world was pretty amazing and that it was okay to question!

At the end of 8th grade, on the test for the unit on Natural Selection, I put an essay question that had the children explain a certain trait of an organism using the argument of Natural Selection. The essays included sentences such as, "Of course evolution plays a part in the elongation of the neck of a giraffe. One only needs to look at the series of events that would have led to the better survival of an animal with a longer neck over the survival of an animal with a neck slightly less long." They were convinced that evolution was more than some crazy theory and left middle school armed with the scientific knowledge that would hopefully lead them in the right direction.

I know that people would be very angry at me for being an atheist and teaching in a Catholic school. I do need to keep my personal beliefs under cover, for now. I will probably transfer to a public school in the next couple of years and at that point I will not fear to share my beliefs. But for now, perhaps I am most useful in an environment where if I weren't there, many children would never be taught true science.

As a side note, my youngest child is attending a Catholic High School, but is also an atheist. He has no problem sharing his beliefs with everyone at the school. Interestingly enough, he is encouraged to debate his opinions with other students in his religion class and for the most part has not been ridiculed by his teachers, some of them being Brothers! His message to his classmates has been to judge someone for who they are, and not put atheists into a leper category. When he announced to one of his teachers that he was an atheist, the response was, "Really? But you're not a murderer or a rapist! You're a really nice kid. I thought all atheists were really evil people!" Chalk one up for the nice atheists!

22

I was a catholic conservative middle age lady until I read The selfish Gene, The blind watch maker and all the others Dawkins books translated in portuguese. After such readings a scar fall from my eyes...

Now I do not believe in anything "supernatural", following the Brights definition. After reading Dawkins I look for the Brights, Skeptics and other similar readings.

I am still an "ethnic" catholic, and in the very catholic milieu were I live I don't want to be known or "pursued" as and heretic. Portuguese Inquisition was harder than any other and finished not long ago...

Best,
Maria

23

My wake up call

Hi Richard,

I heard you speak at Cal-Tech a few weeks ago and would like to thank you for your eloquence and determination in repudiating these most pervasive mythologies. With the likes of Sam Harris, Dan Dennett, and yourself taking the pulpit, one can finally feel comfort having a voice larger (and infinitely more articulate) than one's own. I will certainly do my part and encourage others to do the same. I hope all this exposure/momentum that we seem to be currently enjoying is but the beginning of a true sea change.

Ok, here is my humble story:

I was born into a family comprised mostly of Missouri Synod Lutherans, with a few Old-World Catholics along for good measure. We regularly attend the Church and all its functions, while I would hesitate to use the word devout to describe our family in its totality, but as individuals, many of them certainly were. As a child I was always engrossed in various books, so much to the extent that no one could keep track of what I was reading at any one moment (good old neighborhood library). Being a small boy in the 70's, of course, space travel was largely the fascination of the day, which led to science fiction, as well as various science-related books and videos. Books, videos, and television programs were near absolute authorities to me, as the ideas were typically presented with certainty and without dissent (at least within each vessel).

Somewhere around the 4th grade, our pastor and the head of my tiny Lutheran School noticed a book that I was carrying around (how I wish I could remember what it was!) and asked to see it. After a cursory perusal, he took me aside into a room, and told me that the book was wrong, a dangerous lie, since the Bible clearly states that mankind, the Earth, and indeed the whole Universe was created directly by the hand of God in 6 days, somewhere around 10,000 year ago. By entertaining these ideas of "The Big Bang", "Evolution", "Extraterrestrial Life", and so forth, he said, I was purely encouraging an attempt by Satan to bring me into his fold, and that I should reject these deceptions outright. I was stupefied. How could all these important scientists, writers, and famous figures be so treacherously evil and speak collectively with such authority? I told the pastor the he was wrong, and that he should read about it, but I was so angry and upset by both this new conflict and his harsh, condescending manner, that I just pulled away and ran off (to bad I couldn't have handed him a copy of the "The God Delusion" or "The End of Faith" at that point). At first, I didn't question God or the Bible, but only my pastor and the Church. But it didn't take long to have serious doubts across the board, since no one I knew at the time could give me any real answers to my questions, and these were the
questions of a nine year old! I got mostly the same bullshit that we've all heard so often such as "God works in mysterious ways.", "These things are beyond the comprehension of mere mortals.", and the crown jewel of religious inanity "He who doubts but still believes has the greatest faith." I still remember that gem like an old video clip.

At that point, I pretty much cast off Biblical literalism, but it did take many years of back and forth before I rejected God out of hand. You see, I didn't know a single other atheist, at least any who were open and honest about it, so I had no one to discuss my ideas, fears, doubts, social/familial implications, etc. with. I was in constant conflict between doubts of the highly improbably Bible/Church accounts, and doubts of the highly improbable likelihood that I knew better than every other person that I knew. Throw in all the other uncertainties of childhood and the teenage years and, well. whew.

Needless to say, I am lucky enough now to be surrounded by brilliant, wonderful, and highly principled people who reject such hogwash and revel in intellectual growth and challenge. Los Angeles is not a difficult place in which to be an atheist. But I have an even higher regard for those of you who are putting your reputations, successes, and health on line to discredit those whose use religion as a lever and a whip, encourage those who are smarter than they've allowed themselves to be, and to comfort those of us embarrassed and angered by this whole farce. Thank you, once again.

I am a proud atheist.

Sincerely,
Aaron Mancini
Los Angeles, CA

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Dear Prof Dawkins

You are deserve all respects.Your role in human enlightment is over all.Unfortunately humanity does not have son like you so much. Nearly your mission is imposible.I converted from my religion after reading "The blind watchmaker".I 'd like thank you.I am at your side in this fight of truth.I'd like to do all thing at my best.I wish my people in my country(Turkey) would be able to hear you and raed your books.Thank for everything again.

Argon

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Converts Corner – Jack Greaves

Born in Lancashire to an Irish Mother and English Father of the Roman Catholic Faith in 1944 at the end of the Second World War, there was of course no other direction possible than to be brought up as a Catholic child in a Catholic school.

Father was a cotton mill worker, one of James Nelson's Mill workers, but joined the Police Force guarding the munitions factory during the war, away from home, but relatively safe and able to get home frequently.

The cotton industry was struggling to survive following the war because imported cotton and cotton goods were cheaper and so by the early fifties when an opportunity to move south and take over my maternal grandfather's house in Dagenham Essex arose it was taken gratefully, to provide job opportunities for my brother, sister her fiancé and of course my father.

Grandfather who was still living in the house, with my uncle Walter after grandmother had died, was a strict Irish Catholic, a proud man immaculately turned out, to this day he is the only person I have ever heard off that used to polish the instep of his beautiful leather shoes, other meticulous people polished their shoes ritually, but not the instep as well. He shaved with a cut throat razor and I had to promise to sit still when he was shaving to watch this amazing event.

We said the rosary, most nights kneeling on the floor whilst leaning on the chair seats, each taking it in turn to lead a verse, including me as I grew older.
School was run by Nuns, I can't remember the particular order they came from but they were of course devout and varied from the saintly to the fierce.
Once passed the junior stage school was a Catholic secondary school but the church ran a club one evening each week at which the priests would organise supervise and control.

The Saint Peter's parish was a large one mainly because of all the Irish people working at Ford's factory in Dagenham, and as such had several priests, some on training or in junior roles. From time to time priests from America came to train in this environment and their different, more relaxed approach was in contrast to the strict 'no questions allowed' Irish method.

The chief priest was always seen wearing his long black cloak reminiscent of the Dracula character of the scary films. He was unapproachable to us youths. However, I had some serious questions which no one could answer, or should I say would not answer. When eventually the American Priests were running the club we all got chances to ask questions and were given answers, my questions concerning my lack of belief in the churches dogma and teachings were given serious attention and answer after answer just left me in more doubt. Finally the priest said Jack in the end it is about faith, you either believe or you don't. I wrestled with this for some time but eventually I told my mother that I was not going to church anymore or taking part in the Catholic Religion because I did not believe in it. I was around fourteen at this time and it caused great consternation and I was the 'black sheep' for a long time. Things improved after Grandfather and Walter moved out, but the background pressure continued even up until I was going to get married when my mother begged me to get married in the church, my future wife was also a Catholic but like me was not practising her beliefs however were not so clear.

In the Catholic Church you have to have meetings with the priest to 'prepare' for marriage and having agreed to get married in the church to appease my mother, I had only done so saying that I would not lie and would not agree to the church rules just to get married in the church.

During the pre-marital talks my views came to the fore and the priest said that he could not marry us because I did not agree with the churches teachings and that the only possibility would be to gain the Bishop's approval to proceed.

This eventually came some two weeks later, the only reason I was given was that my views would change in time with the churches influence from within the church, whereas this possibility would not exist from outside the church. Strange logic, since I was by this time 21 years old and following the ceremony I had no further contact with the church.

One of the notable effects of the church's influence on me from being a child was that I still felt guilty of eating meat on a Friday until I was around 21 years old. This rule of the church was abandoned by one of the Popes I do not remember which, so my guilt was unnecessary after some time by order of the Pope, but the little tang of guilt remained, as I say, until around 21 years of age.

Throughout my working life, I am retired now, I have held my views under the banner of agnostic, 'don't know' was the easiest way to shelve any further trauma or argument. Like others I use the God word to symbolise the unknown and I am on record for saying that my God was everything I did not understand, which of course is still a vast area. 'God knows' is a frequent comment which I make and it could be interpreted as Christian speak or blasphemy depending upon the interpreters position. However both would be wrong.

I trained as an engineer in the first place, with a 5 year apprenticeship and after rising through design draughtsman stage to project management, left it all behind to manage businesses for a major PLC. Finally after retiring early went to college and university to get a BSc in Environmental Science and my favourite subject is the evolution of life.

The twin towers disaster and I think Richards books, most of all 'The God Delusion' have finally got me off the fence and I must say that I have a sense of resentment that my life has to some extent been negatively affected by religion.

Jack Greaves

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Coming Out

On walking home from school aged 16 I experienced my Eureka moment - God is manmade, not the other way around. This realisation gave me a great feeling of relief but also fear that I did not believe in God, contrary to the norm. Other than discussions with my husband [an atheist] I kept my beliefs pretty much to myself until last year when - by chance - I read The Ancestors Tale by Richard Dawkins. I then read The Selfish Gene followed by The Blind Watchmaker, and then I ordered The God Delusion.

At 52 I now have the absolute confidence to be an atheist and to tell anyone that cares to know. Since coming out, I have discovered that most of the people I know are either atheists or wavering agnostics! Thank you Prof Dawkins.

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Anger as a reaction to truth
Dear Dr. Dawkins:

Last night my husband and I viewed with pleasure your reading of The God Delusion on BookTV at Lynchburg, Virginia. A young woman asked you if it is normal to be angry after one learns that the religious teachings of childhood are myths. You were surprised, after polling the audience, to learn that it is indeed a common emotion. But why should you have been surprised? Learning that what one has been taught as ultimate truth is pure myth is to learn that one has been betrayed by those in whom one has placed the highest trust.

I was raised in an American fundamentalist church. It was not until I was forty years old that I left that church and joined the Episcopal Church. It was there that I and a dozen others church members took a four-year seminary extension course under the direction of our parish priest. The stated purpose of this course is to demythologize the Bible and help one construct a "more viable" faith. After three years of this course I enrolled in college for the first time. As an English major studying World Literature I discovered in some of the earliest literature, the Inanna poems (courtesy of the Rosetta stone), the Epic of Gilgamesh, and Eurpides' the Bacchae that the gospel stories were barely disguised versions of much more ancient writings. Even with what I'd learned in the seminary course, this came as a shock. Having been a true believer, I felt duped and betrayed--two emotions almost guaranteed to lead to anger and bitterness.

My professors at Idaho State University were almost universally compassionate as they helped me come to grips with the implications of living in a pluralistic society. Paradoxically, my biology professor, a devout Baptist and a practicing veterinarian, told our class that the state of Idaho required that she teach the principles of evolution, which she would do, but she asked us if we didn't think it was "much nicer to believe in creation?" She even gave me a book about how to have a personal relationship with Jesus! Mercifully, as Lyme's disease worked its way into her brain, she was unable to continue her career in education, and Idaho State University now has a properly educated instructor in her place.

Some of your books have been helpful as my husband and I have come to understand about evolution, most particularly because of your explanation that natural selection is not at all a random occurrence, but the one that favors an improvement of the species. We also appreciate your explanation that what one believes is largely an accident of when and where one is born. You will appreciate the irony that we are giving our eldest daughter a copy of The God Delusion for Christmas.

Yours truly,
Kathleen Kakacek (Idaho State University, Class of 2005!)

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a recent convert

I lost my philosophic virginity at college 40 years ago after watching the movie "Inherit the Wind." I came from an evangelical home, daughter of a minister, completely brainwashed and indoctrinated. But that movie started me questioning, and after so many questions tumbled out, the whole house of cards collapsed. However, it really took the God Delusion to help me make the final commitment to atheism, and to do it with the confidence that I need not abandon the "helping" values that I had learned in my childhood. I love the way Dawkins explains the evolution of our ability as humans to think about others, have compassion for them, and help them. Now that the scales have fallen from my eyes, I am indeed amazed that I was so blinded and for so long. I do find it difficult to talk about this with family and friends. However, I am committed to doing so, because if I don't, who else will bring it up?

Thank you!
Linda Bergthold

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Teenaged atheist

I am a 16-year-old, British-born American currently living in that bastion of Enlightened thought and rationale, Connecticut. My immediate family are devoutly Irish Catholic, and worse, almost all of my cousins, aunts, uncles, etc. are fundamentalist Christians. Not just in name, in practice. These are the kind of people who vote for Bush because they actually believed God wants them to do so.

Here is an example of the kind of lunacy my kinsmen partake of: my cousin became pregnant at the age of 21. Unfortunately, not only was her partner not her husband, he was also not a Christian. He was - gasp! - an atheist. Her father, my uncle, is the pastor of a church in upstate New York. Accordingly, she - a legal, supposedly freethinking adult - confessed her "sins" in front of the congregation, had her unfortunate partner convert to Christianity, and promptly married him. They now have five children. My mother, father, and other relatives, while not as outrageous in practice, are dissatisfied with the Catholic Church and share many, if not all, of my relatives' beliefs.

For the better part of a year, I have been dissatisfied with the Christianity I was brought up to embrace. Therefore, last summer at the age of 15, having scrutinized the Bible, theological arguments, and scientific theories such as evolution and the big bang, I made up my mind that there was no god. I told nobody except my friends. It was not until I read your most recent book that I was finally able to articulate - to others, and, more importantly, to myself - what it is I believe, and more specifically why it is that I don't believe in religion. My purpose, then, is to thank you for all you do. The world has desperate need of more people like you.

I have told my mother; she in turn has, I suspect, begun actively praying for me and my soul. My father is of the Irish Catholic just-do-what-you're-told school, and therefore seems not to care too much either way. My uncle, the a philosopher who I believe was your colleague at Oxford for a breif period, is my only real outlet for atheistic expression.

I only wanted to express my sincere gratitude at your tirelessness and my assurance that you are not alone, and that a new generation of freethinking, intelligent young people is waking up.

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Dear Convert's Corner,

Having had much encouragement (in my journey from fundamentalist Christian to Atheist) from people who have been along the same path, I thought I would briefly write of my experience in case it too might be helpful to someone.

From a very young age I was taken to church and never questioned what I was taught there and so had an innate belief in God for the whole of my life. In my late teens, finding that the things I had looked to for satisfaction left me feeling empty, I had a 'religious awakening' and I became a born again Christian. I jumped into it wholeheartedly and devoted my life to it. It wasn't long before I was encouraged to attend a bible college and I didn't need much persuading. I just wanted to give my life for God and work for him in whatever way he wanted so I gave up my career as an electrician and went to New Tribes Mission Bible College with an aim to train to be a missionary. To cut a long story short, though I 'tested the waters', preaching quite regularly and looking for a Christian work to enter, I didn't become a missionary, but I did find a wife at the college and we have been happily married ever since.

My Christian life lasted for about 10 years before I started to have some doubts. It coincided with the commencement of a BSc in Physics with the Open University. It wasn't what I was learning that shook my faith, it was the gradual change in my way of thinking that caused me great problems. I could no longer gloss over problems with the bible, whether ethical, textual or philosophical. I started to be convinced that if Christianity was true, it should stand scrutiny. Over the next few years, as I looked deeper into the foundations of Christianity, unearthing problem after problem, I gradually drifted away. I still attended church as I had many friends there, but the more I thought about it, the less believable it all seemed. But there was one thing that kept eating away at me and that was a fear of Hell. Even though I was largely convinced that Christianity and the bible were not true, there is still that nagging doubt when you think about a possible eternity in pain. No wonder religions that make such threats for disbelief are so successful.

It has taken a couple of years of reading and thinking before I can now call myself an atheist and feel comfortable, even proud, doing so. Reading Professor Dawkins's books on evolution have helped immensely with what had always been for me one of the strongest arguments for the belief in God, namely the complexity of life that we see around us. The more I have understood about evolution, the clearer it has become and I feel embarrassed about how eagerly I believed the twisted and distorted 'facts' I used to read so much of in Creationist books. As I have studied more, I have realised that there is so much I don't know (such a contrast to my Christian days where I thought I knew everything). I have an amazement and wonder at the world that equals anything I ever experienced as a Christian. There remain unanswered questions for me (such as the ultimate origin of life) but I no longer feel the need to resort to the power of my ignorance and use God to fill the gap. I feel confident that, as with so many other 'unanswerables' in history, the answer is out there and it is, almost definitely, purely naturalistic.

Best wishes,
Andrew

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Thanks
A year ago I was accosted by young earth diatribe. It was a wake up to my meandering around the subject of deity based creationism. My father is a minister. Quite by accident I found myself in possession of an entire collection of Scientific Americans at the age of 14. At 16 I stopped attending church. Comparing the bible to the explicit truth in scientific processes gave me no alternative in logic than to refuse all the supernatural, and superstitious dogma with all the bloated tag along doctrines.

Mr. Dawkins, at 41, I have found my voice thanks to you. What you have done is of extreme importance. I feel emancipated from my silent dissent towards religion. I however refuse to align myself, or support any organization that I have no control over. I don't underestimate the power of a reasoned voice, but I can never let anyone speak for myself, or my beliefs, even if it appears our objectives are identical. A great independence coincided with my acceptance of scientific thought.

Critical thinking is the key to enlightenment, which I find is by majority, an individual sport. I do feel less reserved about expressing myself concerning my conclusions regarding religions. Thank you for your voiced convictions.

Best Regards
Zeke Dawdy

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Dear Richard,

I can't thank you enough for your work. I was raised by evangelical parents and in my teens I "accepted Jesus as my saviour", but never felt comfortable with Christianity - I was told in no uncertain terms that you couldn't just be a quiet christian and get on with your life - there were millions of people bound for hell and you needed to publicly "proclaim christ" to save their souls - otherwise he would deny you at the day of judgement. I felt pretty stupid and uncomfortable doing any kind of evangelism, plus I was constantly haunted by the fear that I wasn't a good enough christian and my (fairly trivial) sins would disqualify me from heaven. I was tormented by the idea of being burned and tortured in hell for ever with the devil and wished I had never been born at all. I was in complete despair for a number of years.

In my twenties I came across your books and the penny eventually dropped - it was all a load of nonsense. Although it took a while, I eventually had the courage to drop my beliefs, and what a wonderful freedom it was! Apart from having to tell my family about my non-belief which felt a bit like telling them I was a child-molester, I felt better than I had done for years. The fears are still slightly there in the background still, but almost eradicated.

Thank you again for your inspiring work.
A huge fan

33

Dear Mr. Dawkins and everyone at the RDF,

Hello, I am 15 years old, and I had been skeptic of my religion for almost a year by the time of my birthday. I took an interest in science, esspecially evolutionary biology and am still in the process of trying to at least vaguely in a sense; understand it.

I have become an Atheist in part because of your book, up until the time I read it I was agnostic. I really do have to thank you the best way that I can in the format I expressing it.

I was brought up as a fundamentalist in a sort, you could say before the time of early 2005 I was good material for the evangelical camps around the United States. But under the religion of my parents I suffered a terrible amount of childhood depression, I was dreadfully sad and hateful during my time as a fundamentalist Christian, but after reading your book I found that what I was taught not only didn't make sense, but also was destroying me from the inside. Also because of your book I have been able to express my dis-belief more easily and be proud of it as well instead of ashamed and scared of what the people around me may think. So for making me a stronger dis-believer I thank you again.

I look forward to hearing more of your thoughts in the years to come.

Thank you,
Justin Allen

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Dear Richard Dawkins,

I have only recently come to be aware of you and your writings, and I am greatly thankful for them and you. You have given me the confidence to declare what I had felt scratching at the back of my head for some time: I am an atheist.

I had the good fortune of being brought up by parents who valued education and who encouraged me to read and research any subject to my heart's content. We had a fairly large library in my childhood home that was filled with books about dinosaurs and prehistoric life. This was the key for me. Like many children, I had a deep fondness for dinosaurs.

I would peruse these books for hours on end, marvelling at the myriad forms of life contained within them. My father would talk with me about the the various prehistoric mammals and why they were shaped the way they were. He had a particular fondness for the saber-toothed tiger and was always eager to point out its specialized teeth.

Besides dinosaurs, I was also very intrigued by mythology. I memorized the names of Egyptian, Greek, and Norse gods and knew their stories before I ever picked up a Bible. My parents told me the Christian stories that were tacked on to various holidays, and I had a basic understanding of Jesus as a character. At this point, I didn't really have a strictly defined concept of the Christian God, but I held on to a desire for him to be surrounded by
Anubis, Athena, and Loki. I enjoyed the gods then as I do Batman and Green Arrow now.

My last year in Junior High school was a major turning point. I had spent most of my middle school years attending a weekly church youth group, mainly because my circle of friends at that time went to it and were very much Christians. For the most part, the meetings were just full of games of basketball and volleyball and kick the can (my favorite). From time to time, however, the meetings would focus on a Bible story or a discussion of some current event from a Christian viewpoint.

I actually contemplated becoming a Christian for some time while attending these meetings. This was almost entirely from peer pressure. I would occasionally attend church with some of my friends and they made it clear that I wasn't allowed to take part in Communion as I hadn't been baptised. Every youth group meeting ended with a prayer (which still gives me shivers to this day... "All that I am and all that I have, I give to Christ and his service") and I always felt just a shade out of place saying it. Fear was creeping into me, and I was starting to believe that I needed to become a Christian just so I could fit in.

One of the youth group meetings focused entirely on disproving other religions as well as scientific theories. Every major belief system received a childish and simplistic refutation, all in an attempt to show how "true" Christianity was. I was feeling very uneasy about all of this. It seemed tremendously un-Christian, as I had thought Christians to be gentle and nice people before this. The straw to break the camel's back focused on Darwin. The pastor enthusiastically proclaimed evolution to just be wrong because, "gorillas and monkeys still exist."

Things became very clear at that moment. I had read enough about evolution at that point to know that the pastor had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. I confronted my friends from the youth group the next morning in school, thinking that they had felt the same as I had. When I mentioned the abject silliness of the gorillas and monkeys comment, they looked at me as if I were crazy and emphatically pronounced that it made
perfect sense.

That was when I stopped attending the youth group. I had the strong and painful realization that most of my childhood friends believed in something that I didn't, and for that matter, couldn't. I drifted away and eventually found new friends in High School.

Through High School and into college, I still wasn't too certain about the existence of God either way. I knew I wasn't Christian, but I couldn't quite get my head around the concept of "no God," either.

I studied theatre and philosophy at university and eventually came across the works of Joseph Campbell. His comparitive mythology work began to highlight things I had started to suspect from my earlier studies of myths and legends. I enrolled in several religion courses at my university to get more input from various belief systems around the world. Things started to become even clearer as I began to trace the mythological development of the Christian God from a Cannanite deity of war. My route to atheism was by tracing the obvious hand of man in the creation of gods.

I had the pleasure of seeing The Root of All Evil a month or two ago. The moment you used the phrase, "Some of us go one god further," I almost cried from sheer joy. Never had I heard my innermost thoughts put so coherently and concisely.

I feel as though you have given me a language with which to effectively communicate my beliefs and stance. For that I am profoundly grateful.

Topher Scofield
Virginia, United States

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Hello Richard Dawkins! I really hope that you will read this. I'm a 15 year old American high school student in California, and I used to be a Christian. It wasn't necessarily you who made me convert to atheism, though you did have a part in my transformation from a Christian to an Atheist in the end. I went from Christian, to Agnostic, to Atheist, and the total time that it took to go from Christian, to Agnostic, and finally to Atheist was about 2-3 years.

When I was about 8 or 9, I first started going to church regularly. And when I was about 12 or 13 I first began to have my doubts. I forget what really made me think "Hey, maybe there isn't a god!?" So anyway, when I first had these doubts I, of course, did what they said to do at church: Pray! So I prayed prayed prayed prayed and prayed some more. I was praying constantly for this god to give me a sign of his existence. It never came. I would lie in bed all the time before going to sleep, just thinking. I'd think about, well, everything about life, the universe, and "god." And slowly, over time, after all that thinking, I started leaning more and more to the "god doesn't exist" side. But I was still thinking "Who created God?" "Does Science support God?" "But then, what created the universe?" and so on... But through all that thinking, over months and months of thinking, overall I was moving more and more towards thinking that god does not exist.

Over the period of about a year or so, I was Agnostic, and still thinking. During this time, I was at a book shop trying to find a non-fiction book for school. I came across a book in the Science section called Cosmos, by Carl Sagan. I learned that it was also a show, and I got the show on DVD. Watching the show made me lean even more to thinking that god does not exist. Carl Sagan became my new hero, my idol (and once I became an Atheist, both you and Sagan are my idols), but I still wasn't sure about the existence/non-existence of god.

Then, finally, about 3 months ago I finally made up my mind. I had already by this time been leaning very far towards becoming an Atheist. One more event would finish it and make me sure that there is no god. I was on the Internet, on youtube.com. I watched the video called "Atheist" and after watching a few more videos on the subject I felt as if these videos were right and there was no god, but still wasn't quite sure. I became sure when I came across your site. I read the things that you said about religion, and watched some of the videos on your site, and that's when I finally, fully, and completely became an Atheist. So, I'd like to thank you Richard Dawkins! I see you as being part of my last stage in my transformation of becoming an Atheist. I would also have liked to thank Carl Sagan. But again. THANK YOU RICHARD DAWKINS! And now that I am an Atheist, it's nice to go to your site and others, like americanatheist.com. I guess religion was just never for me. I always find myself thinking scientifically.

Though I am an Atheist, I'm not really "out of the closet." I guess that you could say so, partially. I've only told some of my friends once when the subject came up, but I haven't told anyone in my family. My mom probably would be okay with me being an Atheist, but she doesn't live with me right now. I don't think that my dad would be okay with me being an atheist, especially not his girlfriend or my sister. I don't like my dad's girlfriend at all. She went crazy once she figured out that I read the Da Vinci Code and planned on seeing the movie, and I guess she just didn't understand that I saw the book as fiction. I knew it wasn't true. I'll probably get around to telling everyone I know someday, but not quite yet. I don't know how they'd react, or even how to put it out there...Anyway, again, thank you very much Richard Dawkins, for helping me see the world as it really is.

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I will begin by thanking you, Mr. Dawkins for helping to further my education, which I plan on continuing until I die. I was raised in a Christian sect and lived in a sort of blind fog until I was 18. I then decided on being agnostic solely for ease of explainability. I decided to explore my roots and went so far as to live as an Orthodox Jew in Israel for over a year. I was on a quest for the truth. I spent my 20's looking for answers. I was delighted to spend the first half of my 31st year learning about the previously taboo subject of evolution. I am still learning and have gotten to the point that I have told my parents (yes, very blind believers) that I am an atheist. I have now found that there are indeed answers to the most profound questions that a person may ask of the universe, if only you have the mind to hear those answers. I am thankful that your latest book coincided with the time in my life where I was able to skeptically, educatedly and willingly learn the true "truth". I have begun to realize that my upbringing not only was biased and disturbing but wrong. I have always found missionizing repulsive, mostly because it is not sharing ideas but rather forcing one idea into a desperate persons thought pattern. The lively exchange of ideas I welcome and now have Christians stammering and running away from me (the most effective way to rid myself of narrow and closed minded lunatics). The profound impact this education has made on me I think can be demonstrated by how many of my friends and even my boyfriend are "converting" to atheism. Many people I meet are closet atheists and seem to be willing to come out of the closet. Good luck on your cat herding. I congratulate you on your work and support it whole-heartedly. Thank you so much for helping me to be a more critically thinking person. I look forward to your next work of art.

Your Fan,
Naomi Tappin

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Dear Professor Dawkins

I am an ex-Christian because of you. My full anti-testimony is at: http://exchristian.net/testimonies/2006/10/perfect-religion.html . To cut a long story short, a friend lent me The Blind Watchmaker and my faith disappeared in an instance. Without genesis and original sin there was no need for Jesus. At last, here was the explanation I was looking for: Evolution. I was hungry for more. I read "The selfish-gene" following by "The red queen" by Matt Ridley, and again I thought, at last here is the explanation I've been looking for. That's why sex is an all-powerful driving force in our lives. I'm just subject to those annoying genes and their desire to self-replicate. It sounds depressing to reduce the meaning of our lives to a sequence of chemicals but to reiterate Douglas Adams: "I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day."

Yours, Andrew Hawkins

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Greetings,

This is the story of how I escaped religion.

I was raised catholic. Mass was a wondrous experience to me. The music, the vestments, the ritual, the stained glass, my Sunday classes with the nuns, were all things I looked forward to every Sunday morning. Even as I grew older, I was always bitterly disappointed when I was unable to go. When I finally made my first confession and first communion, I was ecstatic. I loved reading tales about the saints and the Virgin Mary. My great-grandmother (even though I only saw her rarely) was the only relative who was able to keep me indoors on a gorgeous summer afternoon with her stories about the saints, miracles, and the time she saw the pope in person. She predicted that I was destined to become a nun. When she passed away, she left me her rosary that had been blessed by the pope-her most treasured possession.

However, when I was 12, my parents split up and within a year were divorced. We stopped going to mass. I missed it terribly. On Sunday mornings, I would stay in my room, finding solace in my rosary and prayer books. This lasted for about two years.

At the age of 15, a friend of mine invited me to her church just down the street from my house. It was a small baptist church. I asked my dad if it was okay and he told me to go ahead. That next Sunday, my friend and her family picked me up and we drove past the seven houses that separated my house from that small church.

It was quite different from what I knew. The Sunday school lesson, the songs before the sermon, the sermon itself all pointed to a direct, open relationship with Jesus and the god of the universe. By the end of the service, I was hooked. The people there talked about god like they had just seen him at the breakfast table. They welcomed me graciously and urged me to stay for the dinner-on-the-grounds. How could I refuse? I was drawn like a moth to the flame. I left there that afternoon determined to go back that evening.

Within a month, I had been saved and baptized. Within six months, I was going to church Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and Wednesday evenings, singing in the choir, heavily involved in the youth group, volunteering for anything they would let me do, and sitting in the front row with my bible taking notes of the sermons.

Before a year had gone by, I was well versed in creationism; knew abortion was an abomination before god; was convinced that homosexuality was going to be the downfall of America; could tell you why a woman's role in the body of christ was so limited; was certain that even thinking about sex before marriage was the path to hell. I soaked it in like a sponge and believed every word that came from the Sunday school teacher and the pastor. I spent hours studying the bible, praying, and reading books on apologetics and theology. I attended revival meetings, went witnessing, memorized scripture, stayed away from any TV show, book, or movie deemed sinful by my pastor. Nearly every friend I had was a member of that church.

I never went through a rebellious phase, because good little christian girls always did what there parents said to do even if they didn't like it. Even at the ages of 15, 16, 17, it was "ma'am" and "sir" to my parents, never complaining about whatever chores I was given to do, never talking back, taking care of my younger sister and two younger brothers, never getting into trouble in school, showing the utmost respect for all my teachers...it was certainly weird. I remember overhearing my mother commenting to my aunt that she was glad I never went through "that awful teenage stage." All because I loved Jesus with every fiber of my being. There was not a doubt in my mind that I was heaven-bound.

When I graduated from high school and went to collage, things did not change much. Although I never found a church that I really liked, I found a home in the methodist student center. The director was a great big bear of a man with a heart of gold and he welcomed all comers. He even forgave me for being baptist. It wasn't long before I was as involved in activities there as I had been in my little baptist church back home. I made a new group of friends who prayed together, studied scripture together, and kept each other on the straight and narrow. I was a fine example of how a good christian girl should behave even though I was away from home for the first time. I never partied or even drank; was never late for class; never skipped class; turned in all my assignments on time; never stayed up past midnight, except during finals week; and never, ever went anywhere alone with a boy. The closest I came to dating was when I went places with a group of my friends from the methodist student center. I kept myself pure in mind and body because to do anything else would have disappointed Jesus. When after two years, by dad told me I could not go back to college, the methodist student center and the friends I had there were the only things I truly, missed.

I settled back into my little baptist church and was happy there until I was 21 or 22, when the pastor I had grown to love left. In his place, the search committee put a slightly bitter, slightly liberal man with none of the charisma of Pastor Tommy. I began praying about finding another church.

For the next couple of years I joined and left two or three churches-each more conservative that the last. I would join, get active, discover that I wasn't comfortable there, decide that I had not heard god correctly about joining this particular church. (It certainly couldn't be god's fault that I couldn't find a new church home.) At this point I would start praying about finding another church. All the time, my world was growing more and more narrow as I learned more about being a good christian woman. I was becoming more and more subdued in my mannerisms, speech patterns, and dress. Always an introvert, I found it easy to fade further and further in to the wallpaper and accept my destiny as a humble servant of christ.

My next real church home was a medium-sized baptist church. I was about 24. It was the same pattern all over again. I joined and became active in everything I could. Most of the young adults at this church were unofficial youth group chaperones, so it was not long before I was one also. Soon, in addition to everything else I was doing, I was helping to teach teenage girls (being a woman, I could not teach the teenage boys). My entire life revolved around god, Jesus, and this church. I gained a reputation as an outstanding example of what a single christian woman should be. I was the perfect, humble, obedient, unquestioning christian woman. My life was an open book and no one could find fault.

It was while I was at this church that I felt led to go back to college. After much prayer and counsel, I decided that god wanted me to be teacher. I studied hard. After all this is what god wanted me to do with my life, I couldn't let him down by getting bad grades.

About a semester into my new college career, I made a new group of friends. They all attended a non-denominational church in a rundown section of town. Soon I was attending also. These were people who experienced god in every moment of their lives. God was part of the air that they breathed. Doctrine was strict and extremely conservative. Worship included raising hands in the air, speaking in tongues, dancing in the aisles all done to a background of bass guitar and drums. Roles for men and women, single and married were heavily delineated. Rules about how to run your life were made clear and elders reserved to right to examine any aspect of your life from finances to dress to how you raised you children. Every member of the church was assigned to
an elder who was seen as being personally responsible for your spiritual growth. The church was growing by leaps and bounds as word got out about how god was transforming people. I ate it up with a spoon.

It didn't take me long to fall into line and become a respected part of this church-or as respected as a single woman could be in such a patriarchal system. Soon I was being held up again as an example of how a single christian woman behaved. I baby-sat the children of elders, helped their wives with house cleaning, they would call me if they were having trouble getting their children ready for church, I went out with groups to witness (but only to other women-I had no business revealing the word of god to a man). The amount of time I spent studying the bible and praying increased. The largest topics of conversation with my friends were what god was doing in our lives, things we were struggling to surrender to god, what we had learned in our personal bible studies, and asking each other to point out areas where we were not living up to the standards set forth by god. My friends and I even went clothes shopping together so we could make sure we would not offend god with our clothing and jewelry. What little ability I had left to think for myself, to reach my own decisions was soon gone. God's rules were strict and he demanded absolute obedience. My life had totally been taken over. I had become a right-wing evangelical, fundamentalist, homophobic, anti-choice, creationist, misogynous, bible-thumping, anti-sex, see-the-world-in-black-and-white, smug, arrogant, holier-than-thou christian woman. I was a living, breathing two-dimensional stereotype. There was hardly a thought in my head or a word that passed my lips that did not have its origin in something either the pastor or my church elder said.

As for school, I did very well until it came time for my student teaching. I had never failed so badly at anything in my life. I was devastated, shattered, broken. I had let down all those people who had prayed for me and had given me emotional support while I was in school. But the most heart-rending of all to me was I knew that god was disappointed with me. I spent hours flat on my face in prayer crying out to him for forgiveness, telling him over and over how sorry I was that I had failed him. Months of depression followed. I expected god to strike me with a suitable punishment at any second and at that point I would have suffered anything if I thought that it would bring god's forgiveness. I was 28 years old.

At this point, my church elder approached me. He told me he and his wife had been praying about my situation. He said to me that god had told him that I had not failed god, but had been undergoing a test. A test I had passed because I had never cursed god or abandoned the path he had set for me. Right then and there, I was ready to fall to the ground and kiss this man's feet, but that would have been unseemly. So I stood there with my head bowed and listened quietly as a good christian woman should when being addressed by her elder. He continued. I was to rededicate myself to the service of god by serving the least of his children-the unborn. The word had come down from on high, so that is exactly what I did.

That next Saturday, I was one of those people holding one of those gruesome signs in front an abortion clinic. I was there that Saturday and every Saturday thereafter for almost two years. I held signs, sang songs, prayed, protested. When it was hot I handed out ice water to my fellow antiabortionists. When it was cold, I served coffee and hot chocolate. I was only a lowly handmaiden of the lord, doing as he commanded. But I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was going to heaven, and also knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that it I had anything more than a tent in heaven, it was going to be only by god's grace. I was nothing. Yet if you had asked me, I would have sworn to heaven that I was blissfully happy.

It was March 1993. I was 29, fast approaching 30. It was a week or so after the murder of Dr. David Gunn in Florida. I was standing at the street holding one of those horrible signs when I felt led to go pray. It was early afternoon and things were winding down. I handed off my sign to another woman and walked down the parking lot. (On one side of the parking lot was the clinic, one the other a row of six or seven offices-one of which the antiabortion group I was part of rented. We couldn't have asked for a better set up.) I knelt down on the blacktop and began to pray. I asked god for an end to the horror of abortion. I asked god to touch the hearts of the people who worked in the clinic so they could see what an awful thing they were doing and become his servants. Then I prayed that if god could not turn the hearts of the abortionist and his accomplices, that he strike them down in such a way as to be a lesson for others who would dare abort or conspire to abort a baby. Then I told god that I was willing to be the vessel for the destruction of these people if that was his will. At that moment, if that clinic had blown up I wouldn't have just been glad, I would have reveled, gloried, basked in the deaths of those murderers; rejoiced in the fact that they were burning in hell. And if someone had been able to look into my mind at that instant they would have seen that I was ready to personally destroy these people whose only crime was to think that women deserved to the right to have abortions. That is all I knew about those people who worked in that clinic. I didn't know their names, whether or not they had children of their own, or what they did when they weren't at the clinic. The sole reason I was ready to see these people dead; ready kill them myself; was the fact that I thought they were defying the god of the universe by providing abortions. At the time, it was just the next logical step on the path I was walking.

It was summer of 1993. I was 30 years old. Operation Rescue had come to Jackson, Mississippi in a big way. Daily protests, rallies at night. And I was in the middle of it all, there for every minute of it. I slept maybe six hours the whole week. I became the right hand of the people Operation Rescue had sent to run the show. I set up and ran the registration tables, gave people their assignments, enlisted prayer warriors, made sure we had enough signs and other supplies, faced down news crews who wanted to film inside the nightly rallies, I was on a mission for god. When it was all over, I was offered a scholarship to Operation Rescue's school in Florida where they taught you how to put on a show like this. I declined. I did not feel that god wanted me to leave where I was.

But something inside me was changing. My grandmother, a born feminist, was appalled by my involvement in the antiabortion movement. We argued bitterly over this issue. She told me horror stories of the days before women had access to contraception and abortions-things I had been told were just urban myths made up by the pro-abortion movement to drum up support for their cause. But my grandmother was the most honest person I knew. Someone had to be lying. I started asking questions about what I had been told. The only answers I got were silence or being told that I had been misled by the person who told me about those things. My grandmother challenged me in other ways. She remembered what life was like for women in the days prior to the women's rights movement.

Every so slowly, my eyes opened. I knew that I had been lied to by the very people I trusted to guide me to the truth. It wasn't long before I was questioning everything I had been taught about god, myself and my place it the universe. When I asked my pastor and elder about these things I was told to pray more, study my bible more, find out what sin in my life was causing me to act this way. By the end of 1993, I had left this church. I left the antiabortion movement. I couldn't live that way any more.

But I wasn't finished with god yet. In spite of my burgeoning doubts about religion and god, I ran straight back into the arms of the catholic church of my childhood. I was no longer sure about anything. I was spending hours and hours praying to god for a sign to restore my ebbing faith. I could not imagine life without god. I returned to the catholic church, even as I confessed to the priest that I was growing less and less sure about the very existence of god. On easter Sunday of 1994, I was confirmed and became a full fledged member of the catholic church, ignoring the screaming voice in my head.

During this time, I rediscovered another childhood love, astronomy. Yes, this does tie in to the story. As was my habit, when I became interested in something, I would seek out magazines and books about it. During one of my trips to look for astronomy magazines, I noticed a magazine I had not seen before, Free Inquiry. The cover made it clear where this publication stood on the issues of god and religion. I bought it. It was the first time I had ever seen anything that said it was possible to live a moral life without god. From there, I discovered other publications like The Humanist, Skeptical Inquiry, Skeptic. These in turn led me to books. Richard Dawkins taught me that everything I had been taught in church about evolution was a lie. Michael Shermer helped me to figure out how to think for myself again. Paul Kurtz showed me that life without god was possible. But I still couldn't let go of god.

As I vocalized my growing lack of faith, the priest told me to read the church fathers, pray the rosary more, pray to Mary for more faith, go to daily mass and eucharistic adoration. In other word, the catholic version of what I had been told at my previous church.

In 1996, I quit going to mass, but I renewed my subscriptions to two catholic apologetics magazines and kept buying the afore mentioned skeptical magazines. So there I was, a foot in both camps. The cognitive dissonance should have caused my brain to explode, yet I managed to live with it until early 1998. Most of that time was spent going over every religious experience I had ever had, looking for something to hold on to, but they all turned to ashes in my hands-there was nothing real there.

Finally, in early 1998 my brain cried "Uncle." I couldn't stand to think about any of it anymore. The books were shelved, the magazines tucked away in a drawer. I was slowly losing my sanity and had to just stop and give my mind a rest.

Then in June of 1998, shortly after my 35th birthday, I was home alone. I opened the drawer where I had been hiding the magazines from myself (I had still been buy the freethinker ones and putting them in there with the catholic ones). I pulled out one of the catholic magazines and started reading. This stuff was loony tunes. I pulled out the other-same thing. Not a bit of sense between the two of them. Then I pulled out the Free Inquiry and started reading an article by Richard Dawkins about religion-finally something that made sense.

About that time, the dryer buzzer went off and I got up to get my clothes. I walked through the kitchen, and a third of the way through the living room then came to a dead stop. "There is no god," I said. Of course my next thought was, "Oh my god, I'm going to hell." Then I started laughing so hard I had to sit down. "No, I'm not. There is no heaven. There is no hell. There is no god." The last of the chains fell off, a huge weight lifted.

Of course, this declaration was a much a beginning as it was an end. I had a lot of rebuilding to do of myself. Rethink my entire worldview. Reintroduce me to myself. Therapy, tears, rages, a lot of thought, and one very good atheist friend got me through the next eight difficult years while I recovered from religion. So here I am today-a completely different person that I was all those years ago. I now think for myself, make my own choices, and live my life as I see fit. It is here, now, as an atheist that I have found the peace, joy, and contentment so long promised me by religion. I am truly free.

Robin C.
Mississippi, USA

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Dear Richard Dawkins,

First off, I want to say thank you for allowing this 19 year old to see that it's okay not to believe in god.

For as long as I can remember, I have believed in God, but on and off. I consider myself a rational thinker. I believe in science, because it works. I believe that we (humans) arrived here by evolution and that the universe isn't run by a supreme being. But I still always thought that there might be a God somewhere. I always thought religion was a necessity in life. I didn't know what I would do without thinking there's a God out there somewhere. I thought that god does exist somewhere, but he didn't create the universe, nor does he listen to people's prayers and things such as that. I saw it as god was just there. I always believed, and still believe, that the universe began at a singularity. It then expanded without a god intervening. But a god was still around. My mother is Russian Orthodox and my father is Jewish. I'm thankful they never tried to force a religion upon me. I always celebrated the Jewish holidays such as Hanukkah and Christian holidays such as Christmas. But I was never a deeply or even moderately religious person. I never celebrated Shabbat, never went to Church or Synagogue. Despite all this, for whatever reason, one that I don't understand now, I thought that there just HAS to be a god. I never believed in the resurrection of Jesus, and I never believed in miracles or anything of that nature. I believed in the laws of nature and I had to abide by them.

But after reading your spectacular book, The God Delusion, I understood that it is okay to not believe in a god, a creator, a supreme being. It just makes no sense for a god to exist in my opinion. Nowadays, the more I think about a god, or the possibility of the existence of a god, I see just howfoolish it is, and actually how remarkable it is that people can believe in something that has less proof for it than martians. At least people have reported seeing UFOs that they think are alien visitors. (No, I don't believe we are being visited by aliens either, even though there is probably life somewhere in the universe. After all, if there wasn't, that would be a huge waste of space) Where are the god sightings? If god exists, why doesn't he show us to himself. Why isn't there a Jesus in today's world who can perform miracles and show us all that a god does exist? The answer seems to be that it's because a god doesn't exist, but I won't rule that out since absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

I probably won't be telling people that I am atheist, but I won't deny it if they ask. I won't tell my parents either because that will just upset them. I told my mom the other day, "I'm reading a book about reasons for why there is no god." She looks at me and says, "The man who wrote it is wrong. Because God exists." How can I argue with that?

To close off, thank you for writing this book and allowing me to finally stop holding back the rational part of me that thought for the longest time that god doesn't exist, but just didn't want to admit it to himself. I thought that if I admitted to myself in my thoughts that a god doesn't exist, I would feel weird, nasty or like an outcast. But now that I'm honest with myself, I feel so much better. I can finally stop trying to suppress the thoughts that tell me god doesn't exist and there's no way he can. I can now accept them because that is what I truly believed all along, even if I didn't want to admit it to myself.

Thank you.
-Max

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THE GOD DELUSION puts into words the 'revelation' I had at age eleven. Precocious? Not really.

From age three to age ten I spent most of my life in Roman Catholic institutions and boarding schools. I was nine years old when atomic bombs were dropped on Japan. The nuns rejoiced and we were given jelly and custard for lunch to celebrate. I was very worried about the rejoicing at a whole city, and by logical extension, its citizens, being burned in a conflagration like the fires of hell (as we were given to understand). When I voiced my worries I was told not to be 'bold' and that the Japanese weren't Catholics or even Christians. Many other issues of belief also concerned me, eg why did god make some children ugly like me; why did he make germs, or fleas or poisonous plants?.

By age eleven I was in a state school but attended compulsory RC 'scripture' class. The issue of destruction of human life vis a vis church teachings about 'love' and 'shepherding' still worried me. Again I asked why Hiroshima and Nagasaki had been bombed. I had read in a newspaper that Japan was on the brink of surrender before the atomic holocaust. I was punished for showing doubt. At this stage I still believed in god and Jesus.

One day I was walking home from school when suddenly I stopped in my tracks. Of course! There was only one answer! There was no god. People made him up because they were scared about not understanding things. In war they had to believe god was on their side because otherwise they'd know themselves as murderers. But if they just admitted they didn't understand instead of making up lies then they might get to understand one day.

As time passed I became more and more aware of fear of the unknown or/and fear of one's own mortality as the basis of religion and priestly power. I have never wavered in my atheism and have always been open about it. It has enabled me to appreciate the natural world and my place in it. It has made clear my responsibility for myself and the world I live in.

But THE GOD DELUSION has given me a wonderful tool in helping still-wavering friends to finally rid themselves of the shackles of lies they no longer truly believe. Thankyou, Richard Dawkins.

Anneliese Stricker, Australia.

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I had always had doubts, but I was indoctrinated (abused) since childhood, so I tried to be a good Christian for my fundamentalist father and Lutheran pastors. I was always the kid who asked the wrong questions, like, "Now, what, again, does Jesus dying have to do with anything?" and "You mean my uncle, who doesn't believe in God, and is a very nice person is going to hell?" These questions were never answered and discouraged. It was easy for me to dismiss Santa Claus as ridiculous when I was 3 years old! However, that didn't apply to the loving, killing, murdering, patient, misogynist, racist, peaceful God. (That's really how confusing it all is. You read this rubbish in the Bible, but then everyone says how loving God is.)

I couldn't listen to the Beatles because they "worshipped the devil". Canyou believe that? Imagine, I couldn't listen to "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" because it would corrupt me. Ludicrous.

I was stuck in that for 20 years. I subconsciously formed doubts in my mind and questioned, but pushed it away. Cue 10 years of just ignoring the problem when I come across "The Blind Watchmaker". As I read it two primarythings occur to me: 1) a lot of what Professor Dawkins was saying, I had already realized, but pushed it away 2) I didn't know the first thing aboutevolution. I was 30 years old when I learned the first thing aboutevolution and it was from Professor Dawkins that I learned it. You canhardly get a better source of education, short of Charles Darwin himself.

Indeed, Professor Dawkins has done a great service to Darwin's work of
genius.

Professor Dawkins has rekindled my childhood sense of wonder. I'm AMAZED at how the universe and the world have unfolded to this point. I want to continually learn more. I know how evolution works and I know anyone who says it's a sham is another poor misguided person who deserves my pity and a few choice words of explanation to see if they help.

I will promote intellectual honesty every day that I can. I will alwaysfind wonder in the universe. I owe a great deal of that to Professor Dawkins. (Oh, "The God Delusion" is brilliant. Excellent work!)

Thank you so much. I can only hope to see you speak some day. Hope you stop by Chicago on the next tour!

Another Proud Convert,
Robert Johnson
Chicago, Illinois USA

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I can't say I had any sort of religious upbringing. Our family went to church…briefly. Then we just stopped. For us it was always more about being kind to each other than worrying about what the big man in the sky would think. Plus, my parents majored in biology in college, so there was never an evolution "controversy" (I use quotes because
the whole evolution-creation/ID debate is contrived anyway). I grew up considering myself Christian, but it was a casual belief at best (looking back, I would have expected myself to be a bit more religious considering I'm from the evangelical bastion of Colorado Springs). I figured Christianity in its modern form was generally harmless and
a force for good. All that changed after I entered college

One day my freshman year, I was speaking with one of my good friends (who is a Southern Baptist and probably won't like my newfound atheism) and, I don't remember how the subject came up, but I dropped the e-word. To the shock of my naïve mind, my friend retorted, "There's no such thing as evolution." I couldn't believe that someone could still think that in the 21st century, but it opened my eyes.
The more I looked, the more I realized just how hateful Christians can be when it comes to faith. An example that comes to mind was when the same friend who denied evolution was nearly up in arms about how men should literally rule the household and be the only ones who work while women stay home to raise the children. When asked for a rational justification he replied, "Because I'm a Christian, and that's how I was raised." I'm sure it sounded like a great answer in his mind, but it sounded a bit too medieval to me.

Furthermore, the political power evangelicals hold in this country has truly begun to distress me more than anything else. They certainly want nothing less than to destroy the US Constitution and make the US a "Christian Nation" ruled through Biblical law. I want nothing to do with a theocracy, and it worries me to see the dangerous turn my country has taken under the Bush presidency. All told, these revelations in religion destroyed my belief that Christians are really about good. What they really want is power for themselves. I was never much of a believer in the first place, but I could not stand listening to their hateful, ignorant garbarge anymore. Without remorse, I turned my back on Christianity.

However, I still felt the need to believe in something, but I struggled to find a religion that suited my rationally grounded worldview. Then I found a clip from The Root of All Evil? on YouTube in the wake of the Ted Haggard scandal (I went that church once
with a friend and saw Haggard speak. I thought he was creepy then). It eventually led me to your book The God Delusion where I found I didn't need religion. It has given me a whole new perspective on the world that makes sense, and for that, I thank you. Luckily,
my family is not religious, so I won't have any problems telling them I'm atheist. I
might lose a couple of friends, but then I guess they weren't really friends, anyway.

Finally, I think you're doing a great service to humanity, and I want to encourage you to keep it up. Hopefully, we can all use the reach of the internet to work together and help those who are shunned by their supposed loved ones for becoming atheists. In the end, maybe we can show just how much more moral we can be without any ancient writings ruling our lives.

Respectfully,
Justin Logan

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I hadn't realised until recently that I have always been an Atheist by
choice. And I was very lucky because I did have a choice. My Mum is Church of England to the point of stereotype. My Father, who passed away when I was 17, was completely a-religious. Looking back he was an atheist but I can never remember him telling me this directly. He never stopped me going to church with my mum but he never came along as well. I recall with great affection the long post-church chats I used to have with my father about the world and the way he viewed it. An unusual and fortuitous balance.

I was baptised as a baby, I don't remember it of course, but I'm told I howled and cried so loudly my sister had to take me outside, obviously my soul r