Well this is encouraging

Barna does research on how "Post-Christian" America has become.

The data is really striking and I think shows a much more accurate picture of exactly how "Christian" the country actually is.

Being a former fundamentalist, one of the themes we had was that many people may claim to be Christian, but they aren't really.  There were always claims of "people damned to hell may be sitting in these very pews", which was a call for people to come up and give themselves to Jesus.

Looking at life around me verified that things weren't completely legit in terms of following the Christian doctrines.  Most people didn't know their bibles very well, they didn't read it often, or they had unsound doctrinal views compared to what the churches they were attending stated in their statements of faith/doctrine.

The main things I saw was that people would go to church, and then largely live like everyone else around them - like I live right now.  Most people don't attend church regularly either but still report themselves as Christian, probably because they show up on XMas and Easter (the two weekends that your local church probably takes in the most money).

What's nice about this is that people in my generation and younger are significantly less religious, and it's likely to keep going that way.  Which means when my daughter gets older, we hopefully won't have to even remotely worry about possibilities like President Rick Santorum, and the "Religious Right" won't have any significant political power anymore.

From Fundamentalist to Atheist - My Deconversion Story

This video is going to be a bit different than the other videos I’ve put out since I don’t have an actual argument that I’m putting forward or refuting. I’m going to talk about my deconversion from being a fundamentalist Christian to being an atheist.  And I really want to do this because I think it’s something that all of us who’ve deconverted want to put out there to maybe help other people who may be going through the same thing.  I’m hoping it’s also useful for life long atheists to help understand where the “faithful” are coming from. 

I’m going to give a brief overview of what my religious background was growing up, there’s a much longer and detailed post about thison my blog that I’m going to link to in the description box.  The long and short of it is that I was born a Catholic and then my family converted to being fundamentalist Christian, specifically Baptists, when I was about 9 years old.  

But I was a True Scotsman!

It took a little while, but I managed to get my first comment from a believer where it's claimed that I must not have been a true believer, or that I must have been a poor christian.  

This sort of thing is bound to come up almost any time that anyone leaves a religion and starts advocating against their former beliefs.

It's the first online "No True Scotsman" that's been leveled my way, and I admit that I almost want to wear it like a badge of honor.  To be fair, I've had it happen to me before in person, and I think that this makes for a very nice springboard to point out exactly how much of a believer I was.  To be fair to my commenter, there is a bit I left ambiguous in my "About Me" post that led to his confusion.

So lets start clearing things up!

About Me and my Goals

Mission Statement

It is demonstrably the case that atheism or agnosticism is the default starting point for any rational inquirer when it comes to the question whether or not god exists.

My goal is to advocate for atheism and agnosticism because simply put, there are no good reasons to believe in a god.  This is especially true for the Christian god, Yahweh. 

This blog is dedicated to showing how and why there are no good reasons to believe in any deity by countering mainly Christian apologetics arguments.