This put me in a dilemma. All my life, family, teachers–all kinds of people, made it clear that jealousy was wrong. Jealousy was a no-no. But here was something telling me god was jealous, and that’s why I had to worship him, as per the Commandment. But there was another commandment that said to honor the father and mother. Now was I supposed to dishonor them by questioning what they had taught me? Or accept what they taught me, and discredit the jealous commandment? Or…

I went round and round with it but in the end asked my mother why jealousy was wrong. She explained it in terms that an 11-year-old (as I was then) could understand, that life wasn’t always fair, that we couldn’t have everything, that what mattered most was being a good person, etc. She made sense. When I asked my teacher why jealousy was wrong, she said basically the same thing. Then when I asked how jealousy could be wrong, but god was jealous, she started in on how it wasn’t right to question god (nice change of subject), that I wasn’t equal to god, etc., etc.

The disconnect was breathtakingly obvious to me, and that started me questioning Christianity. I went to my trusty encyclopedia at home and read about Christianity. It didn’t answer my doubts. Then I saw a listing about Religion in general. I went to it, and learned that there were all these other faiths! I read through them, and they sounded kinda fascinating, but kind of silly too. But, still, that they all were so sure they were right, that they had the answers, had me questioning Christianity further: What if the Hindus were right? Or the Buddhists? Or the Muslims? Or (fill in blank)? What then? Atheism didn’t even enter any of this. It was unheard of, at least by me (or my dated encyclopedia). But not for long.

Right about this time, my mother started dating (and eventually married) a militant atheist. I learned a lot from him. Then I read Bertrand Russell’s Why I Am Not a Christian, and that sealed the deal. Religion was dead for me.

And that was that; I don’t recall giving further thought to the matter until several years later.

My mom wasn’t a very passionate and informed believer, but she certainly believed. She took me to church every Sunday, would eventually enroll me to Catholic school, used to host some religious gatherings in our apartment, and lead prayer at home before bed every night. There are several Bibles in our house.

As the quotation marks around the word “conversion” at the start of my post meant to imply, reflecting on this past I don’t consider it much of a conversion because, although I certainly chose to believe in Him, I knew very little about Him and the faith.

I never came back into the Christian fold.

Although I maintained my disbelief, it was only as recently as probably two years ago that I became confident in referring to myself as an atheist. At that time, I had still not read any atheist or skeptic books. The earliest notable influence from other people I remember that helped my disbelief lose its naivete and become informed and intellectual was a few Internet message board members, particularly Brad Johnson and Karim Temple, who go by the user name “Saint” and “X”, respectively. Their debates with others and with each other involving topics that touch on religion influenced me when I read them at Project-Ion (a forum that no longer exists), and even more recently and to this day at my own forum, The Infinity Program.

Another Internet message board member who’s influenced me, but this one later and much more significantly, is Michael Wong, who goes by the user name Darth Wong at his forum, StarDestroyer.net. His are among several websites I still remember that have most strengthened and informed my disbelief, and further decreased the probability of me returning to the Christian (or any other religion’s) fold. Those websites are as follows:

Paul Tobin’s The Rejection of Pascal’s Wager: A Skeptic’s Guide To Christianity His essays that argue for the evolutionary basis of morality and for the choosing of the label “atheism” over “agnosticism” in his “Atheism: FAQ” contained in that site was among the most influential material I read. That argument that morality has an evolutionary basis is especially important to me. I’ve not heard much more on that since Michael Wong advocated it in some posts on his forum. The essays influenced my recent decision to put Frans B. M. de Waal’s Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals and Robert Wright’s The Moral Animal: Why We Are, The Way We Are, The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology on my Wish List.

Michael Wong’s Creationism versus Science. I also recommend looking for threads that touch on religion at his aforementioned Internet message board.
Steven Dutch’s Science, Pseudoscience, and Irrationalism. He’s agnostic, and he has a good article that argues for the label “agnosticism” over “atheism” (with such force I’ve not read since I read Robert Ingersoll’s essays), but his many essays influenced my non-belief notably.

Ed and Michael Buckner’s damning list of quotations, “Quotations that Support the Separation of Church and State“. The U.S. Founding Fathers, among other notables, with very damning and insightful quotations.

Some time after I started reading the above websites, I started becoming interested in books and started reading a lot for leisure. And I’ve picked up a lot of books that touch on religion since then. I’ve read

Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion. This book didn’t really resonate with me. Much of what he talked about I already read about with detail on the Internet. I found his The Blind Watchmaker more influential towards my disbelief.

Sam Harris’ The End of Faith. Also didn’t really resonate with me.

Susan Jacoby’s Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism. This one struck me. A book on America’s heretics to the Christian orthodox and the important role they’ve played throughout our nation’s history. Heck yes! And to think I got it on accident, just not wanting to leave the B&N before it closes with just one book, though I never thought I’d ever come across an entire book on this subject.

Hemant Mehta’s I Sold My Soul on eBay: Viewing Faith through an Atheist’s Eye. I didn’t care too much for the parts about atheism, but I very much liked his descriptions of his church-going experiences. Well worth the price for that, and was glad to help the author of this very interesting blog.

Carl Sagan’s The Demon-Haunted World: Science As A Candle In The Dark. I liked this one.

Bart D. Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus. This one quite influenced me. I found it humorous that a fundamentalist Christian contact I had, soon after I had revealed to him I read it, would post a thorough review on his own blog, having not read it, but assuring me that he had done well enough instead by reading reviews on it (not just on a bunch of apologists sites, or otherwise with a certain demographic in mind, I’m sure), and read some other book by him that, he says, is pretty much just the same thing (makes me wonder why he didn’t just review that one then).

Richard Carrier’s Sense & Goodness Without God: A Defense of Metaphysical Naturalism.

Mark Twain’s Letters From The Earth. The first few stories are a harsh parody about Christianity. And yes, from the Mark Twain.

Christian apologetics I’ve read are

The Complete C.S. Lewis Signature Classics
Michael J. Wilkins and J.P. Moreland’s Jesus Under Fire
Lee Strobel’s The Case For Christ

… and I’ve already read the Bible.

Books I plan to read

Lee Strobel’s The Case For Faith
Bertrand Russel’s Why I Am Not A Christian
Richard E. Friedman’s Who Wrote The Bible?
William James’ The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study of Human Nature
Bart D. Ehrman’s Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scriptures and The Faiths We Never Knew
Bart D. Ehrman’s God’s Problem: How The Bible Fails To Answer Our Most Important Question–Why We Suffer
Robert M. Price and Jeffery Jay Lowder, eds., The Empty Tomb: Jesus Beyond The Grave
William Lane Craig’s Reasonable Faith

I’m now going back and reading the Bible and can now understand those who were pushed away from Christianity by its overwhelmingly coherent eloquence.

Still, this post gives me a nice long list of other books to consider

-Tim

By the way, just now I accidentally typed Christ Hitchens.