Converts' Corner

Sept 18th 2007 - Richard Dawkins writes: I just received, through the British Humanist Association, the following appeal from Isobel Cook of Channel Four. If any of our readers would like to share their story of how they escaped from religion, please contact Isobel Cook directly, at the e-mail address given.

Richard

I'm a television director developing a documentary for Channel 4. The programme will follow one or more people as they take the brave step of leaving their religion. I'm keen to talk to people who've been through or are going through this difficult process. It would be a very sensitive programme - led by the people who take part - and will, I hope, not only help those involved but be an inspiration to others going through 'deconversion'. I would really like to hear your story. Please be assured that you will be contacting me in complete confidence and by doing so you will in no way be committing yourself to take part in the programme. Please contact me at leavingmyreligion@yahoo.co.uk.

Isobel Cook

“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

51

Hi Richard,

I had finished reading your book "The God Delusion" earlier this year having seen your appearance on "The Panel" on Irish TV. I have picked up the book for a second time and I am in the process of reading it again. Only this time I am armed with a dictionary and some marking tape. The book has opened my eyes to the "Delusion" that I have been under all my life with Roman Catholism. It has spurned me on to watching your many debates, TV appearances, presentations and interviews on the internet. I have also joined your Web Site where I saw an interesting submission by Isobel Cook.

I have passed on my story to Isobel in the hope that she may have an interest in highlighting my conversion from RC to Atheism because of your book, on her TV Programme.

Thank you Richard. (There was a time where I would have thrown in a "An God Bless you too" but I think I'll leave that out.

Warm regards,

Micheál

52

For many years I was a victim of religious child abuse without realizing and it took me a long time to be able to escape from the psychological terrorism of the catholic church.

Now a days I'm an animation filmmaker and visual storyteller, recently I started to work on a little personal project about overcoming the fear of hell. It evolved into a sweet non-religious book about tolerance and more than anything it helped me heal some scars from my childhood days.

I thought I would keep that little project to myself but all that changed after reading "the God Delusion". The moment I read the chapter on child abuse I became determined to share the little fable to the world. The book is "I'm not a little Devil", part of what I hope will become a storytelling movement that explores the negative consequences that religion has on young kids. So far the response has been very positive, I wanted to thank you guys to inspire me to put this tale out to the world and I hope you help me spread the word of it. A future world with no religion is in the hands of children, I definitely hope this book contributes to that change.
Rodrigo
www.nodevils.com

53

Dr. Dawkins,

Your goal in writing The God Delusion was to persuade people who are on the fence to become Atheists. I can assure you that you have succeeded in doing so. I was one of those people who was unsure of my position and afraid to voice my opinion. Raised in a Catholic family, I kept my views and opinions to myself for fear that I would not be able to clearly and successfully explain myself if challenged. Your book, as well as your various interviews and documentaries, have given me the clear, irrefutable evidence to confidently and proudly call myself an Atheist. With a degree in Biology, your arguments against religion in terms of Darwinian evolution make complete and total sense to me. Thank you for all that you have done as a defender of science and a challenger to religion.

Shannon

54

As a child growing in a christian home, going to a christian church, and forced to go to a christian school I considered myself a "Christian". I was told that the reason God existed was because of "miracles" like the body, the sun or whatever. Even as a child I was always rebellious of my upbringing and questioned religion, I didn't consider the body as an evidence of God.. The body has a reasonable logical explanation for how it works. When I was in 7th grade, during science class (I was still and am in christian school) my teacher told us to wright why we believed in creation over evolution. In mine I said that God was cruel and thinks murder is fine if you do it as a flood, and that natural process is an answer of life and has all the evidence while creation has no evidence. My grade on that paper was a 20%, I had to visit the principles office, I had to spend lunches with the teachers and my mom was so embarrassed of me.

At the age of 14 I was in 8th grade and I was told for bible class to wright my testimony. I confronted my teacher and asked in a nice tone "I think I am having problems with my faith and am going through a rough time and the testimony I right will probably not be from a 100% christian standpoint". He replied "well that will effect your grade". I wrote basically what I believed, that creation has no evidence and it does not deserve to be believed in, this of course was the "what you believe in" section considering it was a life "testimony".

I decided that I never believed in Christianity and think that it was cruel for my mom to make me, it was damaging and took me years to get it out of my disease. Religion is a virus and Christians goal is to prolong the virus as long as possible till you have no logic.

55

Richard,

Hello...I was raised next door to an Anglican church in Barbados. I went to church every week; I even attended the other events at church. My whole family are very religious to the core. My wife of 15 years is/ was very religious. I guess I was too. I would read the bible daily and would also read many so-called writing by theologians. Some of the events and stories just did not make sense...I mean they just started to seem imagined. Then one day when I started asking myself some questions: Could men have made up these stories? Would a god kill and have others kill in his name? Would a god that is no respect of person; choose a favorite people? Would a loving god give a doctrine that have so many interpretations? Does a god have to communicate to people through a book? Could there have been a virgin birth? Would god want you to leave your family? Would a loving god sentence anyone to eternal flames? Why would most of the great men of god be some of the worst people? There are many more but you get the point. Then I started to look at the manifestation of the belief on the body of believers. That literally scared me because what I saw was a false belief. I saw that they did not truly did not believe what they said they believed. The Muslims are willing to die for what they believe...are Christians? When I look at the history of religion and it's leaders...I see myopic, misogynistic, ego driven hypocrites and even murderers. This is in the old church as well as the new world order of churches. The breaking point for me was the hearing from god ruse. In the Hebrew text many prophets heard from god about talking land and killing in his name. Even in the Greek text it speaks of wars and killing in god's name also. Are there two separate gods? one good and one bad? I heard people say god told me to build a church, he told me to gather the people, he told me to preach this sermon, he even told me what do buy...the same as the people of the Hebrew text. There was a guy recently the cut his right arm off and said, "god told him to do it." Many people came out and said he was crazy. What makes what he did any different than the other believers that hear from god? In my opinion--nothing! So in conclusion, it has been a process...a learning process. I think Abe Lincoln had it right when he said, "It will not do to investigate the subject of religion too closely, as it is apt to lead to infidelity." I did such and that's where it led, but I am now living life to the fullest not expecting another. Valuing my family, my friends, and all things around me. Not saying that I could not do this before but now my family is most important.

56

Dear Professor Dawkins,

I wanted to write to you to express my gratitude for clearly explaining and laying out the arguments against religion and for atheism. I was raised Roman Catholic, became an Evangelical Christian, have many friends of both religions, and a few Mormons too. Over the years, I've teetered between strong faith and a sort of disillusionment with religions, in general. I felt guilty for many things more often than I could ever hope to count, because of their 'sinful' nature. I've also had experiences where I've convinced myself that I truly felt a sort of supernatural presence. However, even at those times, I was skeptical of the sincerity of those experiences. I also wondered if I was the only person with those sort of doubts. One of the biggest hurdles that prevented me from leaving religion openly was a distaste of the evolutionary theory, probably from a basic misunderstanding of its nature. Combining with what I have studied of the sciences, your writings on evolution have helped me to understand how small mutations, repeated over geological scales of time, can lead to the world we live in today. I understand that these ideas aren't all your own. However, you have cast a light upon them that I am truly grateful for. With the understanding that you've surely heard many stories more compelling than my own, I will conclude my thoughts. Again, I wanted to say thank you for showing me the merits of 'deconversion.'

-Best wishes,

-Brian Roche (Burnsville, MN, USA)

57

Dear Professor Dawkins,

I was not converted by "The God Delusion", but I was radicalized!

I have been privileged enough to enjoy 53 years of what Jonathan Miller once called "thoughtless disbelief". What a luxury it has been. For most of my life the belief or disbelief in God never really mattered.

All that changed with 9/11. Like you, I am starting to realize the value of what I have, and that it might be under threat.

Thanks for the wake- up call.

Richard Oakes

58

Dear Mr. Dawkins
I'm 15 years old and i as well as many others consider myself a convert. I was brought up Christian but not as harshly as many others so i guess my childhood indoctrination was unsuccessful.I have read your book "The God Delusion" and loved every word of it. I am a firm believer that evolution is the only theory that can explain why we are here. I'm glad i was set free from the vice of religion by your book. Thank you Mr. Dawkins for all you have done.

Adam
Dillon Colorado

59

Dear Mr. Dawkins,
Just wanted to tell you that I never really believed in any of the religious crap that was fed to me. I was raised catholic in a small New England town and went through the whole rigor-moral (baptism as a baby, first communion at 7, and finally confirmation at 16), but I knew from an extremely early age that it was all a crock. Anytime I would vocalize my disbelief I would be screamed at and squelched....but I knew what was real.

It's partly why I became a scientist and engineer.

Thank you (and Mr. Darwin) for ALL of your literature and insights. I have read most of your books and have watched many of your videos.

Take care, and long life to you...and remember, no death-bed conversions! :-)

Tom E.

60

Dear Dr. Dawkins,
I am a teenager that was raised a Christian. At first I, like many, was taught that God created everything in six days, however when I was eight year old I did some amount of research and determined such beliefs to be stupid and ignorant not only on an evidence based front, but also in the realm of Christian theology. After several years, I had a teacher who claimed to teach biology, but taught ideas proven false often times hundreds of times before. On many of his points I delivered articles to him proving his position to be ludicrous. Prior to these events, I had heard of you and read several clippings of your works, but not many times. Shortly after the class ended I remembered a section of The Selfish Gene that I had read, and decided to read the book. Your book and the theory within fixed for me the few problems I had previously had with evolution and left me with no use for a god of any sort. I wish to thank you greatly for this as even in the few months I have been free of religion I have felt better with regards to my life, lived more morally, and have gained a much greater understanding of a great many subjects. Once again I wish to thank you so much for freeing me of what was my greatest hindrance.

--
Thank you,
E. Brown

61

Hi, you guys from Convert's Corner.
I just wanted to express how grateful I am for having read (some of) Dawkins' books, which kinda gave me the starting thoughts to get rid of religion (and any other superstitions or magical beliefs). In fact, I first thought about the non-existence of god when I was about ten years old, but my family's really deep into the Catholic church and all, so i was scared to "leave" that world, but then, I got this magazine with the cover like "Has Science killed God?" or something like that. I thought it was interesting, so I picked it up and started reading. I found it really interesting and got interested in all this atheism stuff. At the end there were some atheist book reviews, and between them, The God Delusion and some from Sam Harris. So i went to the book shop and bought The God Delusion. Having read it, I'm now proud to say im a proud atheist. At the beginning, I was mostly interested in reading about how irrational religion is, and about how I don't need it for anything in my life. But then I got interested in the darwinian evolution, like, its accuracy to describe how logically the whole process happened (and happens), and stuff like that. I know i really don't describe how this all happened very well, but i just wanted to say thanks for helping me live my life in a full, productive way.
Carlos, from Brazil.

62

I am a fifteen year old from middle Tennessee and live in the so called,'bible belt'. My dads a conservative christian and my mom who lives in Arizona is agnostic. Ever since I was three I would love to watch shows on animals and other biological phonemons that are clearly examined on this earth. So last October(2008) while visiting my mom we decided to go see Bill Mahers excellent film 'Religulous'. I was was blown away and realized my hell fearing christian stance was irrational and just flat out ridiculous. I was an agnostic for four months. Within that period of time I decided to buy your book Mr. Dawkins after hearing some interesting things about you and your clever arguments against the likelihood of a god(s). So I picked up a copy of your book from our local Borders in Franklin, TN. I found the length of the book to be a bit overwhelming but once I read the first sentence I was hooked. I'm very heavily into evolution and know probably an equal amount to biologist if not more or less depending on the individual. But after reading your book I bought Hitchens book,''god is not great'' which I'm sure you've read but I cannot be fully sure and enjoyed just as much. Then I bought Hitchens anthology of Atheistic and Agnostic texts called,'' The portable atheist.'' To me it's like a Christian devotional without all the ridiculous claims and outrageous uncertainities they offer. I am a devout Atheist at a 6 so not 100% devout but it's all good. Mr. Dawkins you and many other insationable intellectuals have opened my mind and allowed to ecscape the box of religion and has officiallymade me a critical thinker. Thank you Mr. Dawkins and I look forward too hearing and seeing more of your lectures and digging deeper into your book collection. Also you and Krauss were fantastic in Arizona last March.

- From Chris Thomas
A defender of science and the essential importance of intellect

63

To be fair I was already an agnostic by the time I read "The God Delusion" by
Richard Dawkins. Growing up in an orthodox, Jewish family and reading the
psychotic, vile ravings present in the Old Testament was more than enough to
turn me away from religion. Not to mention that I was disallowed from leaving
my home, using electricity, or socially interacting with other kids from Friday
night until Saturday night due to restrictions placed by the Sabbath.

When I began reading "The God Delusion" I was a fervent agnostic, believing that
atheism was just as radical as a belief in god. Dawkins effectively slashed such
an ideology and eloquently argued that a belief in god is equivalent to a belief
in magic or unicorns. There is an equal amount of evidence for any of these
things. Generally speaking, if there's no evidence for something, why bother
believing in it? Why bother even supporting that belief?

I realize now that I was so adamant about being agnostic because I feared how my
strict, Jewish side of my family would react if I told them I didn't believe in
god. In Judaism, few things are considered worse than denying god's existence.
I can now happily say that my family is quite aware of my atheism and there
have been no negative repercussions as a result of it.

Thanks for all your hard work,
Adiv

64

I am a student of Science who found himself distancing from Religion around the same time that I began to study Darwinism and Science in general. I have been a victim of Religious "Child Abuse," as some call it. I was unwillingly placed in a religious school and was beaten by my father when I tried to argue a case of the purpose of creation with him. Over time I have lost my father as he has disowned me in a way. I feel he is completely justified to do so based on his religious beliefs-because thats what it teaches. Moreover I feel that this abuse has ramifications that linger on inside of me and has scarred me almost permanently. I feel my talents and full potential has been curtailed by Religious upbringing and I feel regretful I was ever born to parents that were so brainwashed. In fact I don't blame my father as much for his religious beliefs as I do for his lack of seeking enlightenment after being given a chance to come to this great country where he could pursue such an activity. How does one deal with the effects of abuse after they have escaped from it? I would also like to add that when it comes to judging or commenting on a peoples for holding particular notions, it is important to keep in mind the importance of judging people individually as units responsible for their actions given their background and understanding at the time. We cannot blame our ancestor for worshiping a spring which gave him water rather than trying to figure out that spring actually comes from a lake a little further up the cliff face. With this, what im implying is that the notion that we should reject all religions because their "logic" doesn't make sense to us now is unscientific. What science tells us is not that there cannot be a god but rather that the universe is so complicated that ANYTHING is possible (multiple universes for example). I guess the ultimate "proof" of these "dead religions," as i like to call them, was given to the peoples at the time and we shall never know it. But then again, in Islam at least, I do understand that the generations of latter times (including us) as the prophet reffed to them would not be as responsible as generation one. Studying the life story of the "prophets" in their contextual, historical background in some books does make sense to me. Finally, the figure in all of this i blame most is GOD. Why is he playing hide-and-seek with humans about events which might have grave consequences for the unbelievers, namely, life after death and I guess until science can answer this question no one will be ready to reject their religion.

65

Dear Professor Dawkins,

As a young child and into my early teen years, I was a Roman Catholic. I was baptized, went to church, went to Sunday school, prayed, believed fervently. However, when my older brother died in a tragic accident, my faith began to wane. I would pray to God and ask him why he took my beloved brother, but he would never answer. Eventually I stopped going to church and my belief became a flat neutral. I didn't believe, I didn't not believe. Then I decided to open "The Origin of Species" by Charles Darwin, and needless to say the book and the Theory have changed my life forever. I was an Atheist everafter, including years before I picked up The God Delusion. However, I wasn't "really" an Atheist until I read The God Delusion. Now I am able to interpret Darwin's brilliant Theory as nothing other than fact, there is no question in my mind and hopefully some day the majority of the population of the World won't have a doubt about the veracity of Evolution, either.

I know now that Religion is something the World does not need to function. Without it, everything we currently enjoy in this World would be improved, and things we have been deterred and blocked from by Religion (such as stem cell research and free thought) will be allowed and advanced for the betterment of Mankind. I felt a sense of fulfillment which I have never experienced before when I put down The God Delusion. For the first time, I was able to realize that the tragedy in my life, and all the tragedies or successes of me or anyone else...were not the results of Divinity or Divine Providence. Some of these events we cause ourselves (for which we should rightly take responsibility other than ask forgiveness to a Deity), and some of them simply happen by chance or circumstance. A world that is defined by hope and faith in the Scientific truth, rather than the fairy tales, legends, dogma, and complete obserdity of Religion...is a world I would truly love to live in.

I believe The God Delusion, Letter To A Christian Nation, Why God Is Not Great, The End of Faith, and many other such books...are the spark of an intellectual revolution. Until I found the wisdom and Science of your works and Darwin's elegant and wonderous Theory of Evolution...all I could do is cope with a God who seemed to ignore me all my life. For any success I would acheive, and for any suffering I would endure...the Lord was never there. I find it ironic that Religion, which can suck so much money and time out of an individual...offers no real consolation whatsoever. The parallel to that being Science, which asks no money of you and offers the deepest explanation and satisfaction an individual could ever ask for. This book proved to me that the alternative to the money-hungry, ruthless, powerful, and controlled-thinking establishment of Religion, where your only option is to weep and hope and beg to a God who will never answer or console or comfort you...is a Scientific truth more beautiful than anything any human mind, or any other mind for that matter...could ever possibly appreciate enough. I am proud to say I am an Atheist today. I can't thank you enough, Professor Dawkins.

Sincerely,

Ethan Hawthorne

66

I am 23 years old and I began the process of de-conversion many years ago. I grew up in an all-mormon family when my parents converted when I was about 4. I believed it without question until my late teenage years. I began to have nagging doubts but I was afraid to research these leaps in logic that religion made for fear that I would become an "apostate". I was weighed down by immeasurable guilt that I could not believe in the Church and I prayed earnestly but unsuccessfully for God to strengthen my testimony. At the age of 18 when most Mormon men go on a 2 year mission I instead joined the US Marine Corps shortly after the Iraq invasion began. I found it easier for me to go to war than to spread the word I had long doubted. I mostly just ignored religion during my 4-year stint and I discovered just how untrue the statement "There are no atheists in foxholes" was. Generally the feeling was that we were pawns in some religious conflict, when George W Bush told Palestinian leaders that "God told me to go to war with Iraq", that just exasperated the feeling.

Once I got out of the Marine Corps in 2008 I began to really sink my teeth into atheist literature. My first books were "The God Delusion" and "Atheist Universe" (by David Mills). I found out how indefensible religion really was, particularly Mormonism. When I presented these things to my Ward Bishop and my father they waved them off as "Short-comings of man" and that the true "Word of God" was perfect and I would come around if I just prayed sincerely enough. I was unconvinced.

The Christmas of 2008 was an uncomfortable one for me. I received a pamphlet called "Faith of a Scientist" by a Mormon Chemist who made the argument that science was perfectly compatible with Mormonism, despite the fact the an article of faith (The basic beliefs of the LDS Church) stated that "we believe in the literal translation of the Bible". How a talking snake and donkey and a girlfriend made from a rib is compatible with science, I don't know. I also received the documentary "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed". I had not heard of the documentary before and I had previously held Ben Stein in high regard as an actor (I didn't know he was a Nixon apologist until much later). I was so insulted by the assertions that the documentary was making that I walked out after Stein was making the claim that without God there are no morals. At this point be had already claimed that Nazis were Darwinists and atheists are Communists. Needless to say I left these items at their house, they were insulting to me.

Just as when I was a teenager the more they pressed religion on me the more I rebelled. I ordered "God: The Failed Hypothesis" by Victor Stenger, "Why I became an Atheist" by John Loftus, "Godless: A Former Preacher Rejects Christianity" by Dan Barker and of course the must-read "Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster" by Bobby Henderson. I have also read "The Universe in a Single Atom" by the Dalai Lama, he takes subtle stabs at the idea of a "First Cause" and an omnipotent creator, but only passingly. I assume because he doesn't want to be controversial.

A few hours ago I sent in my resignation letter to the LDS Church Membership Department. I understand the process takes at least several weeks and the Church is famous for making it extremely difficult to have your name removed, but I am committed to being officially off their record.

I remain hopeful, but doubtful that my family will come around. I think if they read a single book that I have read on athiesm that it would be enough to de-convert them. But I understand that that is why they don't. Ever since I left religion behind me I have felt a huge burden lifted. It is not (as the LDS Church would describe it) some hedonistic, guilty or selfish pleasure. It is one of the most liberating feelings I have ever felt. So I thank you, luminaries of the "New Atheist" movement, for saving me from becoming a thrall of their system.

Sincerely,

Adrian Dutkiewicz
Connecticut, USA

67

I am 15 years old, like many children I was brought up to believe in a religion. My parents were bought up as Catholics so I was bought up as a Catholic, but from early on I saw holes in the religion, was not Hinduism as true for a Hindu and Catholicism was true for me? What made my religion right? There had to be a universal truth for everyone.
At age 12 I talked to my dad about my quires and to my surprise he told me he didn't believe in a god. He had bought me up as a Catholic but he himself didn't believe it, this puzzled me a bit. We talked a lot about philosophy and science over the next few years and he told me about the book 'The God Delusion' and i read it. It was a major turning point in my life to read it and to get confirmation that I didn't have to believe and that the world was so much more beautiful without a god totally changed my thinking of the world and life.
I now consider myself an atheist and appreciate rational thinking instead of far fetched dogma.

Adam Furka

68

Dear Richard Dawkins,



I recently read "The God Delusion", and loved it, though I wish I found it sooner in life. It was only a few years ago that I clawed out of Mormonism and the closet without the aid of strong logical reasoning. Having been raised to make decisions based on the "spirit" and not my intellect, I am finally learning to think logically. Your books and videos have been helping me do just that, and I am very grateful. Life finally has clarity and meaning and infinite beauty.



Troy, 21, Idaho/Utah

69

Dear Professor Dawkins,
I am 19 years old, and this is my story. I was born into a family of moderate Muslims but at the age of 16; something very odd happend. I had just woken up one day and I was stricken by laughter of "life after death". Due to my age, I was very curious about philosophy and politics. National-socialism, Fascism and Communism were the subjects that I found most interesting. They have such a strong impact on modern day society, so i wanted to read more. As more deeper i studied fascism, the similarities between religion were reaching each other so much more.
- The almighty leadership
- The Prioritizing of People and Race(The national people = believers) (the inferior people= infields)
- How the leader is all loving, yet such a cruel being to others.
- Punishments, Cruelty, War and so on.
I wound call myself an Atheist. Because the word atheist means you dont believe in god; and yet there are hundreds of religions without any type of gods. Politics is where i find all logic. Even thou I've embraced evolution as the source of life and earth, it still isn't a philosophy on how to live your life. Politics fills that hole, and Socialism is that filler for me.

But back to the Life after death thingy. The thought that if you don't obey this almighty mans order, will lead you into hell; Is just plain stupid and goofy. As being a teenager and how rebellion is in my nature.
What's wrong with hell?
- Eternal Torture? Nope.... Spending time with Mormons and dinner with Jesus sounds like eternal torture to me.
- Fire? I've always rather much liked the heat and sun.
- The cruel people there? I'm still pretty much a young lad, pornstars and famous rockstars are kinda like my idols for the moment. It would be an honor to meet them..... You can't forget the vikings, ancient Persians, ancient Greeks, Aztecs, huns, Nazis, Romans and many more wonderful and ancient cultures will be there, why miss out on a chance to meet all these amazing groups.

I am sure I'll met all my friends and family in hell, so why would i go to heaven? It would be like a cocktail party, but you dont know anyone there.

Blasphemy is a sin, committed everyday and by everyone without most people even noticing, and its a unforgivable sin, so that's why i assume everyone i know is there.

I really dont have a reason why religion seems so stupid to me, It just does. If i would make a list of "the worst things society has ever seen" Religion would win so damn bad. Much worse, than national-socialism, AIDS/HIV, POP-music and commercialism.


I would like to apologize in advance, for my post. I do realise it isn't really a good post but i could sum up why i dont believe with only 6 words ;"because I've got a brain"


Goodbye, sincerely A.N

70

Hi. My name is Brian and I'm 24 years old.

I was a Christian until I was 22, when I started calling myself an agnostic. My mother was a very devout Christian and raised me as a fundamentalist. I went to church every Sunday, spent a lot of time with youth groups, went to a lot of retreats, etc. Christ was a huge part of my life. At that time, life without him was inconceivable for me.

I always had doubts, though. Even when my faith was at its strongest when I was 20 and 21, there were aspects of my religion that bugged me. I'm a rational thinker (something I get from my father, who is and always has been an atheist), which often made believing the Bible difficult. I rejected the theory of evolution despite understanding it and seeing its validity, simply because it didn't fit in with my worldview. The Bible says God created the world in seven days, so that's what happened.

Well, I started skipping church once my mom stopped making me go. I still read my Bible and tried to keep my faith, but it was falling apart. Then my mom died. As sad as it was, it freed my mind more than anything ever had in my life. I realized my religion revolved around my mother more than it did God. But I still wasn't ready to make a ruling on whether or not God existed.

In March, I started going to YouTube a lot and found TheAmazingAtheist's channel pretty quickly. I instantly liked the guy, both for his wit and his logic. After watching a few of his videos in which he challenged Christians and refuted their arguments, I came to the conclusion that God isn't necessary for life, and, therefore, not necessary at all.

Now, I'm 100% atheist and humanist. I believe in humanity, not God

71

It is only now i realise i am not so alone in my views on theism. My loss of beleif came very early as my indoctrination of islam began so early. From the age of 4 at the same time i began school i was made to attend a mosque, the ritual of which was to go to school then to go home, change clothes and go to mosque for 3 hours every weeekday and 2.5 hours every weekend. I as most children beleived everything i was told. "One should behave and not question islam to be even better thought of ", was told to me by my mother and father in the vaguest sense whenever my siblings and I had a question. I carried this with me thinking my ignorance made me a better and more pious muslim. Even at the tender age of 6 I wondered what i was reading as I had started with a 'Qaidda' which is the starting point by which you learn the arabic alphabet onto the progressing books before finally reading the Quran. At that point the many many hours I had spent kneeling on the floor rocking my head as I read this book that was still alien to me even though I had read it 5 times by the time I was 8. I stopped reading and just looked around to see everyone elese around me and thought none of these actually know what they are reading. As far as i could tell there wasn't a single arabic or middle eastern child in the room. So who actually new what was being read? Did the mullah know what we were reading? All he was concerned with was that he got paid by every child weekly for attendance of the mosque. The only guidance was that you read the scriptures beautifully otherwise you got the cord. The cord was a means of issuing discipline as well as being made to squat with your arms placed behind and under your legs so you could hold your own ears for a period of an hour at a time. At least that as what it felt like.

I began to grumble more often about having to go mosque and would find ways to avoid having to go, all of which were futile as wherever I went or hid I was found and sent on my way. During this period it had now become part of our routine to read the Quran at home every sunday. Sundays' were designated for what my father would call reading and writing time. This i enjoyed as from the age of 3 I was tought to read, write and basic arithmetic from thereon I had progressed on my own with the help of my local library which at that time was a 5 minute walk away.

It must be that I had the luxury of having a taste of real education that I soon just went to mosqu to maintain the statusquo and the futility of trying to avoid it. I realised that the mullah didn't have much of an education or even that of an understanding of what he was preaching as it wast most improbable for a southern-asian man to actually be capable of understanding arabic, as this is not his first, second or even third language. The same could be said for my parents and millions of others.

I tried to rebel and speak to others of my newfound discovery whenever I then had to go mosque. I would sit quitely as usuall and try to speak to other children next to me. As my siblings were older they went to the upper rooms of the mosque to actually learn to pray. By means of repetition and copying the man infront of you, while the imam prays out aloud. I said to another boy next to me that I could get to the end of the Quran before he does. He returned a bemused look so I just turned my book over to the end and said "finished". The boy said "you'll get GANNA for that". Ganna refers to the wrath of god. I told him," there isn't a god". I was excited with myself as i had never had the courage to say what I had felt deeply for quite a while. It was more exciting to have said it at the mosque where I new I would probably be beaten for having said what I did. The boy went quite and didn't speak to me I had thought that if he realised aswell that we might become friends who could secretely talk to each other in the mosque.

When I returned to Hanley St Lukes Primary School the next day I couldn't wait to tell my friends what I had realised. this revelation soon reached other asian children. I was greeted by one with a mix of curiosity and contempt, I had might aswell had two heads for the way they looked at me. I soon realised that not everybody would come to the same realisation as me that nobody is watching us. I knew nothing of the big bang theory at the time I just new that some block can't be everywhere and all knowing it just wasn't possible. As the years have gone by few things have changed I have always been treated with contempt by relatives and even my own family. It has caused me to become insular as i have been ostracised more so since i was 15 as i made it a far greater effort to try and educate myself and others around me. I was rather proud that even at the age of 9 i was calling myself a non-beleiver.

As i had no faith i was treated like I was not capable of human feeling such as morality and ethics. All i could say was in then end the maggots will eat you and I and there's nothing anyone can do about it. I have become an altruistic person perhaps as a result of being laballed incapable of morality. I enjoy helping others, giving regularly to charity and baking cakes for friends. I have found that i am incapable of lying as guilt sets in and i have to confess to any such lies. Aswell as not being able to take advantage of another person in life. I am a carpenter and joiner now and even though I have been made redundant and am struggling to get by i am as happy as I have ever been.

I have always thought that I was a minority in my thinking that there is always a rational and logical explanation for what happens in the world and turned away from superstition and ignorance. Until know my only way of rebelling was to fill in atheist in application forms and to always disprove those who beleive in an all powerful being. This has cost me dearly interms of the enforced isolation from my own family, it is only now i have been in contact with them after 4 years. I have come to accept them the way they are and we do not speak of faith at all.

I have just ordered a number of books including those of Richard Dawkins. Having found this site i feel more hopeful for the future and slightly less alone in my views of a better world without ignorances, prejudices and bigotry.

72

Dear Dr. Richard Dawkins

I am a closet atheist. I am 22 years old and am the son of a (now former) Baptist Preacher. For as long as I can remember my family and I have been going to fundamentalist Baptist churches. I was "saved" at the age of 8 when I went forward after a long sermon on "Hell" and talked to the pastor and told him that I wanted to go to heaven. My parents divorced when i was 10 and my mom got custody of my two brothers and I. My mom re-married and we were then pulled out of public school and placed in a private fundamentalist christian school. This school, being Christian fundamentalist, doesn't teach students about evolution. Instead, you are taught creationism as the basis for all science, and the only things you are taught about evolution is the "holes" and "inconsistencies" within the theory.

At the age of 13, after another sermon on the "end times" and "hell", I was "saved" again. After my first conversion, I never felt as though I was really saved. They teach you that after you are "saved" your life transforms and you want to do all these good things for God. That you will want to worship him and read the Bible and share the gospel with others. Months after this though, i still never felt that i was really saved. I didn't feel my life "transform", i never felt that God heard my prayers because most of them never seemed to come true. They teach you that God only hears and answers prayers from those who are sinless. So in order for God to hear your prayer, you had to confess all of your sins from the last time you prayed, and then ask for gods help. Still after all of this, i never felt that i was really saved. I think from the age of 8 until a couple of years ago I must have literally prayed to God to be saved at least 30 times.

My dad had gotten custody of us when i was 15 or so, because my stepdad was suffering from PTSD as a vietnam war vet and physically and verbally abused us and his own children. My own life seemed to be spiraling downward each year and to top it off, the pastor of my dads church decided that i was (to make a long story short) a very attractive young boy. He is now in jail. During high school i thought I might be depressed. Whenever i looked up my symptoms online, I always came to that conclusion. My church/school however, taught us that if we had emotional problems, it was because we weren't close enough to God. So i would pray constantly for God to help me overcome my depression/anxieties, but nothing ever seemed to happen. When turned 21, I started to doubt whether i was even supposed to be saved. I had heard that, in some sects of Christianity, God has a list of people who are predisposed to salvation and some who are doomed to hell. I started to feel as though i was doomed to go to hell.

It wasn't until i went to Iraq (oddly enough) that i met a friend who used to be a christian. He told me how he used to go to church, but now he's an atheist, and how he came to those conclusions. My time in Iraq was a sort of "awakening" for me. I started to question everything that I had believed in: from politics to religion. From there I then went to your website forum and was forwarded to watch a series of YouTube videos. I am now an anthropology major in college, I'm currently reading The God Delusion, educating myself on evolution, and seeing a psychiatrist for my depression and anxiety. I love seeing all of the inconsistencies of the bible be brought to light and to see religion eviscerated. Unfortunately, my ENTIRE family is still christian and I don't dare come out as an Atheist. I would never hear the end of it! My dad is now the president of a christian motorcycle club and goes around guest-preaching at random churches. There will probably be a time in the future when i will come out, but for right now my facebook profile has me listed as "Ateapostist" :-D.

Of the "Four Horsemen" you are definitely my most favorite! Thank you for all that you do, and thank you bringing reason to those who so desperately seek it!

-Caleb F

73

Dr. Dawkins,

I am sure that my story is similar to many that you have read recently. I was raised in a Christian home. We went to church weekly, skipping once in a while. I didn't even think to question it until I was in college. When I got to college, my world view expanded in ways I never imagined. I got involved in the campus ministry, but dropped out quickly. Part of that was due to the beliefs they had and some of it was that my own beliefs had been shaken. I tried out Wicca for a couple years. What happened next was the turning point in my life.

I became fed up with Wicca, and decided to go back to Christianity. I didn't go back to the same church in which I was raised (United Methodist). I went to the Pentecostal Church in my home town. I got caught up in all of it and didn't examine their beliefs and practices as much as I should have. I paid the price in years. After one of the services (which on Sunday ran at least two hours) I was in a group discussion with a few members. One of them was asking about certain things in the Bible that he was worried were contradictory. Given that the church taught that the Bible was God's word handed down, inspired and infallible, this was no small worry. I noted a few of the things he said, and rather than try to comfort him and reassure him that his questions could be answered, I said to him, "you think that's bad?" and then rattled off two or three things in the Bible that were a lot harder to dismiss as trivial. The other person in the little group said to me, "You need to stop using your mind so much. Your intelligence is a weakness!" I couldn't believe it. I had always been praised in school for my intelligence and all of the sudden it had been declared a weakness.

I left that church shortly thereafter. I went back to the church of my youth, but I knew that what they were teaching was not at all based on the Bible. This troubled me a great deal. I went more for social reasons than to learn. I spent the next several years just going through the motions. I did have and ethics professor who influenced my thinking a great deal declare openly that he was agnostic. I thought he was brave, if nothing else, to do so.

I went through a really rough time in my life the last year. I'm not going to get into too many details, because they don't matter. What does matter is that during this time, I read the Bible a lot. I talked to people about it a lot. What I discovered was that, even though we were all reading from the same book, we were all getting much different (mutually exclusive) answers from it.

Fast forward to January of this year. I was still recovering from my nightmare. I decided to go to school again. I took another ethics class. For an introductory project, the professor wanted each of us to explain from where we got our ethics. Without thinking, I immediately thought of the Bible. However, the more I thought it over, the less I found this to be true. When I wrote the paper, the fact that I did not get my ethics from the Bible was the first thing I said.

I got into facebook while I was in Iraq, and since then have made some good friends. Some of them are atheists. One of them in particular told me (after a rather intense but friendly debate) that she could not understand how I could be so intelligent and maintain a belief in God, let alone Christianity.

I started going to Bible study again and ran into the same issues I had before. They wanted more of my time than I could give. It was never good enough. I became irritated and slowly withdrew. (The fact that this was Stanley Cup Finals time and I am an avid hockey fan had something to do with me not attending also). I began to discuss atheism with some more of my friends, including the one I mentioned earlier. She told me I should get a copy of The God Delusion and read it so I could make up my own mind.

I finished the book in less than a week. I couldn't put it down. I read it at work. I read it at the gym. The night I finished it, I was up until 2am reading. It was amazing. It was logical and rational. It answered any and all objections I had to the atheist point of view. The way in which arguments I had used for years were dealt with was nothing short of brilliant. Sara (my friend) asked me if I knew about Plato's cave analogy. I own a copy of Republic. I love the cave analogy. Dr. Butler introduced me to it years ago.

So, here I was. I had read the book, and had concluded that there was no reason for a belief in god. This goes so much deeper than I could possibly convey to you. The section about the idea of god being passed down through the parents as a biproduct of an otherwise healthy mechanism was spot on. My eyes were open. I was looking outside the cave.

I can not tell my parents. That is the only hard part. Reading that book was a huge event in my life. It made things so much clearer for me. I was initially angry at having been lied to, but I got over it. My parents are here for the holiday. I haven't said anything to them and I don't intend to yet. It frightens me a hundred more times than any fear of hell used to. My cousin came out as an atheist at his wedding. The news was not well-received. I feel so relieved not having religion in the way of learning and understanding the world. I'm happy that my mind is not a hindrance. This book has truly converted me. Some people could not believe that it happened this suddenly. I tell them that it was not at all sudden. It has really been something that I have wrestled with for years. The God Delusion was the final push, the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak.

Thank you for reading this. I appreciate the influence you have had in my life. I hope that one day I will be able to face my parents.

Sincerely,

Adam
The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return

74

Hello,

I am a ordained member of the clergy who has lost his faith. I do not believe in God anymore after 20 plus years in the ministry, yet I am in full-time ministry because I need the money and my whole life in wrapped up in the church. I remember reading in the article "Atheist in the Pulpit" that Richard Dawkins hoped to one day be able to offer "clergy-retraining scholarships" to retrain pastors who wanted out of ministry. Is there any such thing available and if so, how does one apply?

Even if not, I would like to open up dialog with Mr. Dawkins and others, to share my story as much as I can without jeopardizing my current position. I know there are no doubt many many others in my situation and I am interested in doing what I can to make a difference, even while still inside the church.

I am writing in pseudonym. If the writers of the book of Genesis can use Adam as the name of the first man, I can use it as well!

Sincerely,
Adam Mann

75

To Professor Dawkins,

When I was younger the "God question" really was unimportant to me, I guess I would have been agnostic at the time. But in my teenage years I really started to question my morals and the future consequences of my actions. I now realise that although my schools weren't overtly indoctrinating people, they had enough subtle religious motives to put this stuff into the back of your mind, so it constitutes the most part of the subconscious.

This was the motive behind my desperate search. The God question stopped being inconsequential and became the ultimate question above every other concern in my whole life. I simply had to know if God exists. And by God I do of course mean the God of the Bible, Yahweh (who I had wrongly thought was called Jehovah for years before you persistently referred to him as such, possibly because of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade – in Latin, Jehovah is spelt with an I!).

In any case, my method of inquiry was entirely scientific. I did A-levels in physics and chemistry, among other things, and at the time my philosophising search to answer the God question hit its fever pitch, I was at University studying degree chemistry. You may think then, that my answer was going to be a Darwinian version of atheism. Far from it, my knowledge of biology was lacklustre at best, and my thoughts were entirely focused on Einsteinian physics.

The point at which I converted to the Christian faith would be when I realised there was no contradiction between Einstein's Theory of Relativity, the universe being approximately 15 billion years old and the six days of creation. All my objections vanished at that moment, and I basked in the warm embrace of God's eternal love and the promise of salvation by accepting Jesus. And then all I needed to do was to find out how I should act on this new information.

So the most obvious thing would be to read the Bible, correct? Well yes, but in reading it I found myself having to come up with all kinds of absurd and irrelevant scientific post-rationales of how the miracles and other fantastic stories happened – like Jesus using a stream of gravitons to walk on water and an interpretation involving Hess' Law meant I believed the Noah's ark flood referred to the most recent ice age.

Belief in God was – for me – a moment by moment act of questioning myself and belief persisting only when I cannot find a fault of my reason for belief. I did hear about your book, The God Delusion. I found the title both offensive and provocative. It is true that I only had a dim idea of who you were at the time, and my preconceptions were based largely on my beliefs and my first impressions of the title.

I did however, like watching any TV shows related to science. And there was one in particular that would change my belief systems forever – The Genius of Charles Darwin. As a believer I bought the whole "evolution was guided by the hand of God" thing, but my respect for Darwin as a scientist was not diminished by that. As an unrelated side note, I also had a growing interest in novels, particularly the work of Douglas Adams. The connection is obvious.

The clincher came when I saw an interview between yourself and The Archbishop of Canterbury. Most of it was the usual religious debate between Creationism and Evolutionism, and how the Church of England is nonetheless willing to adopt Evolution so long as it doesn't interfere with the main religious tenets.

But then something was said that really rung true for me. I can't think of the exact dialogue, but it relates to the train of thought that if God created the universe then let Evolution happen, it could only follow that He never once interfered with the universe after the initial creation. However, this idea contradicts the resurrection of Jesus, which can only be counted as God interfering with the rules of the universe - that is, the rule that if you die, you stay dead.

At the moment you heard that argument and said that the interim argument (that is, God never interfered with the Evolution EXCEPT any Biblical example) was a cop out. That was the moment I realised it. I was right in the middle of an act of self-deception and double-think. The two precepts (God never interfered with Evolution/ God DID interfere with the universe) are mutually exclusive, and cannot be both believed at the same time. I must thank you deeply for this turning point in my life, but it wasn't exactly the end of it.



As a result of realising that the God of the Bible was one which I could no longer believe in, I became a deist. I didn't know it at the time. I thought my beliefs involving a non-interventional God were unique. I diplomatically satisfied my old theist side that I still held God to be my highest ideal. I just didn't believe many of the things that most theists would say are works of God.

Deism was fascinatingly speculative, using science to figure out what deeds the deist God would or wouldn't have laid hands upon. I went through theories and counter-theories, coming up with fantastic names for them as I went along. I ended up believing in the multiverse with the Big Bang, abiogenesis and Darwinian natural selection. So why then, did I need to believe the deist God at all?

But then that book loomed in my mind. The God Delusion. I had already lost my faith once before, and I saw owning that book as some sort of rebellion. There was a strange negative suggestion surrounding it. The more I thought about how offensive and controversial it was, and how many people were offended by the mere mention of it, the more I wanted it! The phrase - don't read it! - only enflamed my desires to read it all the more. I am a weak willed person, so the temptation became too much and I caved in.

What a wonderful experience that was. Not only was it factual, well thought out, funny, intelligent and deeply cutting, I also found not a single logical contradiction anywhere in what he said. And I am very good at spotting them. I even heard the word deism for the first time, and my beliefs had a name. I learnt more about religion from this one book than I did from years of speculation and searching.

It was this book that led me to this website. The very idea of a rational discussion forum lead by Professor Richard Dawkins himself was too attractive to pass up. But – you may ask – why do I say that I was a deist but am not anymore. It has to do with one particular video on the richarddawkins.net youtube channel – The Four Horsemen. Having seen it – and really gotten to like its protagonists – I felt that I really needed to read their books as well.

While The Genius of Charles Darwin was the straw that broke the camels back in regards to my theist faith, reading books by yourself and the other horsemen was like piling ever more straws on an already shattered spinal cord, so to speak. I found a deep stirring within myself upon reading this passage:

They have a firm belief that belief in God is something to preserve, so when they find the traditional concepts of God frankly incredible they don't give up. They seek a substitute. And the search, once again, need not be all that conscious and deliberate. - Daniel Dennett, Breaking The Spell, p204-205

At that moment I realised that my belief in deism was purely because I held belief in belief in God to be a higher virtue that should be striven for regardless of the convolution of ideas required to sustain said belief. I used to believe that deism was preferable to atheism because I prefer the idea of God to the idea of no-God.

But then I realised that I didn't actually believe in God based on the likelihood of the idea. Far from it, God was/is one of the most unlikely-to-be-true ideas that I know about. Deism is merely the most likely version of God that I know of (although you could argue that pantheism is more likely depending on definitions), and my only reason to believe it was that I believed in belief being a virtue.

Now that I see it for the only reason to believe in God, once again catching myself in the act of self-deception, I decided that it would be much better to be an atheist. But that doesn't change the sheer fascination I feel towards deism, towards those like Thomas Paine and Voltaire whose writings I need to learn as though my life depends on it, and the need to know the exact likelihood of the deist God by means of empirical calculation.

It also doesn't change the book I am writing, Essays in Deist Darwinism, merely the perspective from which I will write all future essays. I also realised that my deist beliefs were not all that different than atheist precepts any way - so far as it's possible for the position of non-belief to even have precepts, that is.

I must thank you especially for not only making me aware of my logical fallacy that kept me in the theist trap for the best part of a year, but also making me aware of the works of the others in your group. Without your videos, TV shows, books and other media, I would never have found my way out of the mental slavery of believing in a logical fallacy. Without you I would still live in terror of the depths of Hell, knowing that quite half my actions were leading me straight there. Without your book, The Selfish Gene, I would never have known of the memetic mechanisms that govern all human societies. I am glad to count myself as an atheist.

Chris Rombach
I am the forum user tsninjapirate

76

Well, I couldn't help writing you to thank you for the support I've been having by reading "The god delusion"...I'm a Brazilian doctor, child to a couple of Chilean, and (as you can imagine) my hole life I've been disgustingly indoctrinated by my parents, my teachers (in a school barely owned by the catholic church), and all the society. I don't know where I found refuge from all of that, but I always insisted on pointing out incongruences when we had "religion tests". Well, I always sensed that all of that was'nt suited to me, but I had a strong sense that one MUST believe in something, and I kind of wandered around, chasing some faith that did suit to me...with no results. The others' religions (which are plenty here in Brazil - Afro-American religions, Bhuddism, Islamism, Spiritism, dozens of Chrisitan interpretations) seemed to me even more ridiculous than "my own". By that time, taken by despair by having no answer to the question "What's your Religion?" Then, totally by chance, I found the word "Agnostic". And someone had even smoothed it adding "Theistic" ahead. Now I see how coward that was from me, but well, that's what I dared saying back then. I used it like a "shut up" sticker on my front.
And that worked for a while. But not for me, indeed. Many years passed since then. During that time I discovered the beauty of Science. How elegantly things are explained and tested, and researched, for our race to try another step forward

77

Although I originally sent a version of this letter to Richard, I'd like to submit this for Converts' Corner:

Professor Dawkins,

I recall that you wrote that Douglas Adams was your tallest, funniest, and perhaps only convert. You had the fortune to count such a wonderful, funny person among your friends. I did not, but Douglas reached many of us with his writing, and not only to make us laugh, but to inspire some of us to think for ourselves.

When I was much younger, I wanted to understand the universe, and I looked to religion (Catholicism, in fact) but the believers I spoke to often had no more answers than I did, and resorted to the defense of "it's a mystery" when I asked about certain claims the church made, a defense I know realize is all too common.

I left the church, and in my own way I tried to fill that "void" by reading about more religion. Perhaps I'd just gotten the wrong one (what a ridiculous idea, I'd later come to think). I read as much as I could about Wicca and various branches of Satanism (which, as it turns out, is a particularly self-serving brand of foolishness that has very little to do with the Judaeo-Christian devil and resembles nothing more than arrogant solipsism or even self-worship, dressed in a scary mask), I read about the Druids, I read books on Buddhism, and nothing could answer my questions. Oh, they all offered answers, but none of their claims could stand up to more questions.

I happened to read something by Douglas Adams, long one of my favorite authors. It was an essay about atheism, and why he was an atheist; the same essay, I think, that you mentioned in /The God Delusion/. I realized that I didn't need religion to fill that "void" I described, because it was really a desire for understanding that I could only satisfy with /real/ truth and /real/ answers.

Perhaps I am one of Douglas's converts to atheism. The idea of such a thing being possible strikes me as oddly amusing, but there you have it. Regrettably I only recently discovered two books I had been given years ago as part of a collection, that might have helped me back then: your /River Out Of Eden/ and Christopher Hitchens's wonderful /Letters to a Young Contrarian/. I've only just begun to catch up on all the reading I have missed, but I've now read two of Christopher's books and have started on my third Richard Dawkins book (having read /The God Delusion/ and /River Out Of Eden/ I have picked up/ The Blind Watchmaker/ and watched two of your TED talks), and my second Hitchens book, /God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything/, and in an unusual twist, my best friend of over six years and girlfriend of one and a half years knows Dan Dennett personally and even got me an autographed copy of one of his books.

Sometimes I find myself with more questions than answers, but I am satisfied and heartened to know that I can find explanations for the natural world that do not require fairies at the bottom of the garden, or, as George Carlin once put it, a man who lives in the clouds. I don't need to invent impossible stories and declare them true by fiat, nor do I need to accept the non-answers that the Church offered me. That was the most stunning and life-altering realization I have ever had.

Signed,
A seeker of knowledge

78

Professor Dawkins,
For years I have sat on the fence, listening to arguments both for and against religious affiliation and at one point was leaning more towards the side of the church. I found that most of the people who were arguing against religion were crude and took on an almost bully type stance in the debates. Fortunately about a year ago I came across a youtube video of you talking about creationism and other religious aspects and was hooked. For days I watched interviews and debates, listened to clips and read many articles that you had been involved in. I was very impressed by your method of debate as well as your willingness to admit that there are still many things in the world that we cannot explain. I am now a fully committed Atheist and am slowly attempting to broaden the minds of many of my friends and introduce the notion of rationality to their lives. Thank you again for speaking against such a powerful and destructive sect of humanity and hopefully in our lifetimes we will see a shift towards a more rational and free world.
Sincerely
William Watson

79

Please accept his as a redraft of my previous e mail- no name at the bottom of the email- S.


> Dear Richard
>
> I was brought up a Greek Orthodox Christian in a fairly average working family, in Australia. I always felt I was being raised to have two minds.
>
> One was a mind receptive to the notions of obedience to authority. This was packaged with belief in of God, and the truth of the resurrection of Christ. All of this was sold to me as a requisite for Greek ethnic identity. My upbringing was strict and inward looking.
>
> The other mind was in effect my inner Greek. You may be able to imagine the kind- the Greek in me that escaped to the west when the Ottomans invaded. The lover of democracy and freedom, science and philosophy, of free thought, scepticism and inquiry. The (probable) Greek who sat on a cliff probably on Kos and was the first westerner to wonder whether there was a cause for the world that had nothing to do with the supernatural.
>
> My free- thinking made me the black sheep of the family as I grew up and led to real disagreements and conflicts with my family. I went to university, an experience more awe inspiring to my seventeen-year-old self, than any church service. I am now an internal medicine physician. I never definitively dealt with the question of the existence of God until I read your book, the God Delusion.
>
> Your work made sense to me from the first word to the last. It did not convert me as such, but it validated my doubt, and in a sense gave me permission to let go of the tattered remanent of God still stuck to my brain- the God of the "unknowable". Just as in my everyday work as a physician, I am now totally comfortable in simply not knowing all the answers, sticking to the evidence, and in rejecting the ridiculous (for our time) explanations offered or inferred, in the Bible. Declaring this at the age of forty-two makes me feel sheepish and a little ashamed that I had not declared this view earlier. I was wrong. So there it is.
>
> I would like to say that your book gave me a moment of peace, but only a moment. Firstly, Your writings and the works of others like Dennett, Hitchens and the like have removed my old world and given me something immensely more complicated and wondrous. I thank you for this, but as you have reopened my inquiring mind and kick-started my curiosity, I fear (hope) that my life will be busier than ever.
>
> Secondly, I will need to come out to my extended family. That will alienate them further from me, and each increment of distance is painful. Interestingly, my wife, after listening to me rant about finally being freed by your book, calmly declared (for the first time) that she had always been an atheist and what was the big deal anyway. So the marriage is OK. I have to construct a new social network. Coming out as an atheist will be a bit like declaring ones rampant, proud homosexuality.
> At a recent dinner party, the 5-year old son of one of the Evangelical Christian adults present asked me if I thought God was real, as my son had just told him that I had denied the existence of the deity. One could hear the crickets outside breaking the sudden deathly silence as all of the adults paused, fork in hand, mouths open, and listened for an answer…
Thank you Professor Dawkins
>
Steven.

80

Dear Richard

I was brought up a Greek Orthodox Christian in a fairly average working family, in Australia. I always felt I was being raised to have two minds.

One was a mind receptive to the notions of obedience to authority. This was packaged with belief in of God, and the truth of the resurrection of Christ. All of this was sold to me as a requisite for Greek ethnic identity. My upbringing was strict and inward looking.

The other mind was in effect my inner Greek. You may be able to imagine the kind- the Greek in me that escaped to the west when the Ottomans invaded. The lover of democracy and freedom, science and philosophy, of free thought, scepticism and inquiry. The (probable) Greek who sat on a cliff probably on Kos and was the first westerner to wonder whether there was a cause for the world that had nothing to do with the supernatural.

My free- thinking made me the black sheep of the family as I grew up and led to real disagreements and conflicts with my family. I went to university, an experience more awe inspiring to my seventeen-year-old self, than any church service. I am now an internal medicine physician. I never definitively dealt with the question of the existence of God until I read your book, the God Delusion.

Your work made sense to me from the first word to the last. It did not convert me as such, but it validated my doubt, and in a sense gave me permission to let go of the tattered remanent of God still stuck to my brain- the God of the "unknowable". Just as in my everyday work as a physician, I am now totally comfortable in simply not knowing all the answers, sticking to the evidence, and in rejecting the ridiculous (for our time) explanations offered or inferred, in the Bible. Declaring this at the age of forty-two makes me feel sheepish and a little ashamed that I had not declared this view earlier. I was wrong. So there it is.

I would like to say that your book gave me a moment of peace, but only a moment. Firstly, Your writings and the works of others like Dennett, Hitchens and the like have removed my old world and given me something immensely more complicated and wondrous. I thank you for this, but as you have reopened my inquiring mind and kick-started my curiosity, I fear (hope) that my life will be busier than ever.

Secondly, I will need to come out to my extended family. That will alienate them further from me, and each increment of distance is painful. Interestingly, my wife, after listening to me rant about finally being freed by your book, calmly declared (for the first time) that she had always been an atheist and what was the big deal anyway. So the marriage is OK. I have to construct a new social network. Coming out as an atheist will be a bit like declaring ones rampant, proud homosexuality.
At a recent dinner party, the 5-year old son of one of the Evangelical Christian adults present asked me if I thought God was real, as my son had just told him that I had denied the existence of the deity. One could hear the crickets outside breaking the sudden deathly silence as all of the adults paused, fork in hand, mouths open, and listened for an answer…

Thank you Professor Dawkins.

81

Dear Professor Dawkins,

I'll never forget the moment in my life when I typed "Bill O'Reilly gets his ass kicked" in the Youtube search field, and a video entitled "Bill O'Reilly SCARED by Richard Dawkins" appeared at the top of the list. I had never heard of Richard Dawkins, thanks to mainstream American media, and, looking for a quick laugh, was actually not immediately concerned about what you had to say.

I was practically floored by your interview. Not only was I amazed at how easily you were able to make him look foolish, but your arguments made so much sense to me, something religion had always failed to do. Within days I had watched every video clip of your discussions and interviews I could find, and almost immediately shed my religion.

I live in southeast Texas, USA, so as I'm sure you know I have been cast into an extreme minority. I 'converted' about six months ago, and I still haven't told either of my parents. I was indoctrinated as soon as I could read, christianity of course, by a family who remains deeply religious; my father is a former minister.

I wanted to offer my deepest thanks to you, professor, for giving me a new appreciation for life and science. You will almost certainly be the most influential educator I ever encounter. I encourage you to make an appearance in the Houston, Texas area- I would be ecstatic to see a live lecture. I'm saving to buy your 15 DVD set, and I'm starting my Richard Dawkins book collection as well. Again, thank you for a clear thinking oasis, and thank you for my freedom!

82

Dear Professor Dawkins,

I'm a 21 years old male from Poland and I was raised in not so
religious Roman Catholic family, living in a not so religious (as for
Poland) countryside. Here is a brief history of my faith:

Until my graduation from middle school, I was a believer because of
tradition - almost everyone goes to church, so did I. I don't know,
who introduced religion in my life, were they my parents, grandparents
or grandparents' family, but I believed that going to church, praying
etc. was necessary or at least important in life. Surprisingly, my
mother, even though she urged me to attend church, wasn't doing the
same until recently. My father, I believe, is agnostic, but it is hard
to get from him an answer for such difficult question. However I guess
by his indifferent attitude towards religion and by that he hasn't
been coming to church except for big occasions, that he is.

During that time, I was not educated in the Bible, at least outside RE
classes at school. My parents preferred me to read and learn about
science, especially biology, as my father is a forester, and maths.
Therefore, I was never a creationist. I also was not terrorized by
reminding me of hell or forced into any religious activities beside
mass. I was brought up as a kind of `moderate Christian` you often
mentioned in your book.

At the beginning of high school, when preparations to confirmation
sacrament started, I also started to think about religion as it is.
During the preparations, we were required to read the Gospels, and
that made me suspicious of common interpretations of the Bible. You
know, all those conflicting stories of Jesus' birth, death and so on.
I tried to rationalize my Christian faith, by creating my own
theology, loosely based on the Gospels, and by somewhat arbitrarily
deciding that Christianity is maybe not perfect, but the best one from
all religions. I even considered converting to some kind of
Protestantism or Orthodoxy, but they also seemed flawed as
Catholicism. Nevertheless, I continued consider myself a Christian
with a bit of heretic, and still believed, that most of Gospel stuff
is true. As for Old Testament however, I already regarded it as mostly
some old Jewish myths not worth including into my own personal
religion.

This process of individualizing my beliefs spanned over whole 3 year
period of high school. Around the time I entered a university, I found
out some of your videos on Youtube (yes, internet is a wonderful way
to spread your ideas to the world). As for my beliefs were somewhat
between Christianity and deism, I fully understood your way of
thinking. By reading other sceptical sources, and given my knowledge
of physics, astronomy and biology (especially physics), I came to
conclusion that there is a possibility that there's no God. I however
still believed in him, about 3-3.5 in your scale - I was deist.
However, I was still attending church, partly for family reasons, and
partly "just in case". I was also praying to God for some miracle or
sign, and unsurprisingly, there were none. I also investigated some
other miracles, like apparitions, Eucharist miracles and so on, but I
still was not convinced they are not fakes or natural events. Then I
watched some of your documentaries and borrowed God Delusion from my
friend. After reading it my score started rising, and now I am around
5.5. So I am not sure whether I can call myself atheist or agnostic,
but definitely I am a non-believer now, and if there accidentally is a
God and he is interested in my life, he probably approves what I came
up with. I have also stopped going to the church, which resulted in a
short dialogue with my mother, that went like that: "Why didn't you
want to come to the church?" "Because so." "So tell me, why were you
attending up until now?" "Frankly speaking, I don't know." I am going
tell her and the rest of family about my beliefs later, but for now I
think it is enough.

I am not sure what happens when I tell people that I do not believe in
the stuff that they believe. I am keeping it for myself for now. But
thanks to you (and also many others, but you especially) I am now
sure, that if someone asks me directly if I am a believer, I will
sincerely and without hesitation answer "No". I am also very glad that
you can discuss faith with such dignity, culture and calm face. Maybe
it is because you are British, but if someone does not agree with you,
you never seem angry and you calmly present your precise arguments,
without escaping to eristic or personal attacks. No hate, only logic.
That is what I love in your - let me call it that way - preachings.

I am now waiting for some physicists to find why the values of the
physical constants are such that they allow life. If they find an
answer, I will become a 6.9 atheist just like you.

Your sincerely,
Karol

P.S. I think parents chose my name to honour the pope. As a child, I
even considered becoming a priest (you know, silly childhood dreams),
but now I think life is too beautiful to waste it in a seminary. As
for the pope, when John Paul II died, I felt indifferent. No crying,
no grief, no even sadness. I have never understood people who are so
obsessed with him. He was just a priest who won an election that
allowed him to wear white. And he just died, like, everybody else. I
don't understand all that pope-mania in Poland - I don't know what he
did, except for saying "Let Thy Spirit descend and renovate land...
this land." and being a pope. And most of Poles know also this much or
even less, but love him regardless. He is even more revered than God
himself. Saying bad about him, or even questioning his greatness is a
strong taboo in Poland, even among some non-believers.

83

Dear Richard Dawkins, I am one of those people of the middle ground who was a mass going Irish catholic who just went along without giving religion too much thought. There was always a little doubt in my mind about the existence of God. Reading The Selfish Gene really opened my eyes. It was 2007 when I read it and was amazed that it was published in 1976. If only I came across it sooner as I know it would have made me do some things in my life differently. The God Delusion is a great read and put to bed any doubt that I had about relegion along with all the footage on Youtube. I am always very impressed with the way you handle interviews and debates. I have learned so much from watching and more importantly listening to you. The biggest compliment I can pay you is that like Darwin you are a gentleman. I intend to read all your books. Looking forward to The Greatest Show On Earth. You have giving me the confidence to call myself an Atheist even if it took me untill age 46 to realise it. Thank you James Byrne

84

Dear Dr. Dawkins,

I felt compelled to tell you how much your courage and eloquence in The God Delusion has changed my life. It gave me the confidence to finally admit to myself that I was a non-believer by challenging my unacknowledged, groundless respect and deference to religious belief.
I was always skeptical. I clearly remember the first time I expressed it at four with the pointed question, "Mommy, why didn't God love the Philistines?" I was a religious moderate, so I was in some ways more free to follow my conscience when it ultimately led me to atheism. I didn't think people were punished simply for not believing, but I still had this nagging feeling that it was wrong not to. Most off my fellow Episcopalians did not believe in hell (or thought of it only symbolically), and I quite freely voiced my opinion that there was no heaven. I was free to say and believe almost anything, even to be a secret atheist (I was even, like Mother Theresa, congratulated for my doubt as some kind of shared suffering with Christ), as long as I didn't challenge belief in belief. And I was truly convinced of this.
But I was still not okay with what I recognized to be cognitive dissonance by another name. I began to get the feeling that it would only be a matter of time before I stopped believing. I even began to call myself "atheist" in my own head. But it was your book that finally coaxed me out of the closet. You and Sam Harris in particular made me realize that my tacit approval of belief without evidence was an entirely untenable position, and, in fact, condescending. In my mind, it had somehow been okay for others to believe things that I could sniff out as spurious, and the presence of religious interests in my life had blinded me to the inherent stupidity of this position.
Your book was the first argument I'd ever heard specifically directed against the belief in belief argument. All the intellectuals around me (my mother teaches at a non-denominational Christian college, so there was no dearth of religious apologist arguments) would concede to almost any other rational argument, until the value of faith itself came into question. It was reading your book and seeing such assumptions treated as they ought to be, as any other claim in any other area of our lives would be, that finally broke the spell. I can't thank you enough for sharing your experience and insight. Thank you so much for writing this book that helped me come to this decision at 17 instead of after many more years of the vicious cycle of doubt and self-loathing I was trapped in. You have freed me up to live my life to its fullest.

With gratitude,

Holly Elmore, West Palm Beach, FL

85

Dear Professor Dawkins,

I am a true convert. I spent the first 35 years of my life as a Christian, and finally gave it up just a few years ago. Unfortunately I am unable to give you any of the credit for my (de-)conversion, as I only discovered The God Delusion shortly after I gave up Christianity. Your book, however, did ring very true to me as a new atheist. I felt I had an interesting perspective as I read through The God Delusion since I could relate very personally to much of what you wrote.

Without a doubt the most difficult stumbling block for me in the process of giving up the religion of my upbringing was the fear of hell. It is impossible to overstate this fear when indoctrinated as a child. Even as an adult who intellectually accepts that death is the end of my existence, the fear of hell occasionally still haunts me. What a relief, however, to finally realize that there is nothing to fear in death, and even more importantly that this is the only life we have and must therefore make the very most of it. It was only once I stopped looking at life through the perspective of a Christian that I realized I had been completely wasting my life. How very glad I was to come to my senses in my 30s rather than realizing in my 70s or 80s that I had wasted it all serving an imaginary friend.

Now that I have left religion behind, I look back and consider myself very fortunate to have realized the truth about life. The grip of religion on the psyche is far too strong, and perhaps it is difficult for those who have never been religious to understand just how difficult it is to leave it. It was only after years and years of carefully and logically analyzing my beliefs (all the while with fear that God would condemn me for doing so) that I came to realize they made no sense. Now that I have left it, I look at religion and see only illogical falsehood and dogma, but when I was a Christian it all made sense to me. What makes me sad about this is the knowledge that it is very unlikely any of my family will break free of the spell. In fact, I can not even discuss this issue with family for fear of losing my relationships with them, and for fear of every conversation turning into an attempt to re-convert me to Christianity.

My sincere hope is that we can make the world a better place by peacefully removing the illogical and often hateful beliefs of religion from our society. I have hope that human society can reach its full potential if only we can continue to rid the world of the childish stories of religion.

Sadly, I can not sign this email with my name and prefer to remain anonymous for the reasons mentioned above.

A

86

Hello!

I was raised as a catholic, daughter of a strongly catholic mother and a converted catholic father who converted to marry my mother. I grew up sceptical. I sang in the Children's Choir as the highest soprano of the lot; I had confirmation without caring much. Yes, I declared I was a catholic, but I still had no idea what was going on.

In late high school I visited my then boyfriend Spencer in Gladewater, Texas whose family were Jehovah's Witnesses. Being open minded, I went to one of their meetings. This failed to insire me wrt xianity. I had also been to my second best friend's bat mitzvah, continuing failing to influence me even with that.

When I turned 18 I determined I was old enough to declare my own beliefs so declared I was Atheist, though I had openly declared Agnostic on Facebook and the like the year before. I took an Ethics course to figure what I was doing out and to see what various ethicists thought so I could outright declare I was an Atheist.

That was only for a couple of months. In January 2008, spring of my freshman year at West Chester University, I had a car accident, breaking my left femur. The accident only strengthened my Atheism, much as the catholics and protestants hoped it would convert me to one of their faiths. I don't know why the protestants at the hospital/rehabilitation centre tried to convert me. I think the only hope for any kind of xianity would be catholicism again. Nah, no, thank you very much. After I got back to my computer I openly declared being an Atheist.

In the beginning of April 2009 I wrote my ScriptFrenzy script titled "Alice the Atheist", having Alice sing "I'm an Atheist and I'm Okay". I keep musing to myself whenever I'm unsure or scared the lyrics "I'm an Atheist and I'm okay" to the tune of the Monty Python Lumberjack song. (If you really want the second line, it's "I type all night and I sleep all day!" but I'm hesitant to imply Atheists are nocturnal...) I'm right now trying to establish a Freethinking club at my university. I felt encouraged since there are muslim, catholic, protestant and jewish clubs there too. What , then, of N/A? Of Atheist? I don't want to scare people off by using the A word so I call it Freethinking which garnered support even from the catholic mother who mused "That's what college is for! Free thinking!"

Currently, I'm on p186 of "The God Delusion" of which I greatly approve. I purchased a copy midway through the library's copy. I like having my own copy to write in, even if ipso facto I haven't written anything in it yet. It's also handy to have as a reference to all the weblinks and other books. Thinking of weblinks, I absolutely adore PZ Myers and his Pharyngula. It's not that TGD converted me, I converted at age 18 when I was officially no longer labelled as a "child" in this American culture I grew up in.

Claire Binkley, a proud unafraid Atheist

87

I am a former radio journalist from Wisconsin(19 years in the business) and have some management experience in other fields as well. I am currently having weekly sessions with a Lutheran lay minister about my inability to make the leap of faith. I come from an athiest immediate family, my grandmother was very religious and my wife's family is very obedient relgiously.

I explore my large questions at the following two sites:

questionsaboutfaith.blogspot.com

and

lettertomychristianfriends.blogspot.com

I plan to write a book(similar to Sam Harris's book) about my problem with belief and how irrational thinking is harmful to the world in the long run.

I would be happy to be interviewed by any documentary you have in the making.


Here are some of my comments:

How could there be a God? Is there a caring being up there in the sky who has compassion for all of us and who can read our minds? I find it hard to believe this. Let's think about this. For a supreme being to be able to read our minds, there would have to be some sort of telepathy, some sort of creature so highly evolved that he/she/it could tell what we are thinking and could perhaps guide or predict our future. Logic doesn't support believing in a supernatural power. One has to break the bonds of logic in order to get there. One has to demand the most rigorous standards of evidence, especially to what's important to us. We don't have to accept the many fraudulent claims which are out there. Maybe pure faith is not enough, we may have to have some logical support too.

What we really need, which I have mentioned before, is more intellectual honesty. People can not just believe things because they want to. We should believe things because there is scientific evidence to support beliefs. The truth is that people don't always like to use their logic, and to me this is ironic because it appears to be what makes humans special and different from apes, dogs, goats, cats, etc. The real problem is that people who are afraid to use logic many times fear people who love logic and truth. This this causes an ugly schism, a political line in the sand between believers and non-believers.

So how do we show extreme respect for those who believe differently or perhaps less logically than we do? How do we help them believe in more down to earth ideas without crushing the fairytale, that God knows, God cares and God will save and that Jesus will come back to save the good people if there is a nuclear holocaust? It's like telling a child who believes in Santa that there is no Santa. We must with great compassion tell them the truth so they will not be hurt psychologically. My fear is that during this information explosion, which will increase exponentially over the next few years, the irrational thinkers will start to get it, will start to know they are on the wrong side of the question. This will cause them to feel very lonely that there is no God and perhaps no higher purpose. This greater agitation could also lead to more global unrest I fear.

This brings me again to my father's beliefs, which I mentioned earlier in this essay. He is an intellectually honest athiest who I love and respect very much. My Dad believes that the value of human life is in a sense exponentially enhanced given the fact of our mortality. The fact that life does not last forever makes every minute count. The fact that we don't live forever just makes life more special, and in a sense infinitely valuable. So a finite time on Earth makes us infinitely valuable. I like Dad's logic. What we DO on Earth becomes infinitely valuable and how we choose to love and what we choose to study---all infinitely valuable. If this idea was understood by Christians who think they have another life in heaven, would this be motivating or depressing? It is to the core of what President Obama and Dr. Martin Luther King said when they talked about "the fierce urgency of now."

The emperor has no clothes and there is no God, but how as a human race will we manage this paradigm shift gracefully? How will we give comfort to those believers losing their belief in this information society, where the answer is written logically on the wall? Fairy tales are fun, but there are times when we should be giving up childish things and acting more like adults. When is religion harmful and when should irrational beliefs be challenged.

If you listen to Daniel Dennett speak he talks about the extreme defensive position that most Christians take when their faith, their God and their Bible are challenged. We see this in the story of the Miss USA Pageant contestant who said she lost the pageant sticking up for her beliefs that same-sex marriage was evil and was not biblically correct. She is now wearing her self-annointed badge of courage for her convictions. My 14 year-old son could tell you that she is being illogical and is ignorant about reality, but because her God is with her, she cannot be challenged. No logic can challenge her opinions and that is sad.

I recently was moved to tears watching the late astronomer and teacher Carl Sagan talk about Earth as "The Pale Blue Dot." Seeing Earth from the hundreds of millions of miles away from the Voyager Space Craft, it is humbling. From this poignant vantage point, "our obsession with nationalism is nowhere in evidence. We are too small on the scale of worlds, humans are inconsequential, a thin film of life on an obscure and solitary lump of rock and metal." It is up to us to save our selves. There is "no evidence that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves." During his last interview on May 27th, 1996 with Charlie Rose, he was promoting his book, "The Demon-Haunted World." (Sagan died a few months later of a terminal illness.)

On the program, Carl Sagan talked about a combustable mixture of ignorance and power being dangerous. In this increasing information age with exponential leaps in scientific knowledge but with unfathomable ignorance about scientific thinking, there are bound to be misunderstandings which may lead to the destruction of the human race. Our minds have not kept up with our technology, and to that idea Sagan was extraordinarily perceptive.

There are sites on the web which tend to try to make people like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris or Christopher Hitchens look unintelligent. On one such Youtube site, you see someone trying to portray Dawkins as someone who doesn't know how genomes evolve. He was asked how genetic mutations can occur which can increase the amount of information on the genome. It appears the video was spliced to make him look confused and indecisive. A response to this from a freethinker appears like this:

"To believe in theistic evolution means believing that God called billions of years of suffering, death, extinction, bloodshed and cruelty 'all very good' - and not the results of the Fall and the subsequent Curse on Creation, as the Apostle Paul understood it."

As Dawkins explains, "People may be getting a little fed up with others shoving their imaginary friends down our throats." Why are more people speaking out against organized religion? There are bright people out there who looking for newer ways of explaining things. Right now, the Bible is seen as so sacred, as the word of God, that criticizing it is totally out of the question.

I will try to organize my thoughts as clearly as possible as to not offend the good Christian intentions and purpose of the Stephen Ministry. It is not my intention to be playing with fire here for my own intellectual benefit, but for the elucidation of key ideas and points to bring us to a stronger agreement on what is at stake here.Growing up in a non-religious home has left me hungering for a spirituality I've never had before. When I was a child, we attended the Unitarian Universalist Church for a year or two and that was it. As an adult before I was married, I attended the Unitarian Society in Minneapolis, finding some spiritual sustenance in the breadth and the meaning of the sermons and from some fellowship. When married, I followed my wife's wishes to the Lutheran Church, thinking there were many ways to find spiritual salvation and what people call the wisdom and word of the Lord.Many questions have stopped me from fully immersing myself in Christianity. Questions like: If there is a God, who created God? What about infinite space and time? What does the Bible say about space or is it too earth centered? Is the Bible stuck running in place in an anti-Copernican-like geocentricism which waits not for reason but for ignorant and arrogant believers? What is the purpose of life? To question with reason or to live in happy ignorance that there is some great Santa in the sky that will save us all, that Jesus will come down during a nuclear holocaust and save us all? A good faith should not, it seems, be involved in simple minded answers but the awesome complexity of the stars, of time and space and E=mc Squared. Isn't something like the Krebs Cycle, the infinity of the night sky full of stars or the miracle of photosynthesis just as beautiful as something like Christ's face or the manger scene. It seems that Christianity is afraid of the some of the questions--- that is what troubles me. It seems like I shouldn't be afraid to mention the name Carl Sagan or Stephen Jay Gould in a Bible study group that truly has an open mind about spiritual exploration. There are many ways to find beauty and sublime peace of mind, including in science.One can argue that it's all about the interpretation of the Bible that is important---that it's only how we see it for ourselves. But we also have to be awake to the fact that the Bible was written a long time ago and is in some sense a dinosaur, out of date and in desperate need of revision or a complete refashioning. Where does the holy word come from and couldn't new portions be written and edited today? What would be more practical today in the age of the internet and space travel? What would be a good book for all of the races?There is a much bigger question to answer than who believes in the best religion. The real question is how we survive as a human race. To go in the direction of trying to answer that. we must stop warring between different religious factions and realize our own human decency and commonalities between us. There is a sense that the egos of the different religions all thinking they are the best are detrimental to human progress. Instead of colliding egos, we must concentrate on the goodness in all of us. War will continue to be strongly embedded in the character of mankind as long as we keep wearing spiritual chips on our shoulders. Organized religion needs to become more flexible and compassionate to the human struggle in order for it to be useful enough to save humanity.There is no question that religion has greatly enhanced the lives of millions of people across our fragile globe. People have thanked God for helping them through alcoholism, cancer, divorce and natural disasters. What I am very agnostic about is whether there is a God that has a personal interest in each and every one of us. You see sports stars thanking God for a home run or a touchdown. When you think of it, why would the king of all creation be concerned about a sports contest? There would be much more pressing matters for a deity of mankind. If there is a God does he just care about the Earth or the entire Universe? During early human inquiry, it was widely believed that the sun revolved around the Earth. Science helped us understand that the Earth revolved around the sun. We may yet learn that if there is a Lord that he/she doesn't exclusively care about just for the Earth but for creation across the Universe. Many of the most intelligent scientists have stated that there is a good chance of life on other worlds. The most intellectually honest atheist would probably concede that we are infinitely important and not important given the sacredness of life and the infinite vastness of everything around us. Existence is a paradox. To meditate upon the Infinity of space and time and the infinite smallness of molecules makes me shudder in amazement. That is enough for me even there if there is not a God. The best way to characterize it is to say that there is infinite meaning in my world even without a deity. I admit I don't know how to define a God as defined by many, but that there may be an entity beyond the five senses that exists and works through us in unknown ways. It is not scientifically knowable so I cannot describe it. I can only speculate about the "moreness."As atheist writer Richard Dawkins explains, to pretend to know something and not know it is something short of intellectual honesty. He takes it further by saying that a Christian saying he/she is saved and nonbelievers will go to hell is the height of arrogance and cruelty. A Christian will feel sorry for those who do not believe because they will not go to "heaven." What is heaven? I do know that extremist Muslims who flew the plane into the Twin Towers in 2001 thought they would get dozens of virgins in heaven if they did this destructive deed. The real question is: How much of a subtle destructive deed is belief in something so strongly that you are willing to calmly let others go to hell for your heaven? Strange indeed.Faith and reason are like apples and oranges. I'm just trying to get a clearer intuitive path to a healthy spiritual direction. I'm not saying I'm not spiritual.My father, a much more ingrained athiest than myself says he is jealous of people who have faith, who can make that leap joyfully and with a full heart. My father's mind will not let his heart take the huge jump. I empathize with Dad but think he may not be letting the whole spirit in. It's funny how I get a wonderful feeling when I hear the Smokey Robinson classic song "Tears of a Clown." It started when I was ten years old. Every time I hear that tune, I go back to that point in my life of innocence and newness. You could call that spiritual, I guess. Same thing happens when I take a bite of strawberry ice cream. I get this spiritual feeling that I cannot explain. It seems to take me back to when I was three years old tasting my first every spoonful of the stuff. This is something I tell very few people. I told my wife about the strawberry thing and she laughed. As one friend used to say to me once in awhile..."Crazy kid." (ha)I will mull over this which was recently shared with me by my friend Mike in West Virginia..."To those who believe in God, no explanation is necessary. To those who need an explanation, none will suffice." This is where faith and reason collide. You cannot reason somebody out of something they were not reasoned into in the first place.In many ways I feel like Robert Frost in the poem "The Road Less Traveled." (life can confusing) I feel sometimes like I'm daring to go against the grain of organized religion to see things in my own way. It can be scary at times too.Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveller, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-- I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the differenceHere is a quote from an Amazon review of Michael Behe's book "Darwin's Black Box" which asserts that evolution cannot be correct because of the sheer complexity of the natural world, a dangerous call to throw one's arms up and give up, sacrificing one's powers of reason to the supernatural because the answer is just too tough. I think any God would want us to keep searching for answers to the puzzle he has put in front of us. Within the biochemistry of living cells, he argues, life is "irreducibly complex." This is the last black box to be opened, the end of the road for science. Faced with complexity at this level, Behe suggests that it can only be the product of "intelligent design."I feel it is dangerous to abandon reason and take the leap to believe whatever we want to. When reason is gone, then everyone is right, because no one is at the helm of reason. When reason is gone from the equation, we give the Jim Jones's and the Waco people carte blanche to create their own irrational systems which lead in the long run to destructiveness of the human race. I think that any good God would want us to embrace reason with all our heart and soul, and humility. Dawkins argues that religion is the ultimate arrogance---that we are saved but someone who disagrees will suffer the infinite fires of hell. What about mentally handicapped people? Are they damned to hell if they don't follow the rules of religious political correctness to the nth degree?? These questions just seem to be hanging out there and are not being addressed by the pious crowd. This rigidity of thought caused by a lack of reasoning ability in the brains of those who cling to fundamentalism is dangerous for the future of the world in my opinion. How many different ways can I say that? Religion can cause people to be comforted to a great degree, but ultimately it is the people who are doing the comforting in a humane and reasonable fashion.Behe's assertations seem to me to be implying that we need to throw natural selection out of the window. And if, as he contends, that some intelligent aliens started Earth as sort of an experimental colony, then how do you explain who created the aliens? There is an infinite pattern of questions that (pardon the expression) evolve out of Behe's direction here. Just saying…OK…..there was a creator and that's it, gives power to those unreasonable folks who will say "See I told you. We were right all along!" To ask questions is all we can do with our brains which are the most evolved form of life on the planet. Let's use our brains' most highly evolved functions instead of going back to pacify more primitive regions associated with faith.I have more doubt about Behe's claims when I hear about his the university he teaches at (Lehigh) putting a disclaimer on Behe's website:"While we respect Prof. Behe's right to express his views, they are his alone and are in no way endorsed by the department. It is our collective position that intelligent design has no basis in science, has not been tested experimentally and should not be regarded as scientific."Richard Dawkins says of Behe:"He's a straightforward creationist. What he has done is to take a standard argument which dates back to the 19th century, the argument of irreducible complexity, the argument that there are certain organs, certain systems in which all the bits have to be there together or the whole system won't work...like the eye. Darwin answered (this)...point by point, piece by piece. But maybe he shouldn't have bothered. Maybe what he should have said is...maybe you're too thick to think of a reason why the eye could have come about by gradual steps, but perhaps you should go away and think a bit harder."With science there is a humility about the ultimate and complex questions. With religion, there is often arrogance about those questions.Another professor talks about Behe's assertions:"Professor Behe's concept of irreducible complexity depends on ignoring ways in which evolution is known to occur. Although Professor Behe is adamant in his definition of irreducible complexity when he says a precursor "missing a part is by definition nonfunctional," what he obviously means is that it will not function in the same way the system functions when all the parts are present. For example in the case of the bacterial flagellum, removal of a part may prevent it from acting as a rotary motor. However, Professor Behe excludes, by definition, the possibility that a precursor to the bacterial flagellum functioned not as a rotary motor, but in some other way, for example as a secretory system."Going down the road of unreason certainly is a dangerous path. I'm finding reviews of Dawkin's book "The God Delusion" interesting.A large portion of the religious reviewers of this work have obviously never read it, as they have restated objections to his arguments which he deals with in a far more elegant manner than I ever could. I respect your right to hold religious beliefs, but your arguments have been dealt with by Dawkins, yet you can still raise them, apparently with no knowledge of any of Dawkins' arguments. Please! Read the work before attacking him for his beliefs! Please! Raise intelligent points! Don't simply spout the faulty arguments he has already dealt with!Dawkins says, "I am hostile to fundamentalist religion because it actively debauches the scientific enterprise. It teaches us not to change our minds, and not to want to know exciting things that are available to be known. It subverts science and saps the intellect"Hey, guess what? You cannot fight reason with unreason. It will lose every time. You cannot just shake your Bible at me and expect me to say it is just because it is. There has to be something more than that to argue. Just believe and everything will be alright. I think people who criticize Dawkin's book don't like it because they have to really think when they read it. It's far from an easy read but infinitely rewarding in my opinion.I hear things like, "Give up all of your control and God will be in the driver's seat." That's kind of a scary proposition----that we can let go of the steering wheel. What if we crash? My father, who is a psychiatrist, counseled a woman who got in a car accident because she let God take the wheel. A father of an autistic son in Fond du Lac didn't worry too much when his son wandered off down a busy street thinking that God would take care of it and if he died it was just God's will. Comfortable thought for him perhaps, but not very logical or rational. This man's comment bothered me.Taking the leap of faith is difficult and I'm not so certain I want to attempt it. I want to cling to reason. People who reason and use logic a lot are not cold hearted. I think this is a common misperception. Just like the geek, nerd or someone with Asperger's Syndrome is ostracized for behavior not conforming to the norm, real conscientious thought and discussion about religion and its role in society is tossed off by adversaries as inappropriate and not what people want to talk about. People on their wavelength are simply shut off like a bad radio or TV station. Dawkins is most likely taking harsh criticism from the non-thinkers, from people who would rather watch "Dog Eat Dog" or chant "Jerry…Jerry" along with their TV sets than watch a thoughtful show on public TV about science, history or politics. It's the mentality of the non-thinkers versus people who like to think. The ultimate battle is against a worldview that would rather bask in ignorance and some arrogance versus the people who roll up their sleeves and aren't afraid to ask the really, really tough questions.Tonight I will go to church with my wife. I very much appreciate and respect Debbie's ability to have faith, to solemnly believe she will go to heaven without any doubt. There is something magical about that that I'm a bit jealous of. How can one completely abandon reason to embrace a loving God with no questions asked. Maybe some of my religious friends will think I will go to Hell for questioning religion, but if they are true friends they should be infinitely compassionate in relating to my own special spiritual journey.When I go to church, I will happily participate in the hymns. There will be at least a half-dozen of them! A hymn has a way of getting me into such a joyous mindset. I like the melodies and the deep conviction on the faces of the believers. I feel good for them that they have found a mindset that is comfortable that helps them overcome life's downers and travails. It may very surely be seen as a form of brain washing, but I guess a clean brain is close to godliness. My grandmother used to say she felt "cleaner" after going to church. I don't doubt she did. We can wash our hands of all of the day's problems and just keep it simple and contemplate a relationship with salvation, or what we conceive of what salvation is.I also like the part when people move about and shake one another's hands. We greet each other and recognize the God within each other. This is a principle of goodness in action. That is something I DO BELIEVE IN---that if there is a God he works through other people. People can say the most profound things at certain times which makes me sometimes hunger for the hope of there being a messenger connecting that thought from the person that comes directly to us. That there is a possibility that a human thought is divinely inspired is kind of a cool idea. But, there is no scientific proof that any of that is happening. So why think about it? It is fun to use our brains, to be alive and to think of all of the possibilities. If objective and rationale Carl Sagan thought a lot about extraterrestrial life, then I can have the luxury of thinking of the .0000000000000000000000000001 percent chance of receiving a divinely inspired thought.I am a little troubled by the fact that religion is so deeply ingrained in the human psyche that it cannot be surgically removed like a tumor. But, then again, why can't it peacefully co-exist with superior forms of thought? After all, humans exist with lower forms of animals and are able to live together peacefully. Look at all the useful and positive compassion that comes from members of the Humane Society. Why can't people with differing thought patterns admit their differences and accept and be infinitely compassionate? That's one great thing about Jesus. He preached this infinite compassion for the poor. That is a wonderful direction to go in if we are to survive as a species in the long run.Reviewer Harvey Ardman sums up my feelings very nicely:There are or might be moments when I am jealous of those capable of faith. I would love to believe, when a loved one dies, that he or she is going to a better place and that we'll meet again some day. What a lovely, comforting thought. Would that it were true, or that I could believe it. But I don't--and it makes this life and every moment in it more valuable to me. I once asked myself how a person totally unfamiliar with religion, might choose among the world's offerings, might decide to adopt one of the world's thousands of religions. I could find no way. They all claim they're right and all the other religions are wrong. But are any of them right? Now I'm thinking similar thoughts about God. I saw a website recently that compiled the names of all of the gods, worldwide and throughout history. They found 3800 different gods or supernatural beings. If I were inclined to believe, which one would I choose and why? Richard Dawkins points out that we're all atheists. We don't believe in Zeus, Thor, Apollo, Odin, etc., etc., etc. He just goes one god further.There is also the question of abortion. At what point does a soul become embedded in the a mother's womb? When is it completely unethical to consider abortion? Author Sam Harris presents a critique of the pro-life belief that "a soul (person) is created at the instant of conception. Is an additional soul created when a 100-cell blastocyst occasionally divides to become identical twins?Humanist writer Paul Kurtz says in his book "Affirmations" that good conduct and wisdom in living can be combined in a person to make him or her a decent person with or without God. When I look at humanist values in "Affirmations" I hear ideas like "taking care of the Earth for future generations," "transcending divisive parochial loyalties based on race, religion, gender, nationality, creed, class, sexual orientation, or ethnicity to work together for the common good of humanity," "the cultivation of moral excellence through rationality," "nourishing reason and compassion in our children," "supporting the disadvantaged and handicapped so they will be able to help themselves," "enjoying life in the here and now and developing our creative talents to the fullest," and "choosing hope over despair." It seems that too often religion chooses the laying on of guilt rather than the building up of hope.The concept of skeptical inquiry is a good one. People should not just accept ideas at their face value because that is the way "they are supposed to think." Children should be taught critical thinking skills in school, not just how to conform. It seems like the people who need religion the most are the ones who have religion as part of their lives. Those who can stand independently, at a higher level of moral reasoning, do not have to lean on the parent in the sky we call God.The leap of faith is a very tough hurdle. A reviewer of the writing of Christopher Hitchens says:"Anyone of intelligence would not believe because "taking it on faith"means believing in something without evidence, substantiation or support. Therefore, those who profess such belief do so without intelligence! Moreover, by implication, such a person cannot be critical of someone who "believes" in, say, the most absurd thing the imagination can concoct, say, the tooth fairy or the Easter bunny. It is time to take the next step in evolution and jettison the mystical explanation ("god") now that science has finally progressed and triumphed."Another writer who likes Hitchen's rational view of the world states:"Today's typical "justification" for religion involves charitable or humanitarian work - obviously this says nothing about the veracity of the belief systems involved. All religions must, at their core, look forward to the end of this world; atheists, on the other hand argue that this world is all we have and that it is our duty to make the most of it. It is one thing, per Hitchens, to believe that the magnificence of the natural order strongly implies an ordering force; quite another to say this creative force cares for our human affairs, and it is interested in with whom we have sex and how, as well as the outcome of battles and wars (and even athletic contests). Even accepting Jesus' birth, it still does not prove he was more than one among many shamans and magicians of the day. Einstein took the view that the miracle is that there are no miracles."Is Christopher Hitchens just an arrogant ego-maniac commentator or his he helping us look in a new brave and brilliant direction? I think the latter."People who are generally well read are much less likely to take to a fundamentalist reading of the Bible, whereas it is my observation that for many people who do adhere to the literal truth of the Bible, it is possibly the only book they have ever read, and so have no critical reading skills whatsoever."Anonymous Here we go again with the concept of critical thinking skills, or are we talking about pure intelligence here? Should we follow blind faith or reasoned discussion based on critical thinking skills? The answer seems obvious. Follow the intelligence. Following a God with an unclear definition makes about as much sense as voting for a president with a 95 IQ instead of one with a 195 IQ. Let's get out of the stone ages and find new ways to find awe and wonder. We can find feelings of wonder and amazement and humility just by looking at the Big Dipper on a clear summer night. The fact that it is not all explained for us makes it even more wonderful I think.I believe that the human race is attempting to evolve past destructive thought patterns. My hope is that we will choose reason over antiquated ways of looking at the world. Just like war must be abolished, "good" versus "evil" type thinking must also be abolished if we are to survive on the Earth. But, the troubling question is, "Is religion far too embedded in our biology?"Gabriel Michael, a Yale divinity student who wrote an impassioned article about his deep concern about rabid atheists who are preaching physicalism, is actually practicing faulty thinking, He appears to shut out any possibility of comparing the patterns of thought coming from scientists and from theologists and postulating about the details. Scientists and theologians have radically different world views, and we cannot just push this aside as if it were the politically correct thing to do at the Yale Country Club. As I see it, Michael wants to have it both ways, to have the philosophy of science and of faith peacefully co-exist, when one is obviously a more advanced form of thinking than the other. What he calls evangelical atheism is actually so close to the truth that it hurts. He says I quote:Evangelists for atheism who link their philosophical positions to science end up doing that same science a great disservice by fueling the fire of fundamentalism here and around the world. Calling them evangelists is warranted, because if their true goal were the propagation of the acceptance of science, they simply wouldn't focus so much on non-scientific implications. Instead, they spread their various gospels, pander to the popular hobby of religion-bashing, and even invoke a persecution complex — you can purchase a "Scarlet Letter" T-shirt at richarddawkins.net. In reality, though, Dawkins and his cohort are mostly preaching to the choir. In this argument, both sides lose: Reactionary religion marginalizes itself in the face of the modern scientific world, and evangelical atheism helps to produce more of the very enemies it most despises.I guess if everybody was nice, we could abandon reason and everyone would live in ignorant bliss. Is that what you want Mr. Michael? You are simply afraid of the scientific method and how faith is endangered by reason.I also believe in the concept of ahimsa, the principle of non-violence which motivated Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi. I believe in sort of a karma that develops when ahimsa is practiced optimally. I see a bit too much violence in the Bible for my own comfort level. Even though Christ is portrayed a very peaceful man---some of the stories of the Bible seem to contradict his passivism. That is a contradiction that is interesting and definitely worthy of much more study.I think we should all be more tolerant of different world views. It disturbed me to hear that a classmate of my 12 year-old son Ryan told him he was going to hell because he didn't believe that Jesus was his personal lord and savior. Ryan was hurt by that and I tried to explain to him that his friend was probably taught that in church, that he was not being tolerant of those who question. Ryan proceeded to tell me that he believed that each of us makes our own heaven or hell right here on Earth. (Pretty bright for his age I think.) When I was Ryan's age, my friend Bobby Weber told me I would go to hell if I didn't believe in God. I remember asking him if being a good person was enough. He replied, "No, It is not enough. There is much more to it than that." About 3 days before my Uncle Charlie died I tried to express to him about how Christmas gave me a sublime and mystical sense of hope. He said, "I don't believe any of that Jeffrey." I said I respected that and I knew he respected my inclination to fully search out my own spirituality. Deep in my heart I DO NOT believe that kind and generous Uncle Charlie is going to hell. Charlie was a great person, always willing to give me advice when I needed it, always willing to help in any way he could. If there is a God that would send him to hell, we live in a cruel world. I'm not at all convinced, though, that we do live in a cruel world. There is much beauty and truth to reach out to. We can create our own heaven on Earth, and it is totally up to us.I have a continuing debate with my good friend Craig S. ho is avout believer. Craig is a person of excellent character who cares deeply about other people and about the Earth.Dear Friend Craig,you said:Creationists, of course, have not the slightest problem with naturalselection...creation and evolution are actually both outside therealms of science and, to know this, you need to know what scienceis...neither "process" is currently observable, testable orrepeatable. I have a problem with a statement saying that evolution is faroutside the scientific realm. Evolution is science and God is faith.They are two different things as far as I'm concerned. Becauseevolution is not testable directly doesn't mean we cannot use carbondating, fossil discoveries to sharpen our pool of evidence toapproximate the best possible understanding given our humanlimitations. It is arrogance to think we have all the answers. Whatreligion says is..."We can stop thinking now. Let's throu up ourhands because this world is too scary and complicated." That is acop out I think. Let's use the reason we were given biologicallyand use it to the utmost limit. We only use 5 percent of our brainsright? Religion may be an outdated part of the cortex. Logical rflection is the advanced part in my opinion. You quoted this:I am also talking about the appearance of life startingfrom inanimate chemicals. When I am talking about evolution, I am nt speaking of natural selection." This statement also doesn't make sense. When one speaks aboutevolution one has to speak of natural selection. It is the principleupon which it is based. It's like saying, "When you are talkingabout culinary arts, you cannot talk about recipes." Of course Iknow where he is going. He is trying to make a deeper point...thathe is in touch with some sublime insight, that science must beinadequate given the conversion from inanimate life to animate life. What if there were 10 to the Google Plex years to get this done, itmay have happened this way. Humans cannot not grasp the concept ofinfinite time or space. It's with science that we humbly take thesteps, not with gross generalizations. If there is a God, I thinkhe would want us not to assume but to make one great discovery afteranother, walking not running.What about the scientific method of carefully testing hypothesis anddisregarding if there is the slightest inconsistency? Science isthe best method we have given our limited five senses. Having faiththat there is a creator and that nothing more needs to be looked intomeans we can just throw up our arms and say "God is in control." What is the purpose of Free Will then? I'll stick with science because it's the best we can do to understand the world and how it works. I would rather have a cardiologist perform heart surgery on me rather than a priest. The cardiologist has science on his side. Let's continue the debate. This is fascinating. Your Friend, Jeff---- Original Message ----From: csather To: jeffdeb@milwpc.comSubject: RE: Yale Daily News - Popular anti-religion creates falsedichotomyDate: Sat, 26 Jan 2008 16:47:47 -0600Dear Jeff,In the book, "In 6 Days - Why 50 scientists believe in Creation"there is a statement by one of the scientists, "Creationists, of course, have not the slightest problem with naturalselection...creation and evolution are actually both outside therealms of science and, to know this, you need to know what scienceis...neither "process" is currently observable, testable orrepeatable. Please note that when speaking of evolution, I amtalking of the appearance of new (not rearranged) geneticinformation. I am also talking about the appearance of life startingfrom inanimate chemicals. When I am talking about evolution, I amnot speaking of natural selection." The man who wrote this is Dr.Stephen Grocott, who holds a BS in Chemistry and a PhD inorganometallic chemistry from the University of Western Australia. He holds 4 patents, has published about 30 research papers. He is anelected fellow of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute.This book is quite interesting, and points out the patently falsestatement by Dawkins about scientists not subscribing to creation.All 50 contributors have an earned doctorate from a state recognizeduniversity in Australia, the US, the United Kingdom, Canada, SouthAfrica or Germany. If Dawkins is wrong about this statement, howmany other statements are being made on his faith that God does notexist? It takes faith to believe in either proposition.CraigThis is what it all comes down to. It's looking up into the night sky full of stars and becoming infinitely humble looking at the mystery of it all. In theological terms, every day is a miracle. The fact that we can live, love, think, care for one another share a laugh or a smile, that we can evolve toward peace using our minds. That is a miracle to me, that I was born during this time of history. That is fascinating to me.Are most with the atheist world view lacking compassion? A fair question. Most probably misinterpret atheists who have a deep sense of compassion and ethics. Some use the atheist label for themselves to express anger against overly religious parents or wrongs done in their lives such an aborted fetus, an uncle who died suddenly, or relatives dying in a car accident. I believe atheism can be a superficial reaction to authority or a carefully reasoned philosophy. The later I respect infinitely more.I think a lot of us are just plain uncomfortable with the idea that we evolved from apes and from lower forms of life. We cringe at the amoral laws of nature and that we came from that random primordial soup. Can we see the logic in why God would have designed snakes, scorpions or spiders. Charles Darwin said of wasps:"I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living body of caterpillars."But as Darwin would remind us, the evolutionary process has produced wonderfully designed creatures, and that there are always new mysteries to uncover. We take the good with the bad, but what a wonderful mystery this Earth is. So much to discover with so little time. Some Christians who are mad at Dawkins say that evolution will always be a theory because we will never be able to directly observe what happened millions of years ago. One reviewer of Richard Dawkins wrote this:It is the grandest insult to human knowledge - to suppose that we have to observe something visually in order to know it sends us straight back to the Dark Ages. You can ask questions of this kind all you want and nothing will ever constitute a sufficient answer if you have already supposed that the answer must be mystical in some way.Again, you cannot reason someone out of something they were not reasoned into in the first place. Science uses exact terms and definitions in debate and the debate is rational. Faith uses inexact terms in debate and the discourse is often times irrational and directionless.This sudden intuitive dawning, this ah-hah experience at the age of 48 that I appear to be experiencing brings some mixed feelings. I feel like I have lost an innocence after having faith in a protector in the sky just a short time ago. The death of my Uncle Charlie is bringing on a feeling(stronger than ever) that an unexamined life is not worth living. To examine life to its fullest is to search out the most important question. The most important question right now is the God question, one we as humans seem to be the most conflicted about. I too am deeply conflicted about this question. Reading Sam Harris, Carl Sagan and Richard Dawkins gives me hope in the rationality possible in the human race but also brings a sense of longing for spiritual belief, more than ever. It's like a void that needs to be filled with something, but with what? This Amazon reviewer talks about how his life has gone into a sort of depressive tail spin after reading Dawkins. He talks about how his once pure spiritual outlook has been "battered." It is interesting that he admits that Dawkins is "too convincing" in his arguments against supernaturalism:The book renders a God or supreme power of any sort quite superfluous for the purpose of accounting for the way the world is, and the way life is. It accounts for the nature of life, and for human nature, only too well, whereas most religions or spiritual outlooks raise problems that have to be got around. It presents an appallingly pessimistic view of human nature, and makes life seem utterly pointless; yet I cannot present any arguments to refute its point of view. I still try to have some kind of spiritual outlook, but it is definitely battered, and I have not yet overcome the effects of this book on me.Richard Dawkins seems to have the idea that religion and spirituality are not only false, but ultimately unable to give a real sense of meaning and purpose in life. Their satisfaction is hollow, empty, and unreal, in his apparent view, and only a scientific understanding of life can give a real, lasting sense of wonder and purpose.Iwould question this. While I am not sure what (if anything) there is spiritually, I know that a scientific view of life cannot offer the slightest hope of life after death, and since we're all going to die and most of us don't want to, this is a crippling drawback to the kind of scientific vision Dawkins wants us all to have. If there is nothing beyond death, no spiritual dimension to anything, and everything is just a blind dance of atoms, I fail to see how this by itself can give one a real sense of purpose, however fascinating the dance that Dawkins describes - and it *is* fascinating; let there be no mistake about that.Because of this, I have the curious feeling of dichotomy about Dawkins' book that it is certainly fascinating on one level, but that I cannot give even qualified emotional commitment to the outlook on life that seems to lie behind it. I would in the end rather have the hope of something wonderful and purposeful that only some spiritual outlook can offer, even though it may be a deluded fantasy, than the certainty of a scientific vision that eliminates any possibility of long-term hope, that condemns us to an empty, eternal death of nothingness in the end. This scientific view may be completely rational; but rationality is not the only important consideration to shape our outlook on life.Anyone who has a narrow religious view of life, who is absolutely sure their religion is completely right, would be best off avoiding this book like the plague - it probably won't change their views, but they will quite likely get very upset and outraged. And anyone with an open-minded spiritual view had better at least be prepared to do a lot of thinking, and perhaps be willing to change some of their views, because this book *will* challenge almost any spiritual or religious viewpoint I can think of - whether it is of the open-minded or dogmatic sort.Some critics of this book have found its reasoning unconvincing, its materialist reductionism too superficial and shallow. But, from my perspective, the problem does not lie here; the problem with the book is that it is *too* convincing, that it is *entirely* convincing. The book makes it very difficult to continue to believe in anything that contradicts its basic premise, but which might be more comforting, and might give a greater sense of hope and inspiration, and provide a real sense of purpose in life.Such have its effects on my life been that, in my more depressed moments, I have desperately wished I could unread the book, and continue life from where I left off.It has been said that each of us has a God-shaped hole inside, and that we spend most of our lives trying to fill it with the wrong things. I firmly believe that God-shaped hole is there, that we have inner longings of a wonderful sort almost impossible to describe in words. Whether a God exists to fill it, I do not yet know. But what I am sure of is that, as wonderful as Dawkins' view of nature and of life may be on its own level, it will not fill that God-shaped hole.The question is---what to do with that spiritual hole. I say, fill it with wonderment about the natural world, be thankful for every single day, every single hour you are on the planet. Whatever this is, it's more than kind of neat Just think of the scientific discoveries that await us having to do with time, space, genetic memory, etc. etc. The emperor has no clothes and conventional religion cannot begin to answer our questions anymore.I've started a book by John Updike called "In the Beauty of the Lillies." It is about a pastor who is losing his faith and cannot in good conscience go on preaching, because it is not what he feels in his heart. To the chagrin of his wife, he says he wants to quit the church. His life is in a tailspin because he cannot face the possibility of being a fake to himself, thinking that any meaningful life has to be grounded in truth first and foremost. This is a sort of the bind I feel like I'm in right now, to be true to myself or politically pacify my family."A Letter to Christian Nation" inspired me to write this essay. Here is an interesting comment about the book by a reviewer:The author's points about embryonic stem cell research and creationism in the public schools are extremely important for anyone who embraces modernity and progress. While a handful of other authors attempt to feebly argue the ridiculous idea that modern science was produced by Christian thinking, Harris explains what should be obvious -- that religion is now, and has always been, a serious impediment to science. Some people are currently trying to force public schools to teach our children that their ancient creation myth -- a fantastic story for which there is only contradictory evidence -- is a good viable alternative to evolution, a well established scientific explanation of human development for which there is a mountain of supporting evidence. These same folks also wish to impede embryonic stem cell research, which could potentially result in cures and treatments for numerous human diseases and afflictions, simply because their prudery-inspired anti-abortion agenda has forced them into the absurd logical conclusion of contending that a 3-day-old blastocyst in a petrie dish is a full fledged person possessing the same rights as anyone reading this sentence. Now, these religious opponents of progress will insist until they're blue in the face that they're not against science. But watching them make every attempt to stop the advance of very important science like stem cell research and evolution while at the same time insisting that they support "real science" is like watching an obese man deny that he has a weight problem while he dines on a bucket of fried chicken.There are many very real contradictions in religious thought, because it is not logical. It is not rational.I find scientific statements like this fascinating….A sugar cube of neutron-star stuff on Earth would weigh as much as all of humanity!There is so much we don't know about our universe. Why isn't the Bible more humble and why isn't marvelous universe addressed in this book of knowledge? There is no evidence of intellectual curiosity in the Bible. Maybe we need a new book. Why isn't Michael Behe more humble when he throws up his hands and says everything is irreducibly complex? In "The Origin of the Species," Charles Darwin wrote:"If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find out no such case. No doubt many organs exist of which we do not know the transitional grades, more especially if we look to much-isolated species, round which, according to my theory, there has been much extinction. Or again, if we look to an organ common to all the members of a large class, for in this latter case the organ must have been first formed at an extremely remote period, since which all the many members of the class have been developed; and in order to discover the early transitional grades through which the organ has passed, we should have to look to very ancient ancestral forms."Albert Einstein once said, "The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead, a snuffed out candle. " He also differentiated between types of atheists, saying, "What separates me from most so-called atheists is a feeling of utter humility toward the unattainable secrets of the harmony of the cosmos."In his book "The End of Faith," Sam Harris says,"Our willingness to ignore reason and scientific facts as we maintain our beliefs, not based on sound science and reason, will lead the world into more peril because these beliefs not only legitimize intolerance, but they have also invaded most aspects of political and secular life and threaten to become apocalyptic in a world with weapons of mass destruction."Harris, who is now working toward a Doctorate in Neuroscience, seems genuinely concerned about the ability of mankind to save itself through rational means, inferring that no supernatural God is going to bale us out of current problems we have like over-populuation, terrorism, poverty, disease and pollution.A Mensa study in 2002 showed a very strong correlation between intelligence and the choice to have fewer religious beliefs. It found that the higher the intelligent or education level, the more probability that the person will not clinging to some preset religious rules for one's own salvation. Studies also proved recently that there is no evidence that prayer helps people. A double blind study was done and it found that the lives of people in hospitals who were prayed for did not improve appreciably and sometimes got worse. The people who were not prayed for did not show any deviation from any normal curve of recovery and other health variables. Now, here is the very ironic point. Religiously inclined people tend would probably be chomping at the bit to interpret information that let's say would prove that Jesus's birth could not be tracked to any sexual intercourse before hand. Say that science was able to analyze the body of Jesus's mother and determine that she could not have received sperm from any male contributor in order to give birth. The religiously inclined would flock to the evidence. As Richard Dawkins infers, one cannot see a fundamentalist Christian stating that it is "just science, I have enough proof in my own mind to know it is true." Something tells me that they would not ignore the evidence and that Pat Robertson would have it as a top story on his 700 Club, using science to prove his hazy points. Ironic. Truly ironic.Jerry Coyne recently wrote in the Guardian magazine:"Why is God considered an explanation of anything? It's not. It's a failure to explain, a shrug of the shoulders. An 'I dunno' dressed up in spirituality and ritual. If someone credits something to God, generally what that means is that haven't a clue, so they're attributing it to unreachable unknown sky fairy. Ask for an explanation of where the bloke came from and odds are that you'll get a vague, pseudo-philosophical reply about having always existed or being outside nature. Which of course, explains nothing."I have used the argument with deeply ingrained and somewhat militant atheists that there could be something outside of the five senses that we are not perceiving that could be true. But they counter with the argument that how can we know anything outside the realm of science? Good point. We can only speculate. We can speculate that there is a gigantic teapot that steams away up in the sky ruling all of our sub conscious experiences. There could be a huge banana in the sky that peels off pearls of vitamin-laced molecules of wisdom. You can make up anything if you don't have logic. That's the serious problem mankind is faced with here. Logic is our only way out even though we can speculate beyond logic.What's so dangerous about belief in irreducible complexity or intelligent design is that we give up using our brains(which are most ironically the most highly evolved tools we have to reflect and logically analyze this beautiful diversity we have here on Earth.) I think if there is a God(oh, there I go again) he/she would want us to use every single cell of our brains to comprehend this complex and wonderful, beautiful world. Traditional faith, you are going in the wrong direction. Let's appreciate the marvelous complexity of the one-celled animal or what salt looks like under a microscope or the colors of the rainbow. Even the religious could be taught to appreciate the 10 to the googleplex power of biologic beauty that has been dumped on us in our very very very short lives here on the planet. There is no time to waste reading and exploring all one can to get in touch which what we could call "the miracle of just being here." Where? On Earth of course! We are living in heaven right now. Let's wake up and smell the coffee.Let's for a moment bring the anthropic principle into the mix. At face value, it would seem that this would bring in more ammunition for the ID inclined. But the relativism which is inferred by it, only deepens my scientific curiosity. The fact that life could have evolved in a google-plex number of combinations lights the fire of my imagination perhaps like Douglas Adams was awe struck by the world beyond God. With our limited scientific minds, we are given the chance to figure things out. Truly amazing.This morning I prepared for a meeting with my Stephen minister. I picked out about a dozen Bible verses out of about 90 on a Christian calendar that I got from Miles Kimball. The key was finding things that were meaningful to me. I picked out several that really struck me as having some meaning that was applicable to real life. Words of the Bible must not be taken literally, but highly figuratively. It's what it means to you and how a person can shape the ultimate life path. My song "Beyond Belief" to my wife Debbie has a line about meeting in heaven. It is figurative. I don't really believe that I'm glancing at Debbie at the pearly gates. It means that in the infinite time there is a chance of anything. My mind is open to the remote possibility that we may see each other again.I picked out some psalms the other day and gave my interpretation to each one and then my Stephen Minister Tim and I had a very spirited discussion about their meanings.This is the day which the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be gladin it." Psalm 118:24 Be happy about each day, each minute for that matter on Earth. Thisis a very special experience...more special than you would everimagine. Rejoice and enjoy the entire experience! Live each dayto the fullest. That's the idea."And the angel said unto them, Fear not; for, behold, I bring youtidings of great joy, which shall be to all people." Luke 2:10 Don't forget about the great potential for giving that all peoplehave, that angels can be seen in the eyes of almost everyone in theright circumstances. Good things happen and good does notdiscrimminate between the lucky and the needy. We can all recognizeand take solice from our angels of mercy."For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shalllose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it." Mark 8:35This simply means keep the spirit alive. The old future is gone,but it is up to us to shed the old unproductive ways and develop lifehabits that make sense for the long run. The Christian would say tobe come more completed in his/her faith. We are losing our oldselves in favor of the newly evolved self. New ways to interact andto think and to act. We are hopefully improving until the day weare 80, 90 or 100. If we save our life for our own sake withoutintegrating with a combination of our fellow human beings then it'sall worth nothing. We must be highly integrated in helping. Wemust learn to tap into the energy that enables us to rush ahead withlife with a high level of meaning and momentum and not wallow in selfpity when down or over involve ourselves with our own ego when up. Share the joy with others and your life will mean infinitely more."And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath givenhimself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savor." Ephesians 5:2 To walk in love....what a beautiful thought. For truth alone withoutlove wiil perish and love without truth is naive. To hear infinitelove and truth will propel us to greater heights and help us touchthe face of God. You will encounter the slings and arrows ofmisfortune when taking the hard road, but it will all be worth it ifwhen a higher purpose is embraced. Each person must choose his/herown spiritual path, but must be highly integrated with goodness andrighteousness. Have the courage to take your own brave. That iswhat that is saying to me."A scorner seeketh wisdom, and findeth it not, but knowledge is easyunto him that understandeth." Proverbs 14:6 Have a good attitude and important life wisdom and knowledge tends tostick. Wisdom accumulates on wisdom and becomes infinitely morepowerful and yes I guess you could say closer to God, whatever yousee him/her as."Where no counsel is, the people fall; but in the multitude ofcounselors there is safety." Proverbs 11:14 I'm not sure what this one means. Maybe Tim or Craig can help me with this one. Maybe it means we have the responsibility to choose good friends who can be great counselors in the time of need."And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of thefirmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars forever and ever." Daniel 12:3 Sharing wisdom is as true and beautiful as the stars in the sky. Reach out with faith and it becomes infinitely more meaningful andpowerful."Seek the Lord, and his strength: seek his face evermore." Psalm 105:4 Seeking out the face of goodness; that has a very spiritual meaningfor me. We are continually looking for God in others. Seek thegreatest truth and beauty every minute of our lives. We must allfollow our own roads to spiritual truth. It is truly the road lesstraveled. A Christian would always believe that the power of God isalways with him or her. That one is never alone----what a powerful feeling."For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world,and lose his own soul." Mark 8:36 This is a powerful one for me. If we don't follow our ownconscience...that angel on our shoulder, then we are doomed to do thepleasureable thing, but not necessarily the correct thing. Life isseries of decisions. Jesus always has patience even when we fall offthe ladder. Worldly prizes don't mean anything in heaven. My purpose for writing this is to attempt to examine severalimportant passages in the Bible, throwing most out but keeping theprecious. Hold onto the precious ones dearly. I write this as Iprepare to meet with my Stephen Minister at Starbucks today. I continue to ask a lot ofquestions and Tim is very patient with my spiritual development. Oh, by the way, What exactly is spiritual development?Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around –Leo Buscaglia.Ryan(who just turned 13) decided to join us for church yesterday. It was an amazing turn around for Ryan who has rejected taking in the experience for some time. I have always emphasized the fellowship aspect of church to him and maybe he is realizing it will not kill him to experience something that Mom highly cherishes. Ryan willingly participated in sharing the peace and even in reading verses and singing part of the hymns. It was a grand effort from Ry and I deeply respect it. We talked to one of the church leaders(Paula Draves) after the service and Ryan was very appropriate with our friend. Does religion fill a gap in the brain, a need that needs to be satisfied wh

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I realized that god doesn't exist when I started reading The God delusion. You're mazing Richard, the simplicity you talk about god is amazing! You show us in a simple way, what we couldn't see behind the "misteries of faith", that were created by men to impose fear and ignorance.
I'm from Brazil, and here in my country almost everyone believes in something, it's like a rule that MUST be followed.When I say I am an atheist, most of the people laugh at me. Firstly I used to feel very alone, but I met my girlfriend, she's a very clarified person, she has a brain and she uses it, so she doesn't believe in anything supernatural or unreal. Then I enjoyed the Brazilian Society of Skeptical and Rationalists. Now I don´t feel alone anymore. I think that when we're very ahead of our time we tend to feel alone, but we have to learn with this feeling and go on trying to tell to more and more people the truth! I'm intelligent, i have brain, i use it, so i don't believe.
Thank you Richard Dawkins! You let me know there's a beautiful world outside the church's walls!

Luis Felipe Ferreira Baquedano

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Dear Prof. Dawkins (or whomever at richarddawkins.net who reads these..):

I've already gone through three versions of this letter, so let me try again since I've found that the simplist statements of facts is perhaps best:

I'm a 21-year-old American woman who at different times have been a pagan and a fence-sitting agnositc.

My atheist friend sent me a copy of "The God Delusion" as a ironic Christmas present.

I no longer call myself agnostic and also have more ammo with which to use when speaking to a spacific born-again christian at the college I attend. His attempts at "saving" me are more humorous now that I can lay some science on him (I'm a literature major and therefore don't really know a whole lot of science factoids). I have also bought a copy of "The God Delusion" for him, with the challenge of coming up with logical arguments against it. He hasn't as of yet.

Best Christmas present ever.

-Erin

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Dear Dr. Dawkins,

I wanted to thank you for giving me the final push that was needed for me to shead my early religious beliefs. I had aquired a belief in the Christian God through various influences in my early childhood, including a belief in the doctrine of hell - which is, of course, nothing but a form of psychological extortion, but which, if you are trapped in that kind of mindset, can cripple your ability to think critically about matters relating to faith, and the doctrine you've learned to accept.

Unfortunately for my faith, and fortunately for me, I was nevertheless a very inquisitive child by nature, and was an avid reader since the time I learned the skill. I read everything I could get my hands on, which, early on, consisted of various things from the better kind of science fiction, to various kinds of pseudoscientific nonsense. I never was a creationist, but believed in some vague way (without really checking it), that the Genesis was an accurate symbolic account of the history of the world, with the creation account matching in sequence the birth and history of life on Earth (with God's guiding hand in play, of course).

At around 18 or 19 years of age, I finally stumbled upon an actual book on popular science, that I bought on a whim as it looked kinda interesting - it was on complexity research. It WAS interesting. Much more so than any pseudoscience I'd read. The ideas in the book occupied my mind weeks after I'd read it, and so I picked up another popular science book, another fortunate choise:"The Selfish Gene".

You speak of some ideas being "consciousness raising", and The Selfish Gene was the book that made my consciousness sore to levels I had not known before - I'd known the basics of evolution, but never really "got it" before, never grasped the power of the mechanism of natural selection acting on random variation.

Realizing that there really WAS a mechanism that required no conscious guidance from above, that could account for the natural world without superstitious notions, opened up the floodgates. The religious doctrines that I'd kept from childhood, in the back of my mind, became clear to me in all their absurdity and needless fearfullness.

You know when the air-conditioning goes off in a room you've spent hours in, and the hum of the machinery suddenly stops, making you realize for the first time that there WAS a hum, only by it's absense? That's how it felt to me - like a ton of bricks lifted off my shoulders, weight that I'd not consciously realized, or admitted to myself was there.

I became an agnostic, and started researching intensely into the questions and claims of gods, feeling energized, the most exiting time in my life. I found good skeptical resources that taught critical thinking, and I soon became what I am still today - an agnostic atheist with a fully naturalistic world view. I keep reading more on the natural world, absolutely fascinated by the Universe I'm priviliged to inhabit, if only for a limited time. No fairies required, or wanted, in the bottom of my garden!

-Jarno

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Dear Richard

I thank you for representing those of us who believe only in logic.

I have read the preface of 'The God Delusion'. In it you mention that we atheists are unorganised. Do you have an entity that has such a function, that needs help?

For your information, I am a mathematician currently in England, 50 years of age.

Kind regards,
Paul

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I stopped going to Church in my teens because it didn't make sense to me, but when my grandmother died I went back because I wanted some connection to her. I'm not even sure how much I believed the church had some magic phone line to her and how much the ritual of it just reminded me of going to church with her as a child...

I do know that despite going back to church I had no interest in taking my direction from the Bible. It just didn't overlap with my life. I couldn't empathise with the characters.

Over time I drifted away, and oddly the final straw for me was attending a Christan Youth Work conference. I looked around and realised that I did not have anything in common with the people around me.

I recently read The God Delusion and I found it helped to crystalise the problems I had not been able to articulate clearly. So, thank you!

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I thought l was alone.But now l've found you. Richard, trully l have a story to tell the world and l know through you the world would hear me.
I'm an African.l was a victim of child neglect when my mother divorced with my father. I was only 6 yearsand my mother left me with my father.At age 11, my father died and l became almost an orphan because my mother never bothered about me after the divorce. Both my father and my mother were staunch christians and l was baptised into the E.M.E Zion church..............My story continues! But now through my Jamaican caretaker, i'm a graduate with a bachelor degree in biology. I'm now a strong atheist, a naturalist, a writer and a reggae musician. I actually want to put my philosophy into music.I became atheist at age 22. My first book is ready for publishing, entitled "THE ABANDONED MEDICINE." This follows my six-month intensive research into the criminalised natural plant,the indian hemp. I'm 32 and single. I strongly wish to re-locate to a place where l can find some of my people becuz l feel lonely here in Africa simply becuz l don't believe in "A GOD OF SLAVERY". But with you , l'm not alone.

Marc Donna, Ghana- West Africa.

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Dear Professor Dawkins,

I feel compelled to write to you, as your book has made quite an impact on my life. I myself made the realization that I was an atheist around the age of 15. I am now 18 and majoring in biology as it has also always been my favorite subject in school. I first heard of you in my senior year in high school during a discussion in my Theory Of Knowledge class. My teacher had a small excerpt from The God Delusion - The burden of proof and the example you gave of Bertrand Russell's parable of the celestial teapot. I found it quite amusing and sensible, and saw your book a few months later in an American bookstore on vacation in Utrecht, and remembered the impression it had made on me. Needless to say I purchased it and started reading immediately. Before reading your book I felt alone - I knew no one else who shared my world view, and although my parents were both 100% accepting of my choice (not raising me under any specific religion even though they themselves are protestant), I did not have any friends who were atheist or understood why I decided to go down a "godless" path. Because of this I kept my being atheist to myself, and would often not answer when asked what religion I affiliated myself with in order to avoid heated questioning on why I did not believe in God. I would often also simply reply, "yes", when asked if I believed in God, when truly I did not. Now that I have read your book, I know that I am not alone, and that atheism is a widely accepted world view, and that many individuals were in the same predicament as myself - stuck in the closet! I now proudly state that I am an atheist and do not affiliate with any religion or personal God of any sort. I can aptly defend myself and my views against questioning, and feel empowered when stumping creationists with lines taken from your book as well as my own rational thinking when it comes to the world and religion. All in all I would like to simply thank you for writing this book. It has helped me, as well as many others, to be free of religion and lead fuller, better lives.

All the best,

Dustin de Koekkoek.

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Dear Richard


I was bought your book "The god delusion" by my father as a present. He was a Christian and I was christened and confirmed. I then fell into the blind faith trap for a couple of years but failed to see the logic that was behind the fictional birthdate of the so-called Jesus Christ being fixed, yet his crucifixion was always moved around. Seemed rather fishy to me. I was left with the belief that I was born a sinner and I feel it affected my youth and led me to some strange conclusions, including looking at paganism. I am so glad that I quickly saw the scientific light. I then followed the path of rational and reasoned thought. The 'God Delusion' set me from any latent feelings of guilt I had and for that Prof Dawkins I will be always grateful. I have become a 'bright' as I believe 'Atheist' to be a term coined by religion. If mankind is to move forward and cope with the difficulties that inevitably lie ahead of the human race then we should give religions a wide birth, they all promise a better existence after this one. A false hope! This is where we belong and if this is all there is, then we must create 'heaven' here not wait for it to magically come to us when we die.



Charles Westerman

South of England

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Professor Dawkins,

Before I was introduced to your writing, I had never given religion, specifically the question of a creator, much thought. My father is a devout evangelical christian, and I remember recieving troubling answers to religious questions as a child. In particular I remember asking about how one goes to heaven, and who does not go to heaven. His answer, that everyone besides a fraction of the 1 billion Christians (the ones who "get it right") are condemned to an eternity in hell, was a sort of legitimacy breaker for me. How ridiculous, that for the pathetic transgression of not accepting a person's sacrafice for one's "sin" two thousand years ago, that one is then condemned to an eternity of suffering.

I did not think about the question of God again until last year, when I picked up a copy of The God Delusion as a purchase of curiosity. Before that point, I rarely read unless a text was prescribed for class. The God Delusion opened the floodgates to atheism, skepticism, empiricism, and most importantly - my literary appetite. I am very appreciative of the other atheist works you recommended throughout the book (Stenger's, God: The Failed Hypothesis, in particular), and your book has also lead me to branch out and read more than I ever have before. These are just a few of the books I have read, or are currently reading thanks to your book.

The Selfish Gene
The Blind Watchmaker
Unweaving the Rainbow
Atheism: A Philosophical Justification - Martin
Has Science Found God? - Stenger
God: The Failed Hypothesis - Stenger
Letter to a Christian Nation - Harris
The Mismeasure of Man - Gould
The Problems of Philosophy - Russell
The Third Chimpanzee - Diamond
Guns, Germs, and Steel - Diamond
The Sociological Imagination - Mills
Discipline and Punish - Foucault

Thank you, your writing has made a difference that will last a lifetime.

A convert

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-Professor Dawkins,

First, I'd like to thank you for, if you will, spreading the word.
Second, I've been an Atheist since birth. I was raised by an Atheist family, for which I am thankful. I have also always been an openly Atheist person, and have shown numerous ultra christians that we (that is Atheists) aren't a bunch of savage, man eating, criminals, but regular folks.
The reason I write to thank you is not for encouraging my Atheism (although you have encouraged my "militancy" as it were) and drawing it into the open, or for converting me to the logical option, but instead for providing a light for Atheist like myself and a few other folks I know. A means by which we can affirm and see that, we are not the only non-believers. I also write to thank you from saving me from what I would call radical atheism. The solid, full-hardy and crazy (although not the craziest) "belief" (perhaps conviction is a better word?) that god doesn't, cannot, and never will exist. If there is no way to absolutely disprove something than it is illogical to dismiss entirely the possibility. How ever, when there is not the slightest scarp of evidence to support that supposed "fact" it is logical to assume that it is not a fact, but a fiction and not applicable to reality.
Thank you.

-Daniel, 15, USA

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Dear Richard Dawkins,
mine is not quite a conversion story because I was already a confirmed
atheist at the age of fifteen (around 1997). I was born in Ecuador,
where approximately 90% of the people have been raised as
christian/catholics/evangelists; therefore, i'm part of what some
people like to call "the ultimate minority". I was not ashamed of
being an atheist at all; but still, it was somehow very difficult for
me to be publicly opened about my dogma-free mind in specific social
circles.

Reading "The God Delusion" boosted my self-confidence. (1) I
understood that I -really- wasn't alone and (2) that it was also my
responsability to spread the word of reason and common sense among
others.

You helped me to become a -proud- atheist.
Thank you.

Andrés Santos Kunze, IIG
26 years old / living in Guayaquil-Ecuador

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Thank you Dr. Dawkins,

I am 42 years old, and was born into a multi-generational Mormon family--a descendent of polygamists on both sides of my family. Like so many others I was taught that it was a sin to "delve into the mysteries" that god had not yet revealed. All literature that told Mormon history from an objective perspective was labeled anti-Mormon and of the devil. I began my departure from Mormonism last year after stumbling across some objective information regarding the history of the church.

I would like to say that the vast majority of members of the Mormon faith, including those in the local leadership level, are not even aware of the true history of the church. The church teaches that the only reliable source of information about its history is the church itself. Ironically , Mormons study church history as part of the religion, but it always the fictionalized version provided by the church itself. I did not know for instance, that Joseph Smith had used a seer stone in a hat to "translate" the Book of Mormon (and neither did my family and local Bishop). I learned more about the true history of Mormonism from a South Park episode than I had learned my whole life in the church--including two years I spent on a proselyting mission!

Having left my faith, I was fortunate enough to discover Dr. Dawkins on Youtube. From there I started reading The Selfish Gene, The Ancestors Tale, and The God Delusion. I love all of the books and videos that have helped me to discover the truth about the nature of our existence. I particularly enjoyed The Root of All Evil, because based on my experience in the Mormon Cult, I really have seen good people blinded and told that it is a virtue to close your mind to reason--that god will reward you for ignoring evidence and reason. I have experienced that brick wall when trying to reason with my family.

So, Dr. Dawkins, I am on board. This has got to stop. I have three little girls under 5 years old and my soon-to-be exwife wants to raise them in the cult. Now that I have broken free, I must now wrestle my daughters free from the grips of such a destructive cult. My family reminds me that so many of my ancestors gave so much for the faith--some crossed the plains pulling handcarts. I find it sad that they were deluded into the pain and suffering and polygamy. The indoctrination and brainwashing is incredibly powerful and difficult to penetrate with reason.

In all cults, those who leave are labeled as bad, deceived, evil, etc. So it is with me. My wife, many in my family, and former friends all believe I am the bad guy. I read Raven about Jim Jones and the People's Temple cult. It is a great book, and a fascinating example of cult dynamics. It helped me recognize the same dynamics at play in my religion. There were striking parallels between Jim Jones in isolated Jones Town and Brigham Young in isolated Utah in the 1850s.

The good news is that I am now living life for the miracle that it truly is. I was in many respects waiting for heaven instead of living life. I recently was asked by a Mormon how I could be an Atheist. I explained that it was not really that far from Mormonism. Mormons believe that all other churches are false, so there is only one more to disprove. Thank you for helping me to shake off the anesthetic of familiarity and to see this world for the amazing place that it truly is.

David Arnold, proud Atheist
Las Vegas, Nevada
USA

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Dear Dr. Dawkins,

I became "born-again" when I was around 15 years old (around 1997). The gentleman that brought me to Christ was professional football player in the NFL. In fact the church was started by a group of players as a bible study in the home of a well known quarterback. The reason I say all this is because as a young man these famous individuals had a great amount of influence over me.. I looked up to them. Because of who they were I believed they had to be correct. I needed Jesus.

Let's just say that I got extremely wrapped up into the American Christian fundamentalism that everyone talks about. The particular church that I belonged to was into making disciples. What that meant was you had someone discipling you (someone telling you how to live), and you had to disciple someone else (tell someone else how to live). It got to where I couldn't make decisions by myself. I gave my tithe. I volunteered my time. I believed all of the creeds, and I was a Calvinist. I believed in a young earth. We were taught that everyone knows that evolution is false; the debate is over. It takes more faith to believe in evolution than God.

I read every kind of Christian book that I could lay my hands on that further explained Christian creationism, apologetics and theology (More Than a Carpenter by Josh McDowell, The F.A.C.E. That Demonstrates The Farce of Evolution by Hank Hanegraaff, etc) If I had any books that disagreed with those books I threw them away. I was taught not to read secular material because it would corrupt my mind. Rather, I needed to cleanse my mind with the Word of God. I was told that I needed to read the Bible for at least an hour a day and pray or I truly didn't love God.

Over the years I went back and forth between belonging to a church and not. All the while I struggled with an enormous amount of guilt. My beliefs didn't change I just hadn't committed myself wholeheartedly.

I remember reading about how the eye could not evolve due to irreversible complexity. I took that and ran with it. It wasn't until around the first of the year of 2008 that I stumbled upon a youtube video that completely contradicted my belief. It dealt with the eye argument. I learned that the eye not only evolves but as humans our eyes aren't even that great (Why do so many need eyeglasses? Birds have better eyesight than us.). This created a ripple effect in my core beliefs. I began reading those forbidden arguments that contradicted my weak Christian beliefs. I searched "atheism" in youtube, and I found more videos, many which had you as the featured speaker. Your arguments were so convincing that I read your book, The God Delusion. Evolution made so much more sense with reality. The idea that life only needed to happen one time out of a billion billion seemed more likely to me than a god speaking everything into being. Also, one website that really impacted me was whywontgodhealamputees.com.

I remember sitting at work the first day that I tried to believe that there was no God. At first it was very difficult because He had always been my best friend; I was never alone with Him. He knew my thoughts, the good and the bad. I was utterly dependant upon Him. So I took a step outside to breathe some fresh air, and I made a conscious effort to not believe in God. What I felt scared the hell out of me. I wasn't created for a purpose, and I wasn't chosen. I was alone in this infinite universe.

As I became used to this feeling over time, I had a new awareness. My thoughts were mine alone. I wasn't sinning for what I thought. As Christopher Hitchens always talks about, there was no longer any thought crime; no more Dictator. If I wanted to do something charitable for someone it was me doing because I wanted to do it, I wasn't doing it for a god. The guilt of being a useless sinner started to wear off. The idea of sin seems foreign to me now.

A few of my close friends are still Christians, and recently I tried real hard to believe again. I tried very hard! I went back to listening to my old Christian CDs, reading the Bible, and I even bought a Lee Strobel book. This I did to no avail. I just can't believe anymore. I would have to deceive myself into belief.

I think what put the nail in the coffin was when I went to hear Dan Barker speak back in February of this year. I remembered that you mentioned him in your book. In fact, I stumbled upon his book, Godless, at Barnes and Noble and I spent a few days reading it. When I heard he was coming to town I just had to see him. Well, I reread his arguments and haven't had a desire to go back to belief since, nor do I regret my decision. The funny thing is that sometimes I still catch myself speaking in tongues, especially when I'm in the shower.

Looking back I feel cheated. I realize how insane my thinking became. I lost friends due to my radicalism, and I wasted my time and money. I could have paid off my student loans with all the tithing that I did. At least I've gained reason. The world makes much more sense to me now. I guess one could say that I am now truly "born-again."

I just want to thank you, Dr. Dawkins, for all of your hard work. You have won my genuine admiration! I hope get the opportunity to meet you sometime. Best wishes.



Sincerely,

Jesse from Charleston, SC, U.S.A.