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the heck is wrong with everyone?"

The judgmental errors made in religious belief can be made outside of religious belief, as well. An atheist can fall prey to the same reasoning errors that allow others to believe in aspects of god and god's rules - it's just that these errors cause the atheist to believe something different. Thus, religion provides an atheist with a good sounding board. Some rules and arguments against theism can be applied to arguments concerning other issues, like global warming, the nature of morality, and human psychology. In other words, studying religion can help an atheist realize what she's doing wrong.

I recently purchased a pro-god book called, "The Reason for God," written in response to the atheistic and antitheistic writings of Dennett, Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris. So far, I've gotten through only a few pages - so much to read, so little time!

I don't expect the book to change my mind about Christianity (in fact, I've been an antitheist since the age of twelve), so why did I buy it? As a workbook. I plan to go through it, page by page, and mark off every fallacious argument I can definitively point out. I'll check out what's left, go over it again, and see if I can find any pro-theistic argument that I have no proper response to. If anything does indeed remain at the end of the exercise, I'll know exactly what to meditate on.

I have a lot of reasons for doing such an eccentric thing, and some are stronger than others. I want to be a good debater; I want to learn to change religious people's minds.

I simultaneously love philosophy and don't want to be useless, thus, I want to participate in what is essentially the most publicly relevant philosophical discussion of the present.

I want to be able to have good conversations, and I want to be able to talk about deep subjects with the people I care about, despite their religiosity.

Above all, I want to learn to be a good thinker. It's both a passion and a hobby, and focusing on it reminds me of the freedoms granted to me by my situation.

It is simply glorious to be able to question whatever I want to question, without fear of reprisal for changing my mind. My world - the real world - has no thought crime. Thinking about those who aren't so free, or aren't aware of how good free thought feels and how productive free thought is, reminds me to be thankful. And that brings me happiness.

I, like many other atheists, am one of the very few people of the last few thousand years to be free to learn the truth about the world for myself. If only the religious were as openly curious about the nature of belief as atheists are, they would probably wind up atheists too.

Learn more about this author, Currie Jean.
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