Deconversion Stories of Famous Atheists

Dan Barker, former evangelical preacher and now co-president of the Freedom from Religion Foundation.  His autobiography is Losing Faith in Faith and he also wrote Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America' Leading Atheists.





Bart Ehrman, Biblical scholar who trained to be a pastor and became an atheist.  He peeked behind the curtain and found out that the Wizard was a fraud.  Most of the video summarizes the main problems in the transmission of the books of the Bible and early debates about Jesus:



Seth Andrews, former Christian broadcaster and now podcaster and speaker, wrote Deconverted: A Journey from Religion to Reason.

Jerry DeWitt, another ex-pastor (Pentecostal), wrote Hope After Faith: An Ex-Pastor's Journey from Belief to Atheism. He is the first graduate of The Clergy Project, started by Dan Barker and Richard Dawkins to give closet atheist pastors a safe place to discuss transitioning to secular life.



Teresa Macbain, also a member of The Clergy Project. She came out despite certain unemployment, and she is now a speaker and Public Relations Director for American Atheists. (Mute until she is at the podium b/c there's terrible feedback):



Matt Dilahunty of The Atheist Experience:



Michael Shermer (blog post): he read up on evolution in order to debunk it, and became a skeptic and atheist


I don't know if this guy is famous but he ought to be!  He tried to convert "natives" and they deconverted him:



And the classic, "Why I am Not A Christian" by Bertrand Russell (not read by him):



His answers to lame questions in an interview. His deconversion is part of the interview:

May 4 Link Round-up

Moon Landing Faked!  Why People Believe in Conspiracy Theories  Skeptical article in Scientific American ... not by Michael Shermer

 Real paleontologists visited the Creation Museum.  Fortunately they were not left speechless.

The survey says:  Christians are more like Pharisees than like Christ

PZ Myers destroys the aquatic ape hypothesis idiocy.

10 Things Most Americans Don't Know About Themselves

Interview (.pdf) with the author of Paleofantasy: What Evolution Really Tells Us About Sex, Diet and How We Live

Florida freethinkers win the right to distribute atheist literature in a Florida school system.  The schools had allowed a group to leave Bibles on a table for students, so freethought literature will now be available as well.

A printable electronic ear has been developed so borg people can now be their own ipod.  Add Google Glass to become a total Borg, but it may not last:  Google Glass:  Too Dorky to Live?

Rep. Randy Forbes tells Congress that the Obama administration is waging war on Christians in the military.  Politifact says Mostly False:  "This did happen in at least one briefing at a reserve center in Pennsylvania. The Army says it was a mistake -- made by an individual, not the command -- that was corrected upon the first complaint."

Westboro Baptist "Church" threatens to picket George Jones' funeral.  They're trying so hard to make conservatives hate them.  Why isn't it working?

More affinity fraud, this time pastors in Toronto, who bilked their congregation of $9 million Canadian (it's still a lot of money even if it is Canadian)

It's Buddhists vs Muslims in Sri Lanka and Burma, with Buddhists adopting violence contrary to their religion.

Richard Carrier reviews a book with mythicist arguments against the historical Jesus so you don't have to.  Really.  Doesn't sound like a very good book.  Carrier's review is good reading, though.

Video of the Week: The Four Horsemen in Conversation (Dawkins, Dennett, Carrier and the late great Hitchens)

Dawkins and Krauss Go on the Road

A new film is premiering at the Toronto Film Festival this week.  It's called "The Unbelievers," starring Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss.  Apparently it is edited from various conversations they have held with each other and with diverse audiences around the world. 

Watch their television promos, thanks to the Jesus Saves ... at Citibank youtube channel.  I'm also  sharing two of their road trip videos below the telly appearances.  The two videos  come from the Australian leg of their road trip.  The first is Richard Dawkins vs. an Idiot Catholic Cardinal (Caradinal Pell).  The second is from the next day, with Dawkins & Krauss together in front of a less hostile audience.  They reference the appearance with Cardinal Pell during that video.

Toronto Television:


Dawkins & Krauss on CNN, with Dawkins not letting the interviewer get away with a last-minute nod to believers:


Dawkins vs. the Cardinal:



Dawkins & Krauss in Australia:

Reading List

After seeing the shockingly bad reading list for the Ball State course purporting to be about the "boundaries of science" but being totally just ID/creationism, I started thinking of which books I would recommend as the counterbalance to his creationist/ID list for undergrads.  This is what I've come up with.  Any suggestions?

Coyne.  Why Evolution is True

Darwin.  On the Origin of Species

Dawkins.  The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution

Dawkins.  The Selfish Gene

Festinger & Carlsmith.  "Cognitive Dissonance" (article)

Hawking.  A Brief History of Time

Krauss.  A Universe from Nothing

Mills.  Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person's Answer to Christian Fundamentalism

Sagan.  A Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

Shermer.  How We Believe: Science, Skepticism, and the Search for God

Shermer.  Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design

Sokal.  Beyond the Hoax: Science, Philosophy and Culture

Stenger.  God: The Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows that God Does Not Exist

Tyson.  Origins:  Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution

Richard Dawkins (Politely) Gives an Hour of Time He'll Never Get Back to a Y.E.C.

I don't know how he does it, or why he's called "strident" or "militant." He's waaaaay more polite than I would be toward this idiot (note that in the comments there's a debate over whether you can call the interviewer an idiot).

April 27 Links

ACLU tells Kansas school system to stop having mandatory assemblies for creationist crap.  I hope they win.

Salon asks if atheists secretly believe in God.  uhh NO!

Conspiracy Theory flowchart

Autism associations in Turkey bristle against an official's statement that atheism and autism are linked.  Yet there's some truth to it.  This study links autism and atheism.  Another links autism with a fear of God in Calvinistic denominations.

PZ Myers weighs in on the Ball State prof who teaches creationism as astronomy.

edited to add:  The press are being lazy or dishonest about the accountability of the West fertilizer plant and the collusion of Texas legislators in not protecting the public.   Oh, and the legislators who want the feds to cough up disaster relief money for this man-made disaster voted against relief for Hurricane Sandy.  Nice folk.

Video of the week: Neil DeGrasse Tyson on The Perimeter of Ignorance

Creationism taught as "Science" at Ball State

Jerry Coyne, who wrote the book, Why Evolution is True, uncovered this "Science" course that's really a course in "intelligent design" and creationism.  He posted about it on his blog, and he confirmed it with the head of the Physics & Astronomy department.

Ball State offers a Ph.D. in Science Education!  How can they let a creationism course be listed as a science course???

The course is cross-listed as a science and culture course within the Honors College, but also as Astronomy 151.  The professor who teaches it also teaches Astronomy 100, possibly the only astronomy those students will ever get, and maybe the only science they'll ever get, and students from that class complain about his frequent diversions into Christianity.

Rather than rehash his post, I just urge you to go to the post for the details.  He even has the syllabus posted, with a reprehensible reading list.

I hope they fire the teacher and whoever has been allowing this prosletyzing under the banner of "science" to continue.