Herein we will consider when and why certain personages became Atheists. We will parse these into Statistics, Influential Atheists, Ex-Catholics, Ex-Hindus and Hoi Polloi Atheists. As of now, I list the tales of 107 Atheists. You can find them all at the When and Why They Became Atheists Project page.
These examples are taken from Quora.
Jennifer Hancock:
Refers to herself as a “Humanist” who was “raised agnostic with Humanist values.”
Main points:
17 yrs old.
This was a one sentence statement to the effect of that at 17, she underwent “a 2 week existential depression. Realized that I could not conceive of an evolutionary benefit to a transcendent soul.” Of course, I would agree with Richard Dawkins who would call this an argument from incredulity as that which Jennifer could not conceive is purely subjective. Also, note that odd attempt at combining “evolutionary benefit” and “a transcendent soul.” She concludes that there is not transcendent soul but why not conclude that there is no evolution (in the worldview-philosophy sense which is called Darwinism)? Well, if there is a transcendent soul then we do not even get started or keep going without it so that it is an evolutionary benefit, in a manner of speaking.
With this in mind, let us discern that to which she is getting which is that beginning with a premise of that which is and is not an evolutionary benefit, “Without a transcendent soul” which she merely asserts, “the existence or non-existence of god is irrelevant [sic.].” Finally, she notes “I acknowledged to myself that no, I didn’t really believe such beings exist and I got on with my life.”
So via a very, very confused epistemology, she applied a theory which is supposed to be about biological evolution to theology and concluded that there is no soul and therefore, no God.
Will Richardson:
He writes, “faithless since 2008” and/but also “I was from the beginning, and I am now, an atheist.”
Will states that he:
…rejected agnosticism because I felt it was good to make a stand one way or another based on what I thought was the case, even knowing that I could be wrong. I cannot “know” that there is not a god of some sort; instead I choose to make an imperfect inference based on my own experience and what I know about the universe. Shrugging one’s shoulders strikes me as insubstantial, even if it is admirable in its rigid rationality.
He refers to concluding Atheism, even if he “cannot ‘know’ that there is not a god of some sort” and yet, notes that he is a “Richard Dawkins fan” which means that he is being fed on misinformation. For example, Dawkins’ view as to how the universe came about is to appeal to “luck,” see here.
From what would seem as Atheist scientism in the guise of science, he notes, “I became better educated about emergent phenomena. I realized that there didn’t need to be a god” which seems to means that he believes in the it just happened of the gaps.
He also wrote, “Finally, I asked myself what the greater preponderance of the evidence indicated (arks? whales swallowing people?).” But what does preponderance of the evidence have to do with arks and whales swallowing people? I suppose we are to infer that it is all too preposterous (that people build boats and that animals swallow things) and move on.
Keith Wilcox:
He wrote one paragraph which mostly deals with how his friends reacted to his newfound Atheism.
Main points: No age given.
He simply wrote, “I didn’t come out. I just stopped participating in superstitious bs” but what is of interest is that for Atheists, of course Atheism is a worldview and Keith notes that Atheism was his “new perspective on life” even though from what pop-Atheists claim, it is merely one view on one issue: God’s existence.
Baqer Mamouri:
“I was born in a very religious family in Qom, Iran…My transformation from a religious person to non-religious person did not took over night. It occupied my mind for a decade.”
Main points:
No age given.
Some stereotypical themes are that Baqer’s “father was strict…strict father” yet, also “relatively open minded and educated.”
The home library included:
…a large variety of books, from “Marriage and Morals” by Bertrand Russel and “The Blind Owl” written by an atheist nihilistic writer named Sadegh Hedayat…I learned to question all my beliefs through reading “Totem and Taboo” written by Sigmund Freud. It was not the content of the book that matters but rather the way of questions that Freud proposed and the angle that he looks to the religion was devastating for me.
Interestingly, Freud, who is largely discredited on such topics, merely applied Darwinism to humanity and merely asserted that God was an imaginary father figure to which people turned for comfort. This was based on his worldview-philosophy alone, of course.
Baqer notes, “The fashion of the day in Iran was religion. So it influenced me through family, society and government” so that it was more of a social club issue than a personal commitment of relationship.
Dana Fletcher: Refers to herself as a Pagan “I wouldn’t call myself an Atheist, but I don’t believe in any religion or god…pray to whomever…I view nature as ‘God.’”
Her main themes are “I was a Jehovah’s Witness for quite some time” and “But, like most major religions, it was incredibly misogynistic.”
Main points:
Is currently 19 yrs and implies a recent de-conversion, as some term it.
I have argued that Atheism is neo-Pagan so this comes as no surprise, see here.
Well, Jehovah’s Witnesses is a pseudo-Christian cult (see here) in the theological and psychological sense.
Thus, they may have been “incredibly misogynistic” but the Bible is not. Dana notes that “Christianity* seems to think that I, a woman, should submit to her husband and bear his children” which is like stating that a recipe for cookies is that one should open a bag of flour and make cookies. Obviously, this is leaving out a lot. Moreover, upon what basis does she condemn misogynism? She does not say but merely condemn at, emotive, will.
The asterisk at “Christianity*” is elucidate thusly, “* When I mention Christianity, I’m not branding all Christians. I’m sure some are very different than others, but I am speaking for the religion as a whole.” So, not branding all Christians but branding the religion as a whole.
She tells a long tale of attempting to deal with Jehovah’s Witnesses’ psychological cultic nature.
She wanted to travel in an eat, pray, love manner but “Christianity kind of encourages families.”
She wanted to become a performing artist or a PhD in music but “Jehovah’s Witnesses, as sincere as they are, don’t encourage higher education.”
She notes, “I left the faith because I don’t want to live life in a bubble.”
Ajas Mohamed:
Claims to be an “Ex-Muslim Atheist” and “Bipolar I.”
For some reason, Ajas noted, “I would have abandoned any religion I was raised to believe in” well, it is a good point that being raise to believe certain things is the worse reason to believe them—including and especially evolution, Atheism, etc.
Main points:
Implies circa 20 yrs old.
He seems to appeal to the stereotypical Atheist logical genetic fallacy by writing, “By sheer chance, I happened to be born in a muslim family.”
The story progresses thusly:
My family wasn’t very religious then, we rarely prayed…I turned 16, my parents went to Mecca to perform Hajj. They came back as different persons. Our home, everyone in it, became more religious…I became a devout Muslim…It gradually became a burden…I was moody and gloomy most of my late teenage…18-19 years old…moodiness gave way to depression…
He was eventually diagnosed with Bipolar I.
Now, one main theme is that “From the home library, I had already dug some materials about Science, embryology, heliocentrism in Quran (Maurice Bucaille, Zakir Naik et al.)…Evolution was anti-god propaganda” and this would be part of his faith’s downfall, not surprisingly as we shall see.
At 20 yrs old he “joined Atheist vs. Theist” cyber community and “saw atheists refuting…scientific stuff mentioned in Qur’an are either not scientific or it was already discovered by Greek thinkers centuries ago.” Indeed, this is not hard to do, see my section on Islam and The Quran & the Bible in the Light of History & Science by William F. Campbell.
One way that Ajas went wrong is to affirm the Qur’an’s lack of scientific accuracy and apply to that to anything and everything not stated by, say, Dawkins, as we shall see.
He states that a friend, “talked about evolution and why people believe in religion and why scientific method is the only way of knowing” but that is the end of the sentence and, apparently, neither Ajas nor his friend, stated just what the scientific method is the only way of knowing. It was a tool designed for a certain job only thus, it is the best at what it was designed to do and utterly useless for anything else. As Charles Fort rightly noted, “Science is a turtle that says that its own shell encloses all things” and it appears that Ajas did not follow his friend down a path towards science but towards scientism. His friend asked him, “If god’s existence can’t be proved scientifically, how can you be so sure? Why do you assume that universe is designed? If god is outside physical reality, why bother much? Have you ever thought about the possibility that god doesn’t exist? Maybe you’re wrong.”
The scientific method was designed by Bible believers to explore the material, natural, physical realm. Within the Islamic context Allah is immaterial, supernatural and non-physical so the scientific method is not the right tool for that particular job. Thus, Ajas’ friend knew not of what he spoke and Ajas should have known better. Now, why assume that universe is designed? Because it is fine-tuned and random accidental explosions have never been observed to produce fine tuning but only a fine mess.
In the end, Ajas “read extensively on the theory of Evolution and it was mind-blowing! I understood why believers oppose it. I read God Delusion by Richard Dawkins and it was the final nail in my god’s coffin.” Well, considering that he was reading Dawkins who knows to what he thinks evolution applies, what it is, how he defines it, etc. For example, if one views evolution merely as change over time which occurs to already existing organisms then what, pray tell, has this to do with God’s existence?
Dawkins claiming that believer would pick up his book and become Atheists by the time they put it down and in Ajas’ case, it seems to have worked. However, when the book was picked apart for being logically, theologically, scientifically and historically erroneous on various points, he claimed that the book was meant to be “funny” and “amusing,” see here.
And in the end, he leaves us with the glories of Atheism, “I acknowledged the insignificance of human life in this vast universe.”
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