Generation Atheist

helloo!

Sorry I'm late. I'm getting the feeling I missed everything already.

thanks for taking the time to be here

Thank you to everyone who participated in today's chat! There were some really good questions in there.

If this book is interesting to you / might be interesting to someone you know, please do spread the word. And if anyone is interested in staying in touch, don't hesitate to reach me here:

genearationatheistbook@gmail.com
https://www.facebook.com/GenerationAtheist

Thanks also to ChatBasket for hosting!

@Atheist -- Haha, well I'll be happy if the book becomes more and more a part of a conversation in our culture, and I'm still working to do so!

I do hope to continue to promote the book at some conferences throughout this year, and hope to appear on some podcasts as well. I have no immediate plans to write another book, or take on a project of this length, although I have no idea what the future holds.

Now that your popularity is on the rise, what plans are there for the future? Are there any new projects in the works?

@Atheist -- I was more active in the day-to-day activism of secularism when I worked at CFI. CFI and the Secular Student Alliance -- along with the American Humanist Association, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, and many others -- are doing great work. They're all findable online; if you're a student interested in getting involved, I'd encourage you to check out these websites:

http://www.secularstudents.org/affiliates
http://www.centerforinquiry.net/oncampus/groups/

Many of the atheists I know are very active when it comes to the general debates surrounding secularism and atheist activism. Are these activities that you partake in, and can we be given some direction to more of your work if you do?

@Emery -- Yes, I like to think that I do. I think it's incredibly important to connect with people who think like you. In-person meetups are the best I think, but even online meetups are better than nothing. One of the big reasons that I think atheists have stayed in the closet in the US for so long is that they felt ashamed of who they are. Again, I think the internet has been a huge tool in raising people's consciousness about atheists, and I see that trend continuing to be advantageous in the future. There are so many resources out there; I'm happy to provide you with some of the best if you're interested.

But I just had the will to try to create something that I thought was worth working on. There is no substitutie for hard work; if you feel like you're truly inspired to do something in life, I've learned that persistence is an incredibly powerful force.

Do you have any advice for people who find themselves shunned by religious family members when they come out as atheists?

@Atheist -- Without a doubt, the single biggest thing that writing this book taught me is the power of persistence. For anyone who is thinking about taking on a massive task or project in life -- whether that's writing a book, starting a company, getting married, etc. -- be sure that this is something that is deep in your bones. The idea of writing my book was something that, for years, I couldn't get out of my head. I was lucky to have the time to do it. Creating something that you're proud of and believe is worth working on every day takes a lot of internal willpower. Neil Tyson talks about how the universe chose him to become an astronomer; it's just something he had in him and knew he wanted to do since he was young. Writing was never something I aspired to do as a youngster, but creating this book went into my conscious brain about five years ago and never left. If you feel that way about something, go for it. There were months when I was too busy to write or edit...

Writing a book is obviously a massive undertaking, requiring focus and determination. Are there any words of advise you can share for those who wish to try a similar endeavour?

@Atheist -- Great question. I think about the people in the book and what they said to me all the time. Certainly the stories of people who made drastic transitions from being very religious to nonreligious -- like Michael Amini, Rachael Dawn-Craig, Jon Adams, Chris Stedman -- all had an impact on me; they demonstrated great courage.

I think about individual quotes / insights a lot too. One of them is from JT Eberhard, who said that as he grew up and became less emotionally attached to Christianity, he began dropping dogma altogether; he is now interested in what's true about the world, and if he's proven wrong, so be it. It doesn't hurt his ego. I like that idea of being honest with yourself and with others around you to live by such a code, rather than trying to force yourself into a certain pattern of thinking. There'd be a lot less suffering in the world if people were open to such a life philosophy -- and had a community around them supporting such a worldview.

thats a great question atheist.. itd be interesting to hear dan's response

Your book covers the lives and experiences of many different atheists as they've made their ways through life thus far. Are there any in particular that have had an affect on you personally?

@Atheist. Good question. I think it was a combination of many things over many years. At the top of the list, I like to think what motivated me was a sense of justice and fairness: the way that nonreligious people / atheists are viewed in America -- how they can't get elected, how their point of views are not heard, the damage that religion can do to equality -- made me want people to better understand who atheist are and where they come from. Growing up in the internet age, I was perhaps more inclined than other generations to view the world as one big place with one big human family. Breaking the world into sections, where different people believe in different Gods who all have different convictions about why we are here and how we should live struck me as both untrue and potentially dangerous to mutual co-existence. I had no idea how hard it would be to write a book, but I'm very happy that I was persistent and followed through with it.

@Love -- Hi!

hello everyone

Hi Dan, Mat here.

What occurred in your life that prompted you to write your own book? Was it a long standing dream or can you pinpoint a certain experience or encounter that motivated you?

@Lagger -- thanks! Would love it if you e-mailed me at generationatheist@gmail.com too so that we can stay in touch. Looks like you have an awesome following on Facebook.

@Emery -- thanks for the offer! If you get a chance, e-mail generationatheistbook@gmail.com. I'm sure we can set something up. And to answer your second question, no not that I know of. Some of the people in the book decided to use pseudonyms, but the vast majority -- including an ex-Muslim -- used their real names.

@Matter -- Thanks for the kind words about the book (and thanks for having me on the show!) I do hope that the book is readable for believers. While the title is a bit in-your-face, the stories themselves are, first and foremost, human. I have some religious members of my family, and I'd like to think that while they likely would not de-convert or change their mind, they could at least better identify with how young people become atheists in the world today. I'm biased I know, but I was satisfied with how reasonable so many of the people in the book seem.

Thanks, Steve.

Dan,

Check out our page Atheist logic! We would love to keep in touch with you.

Www.facebook.com/atheistlogic

Have any of the people you interviewed for the book had second thoughts about taking part?

Hey Dan! Steve from A Matter of Doubt here. I think your book is awesome. We can learn a lot from people's deconversion stories.
Do you think your book is readable for believers? or will they be offended by it? Does it have a lot of religion bashing?

I listen to Ardent Atheist, great show Emery!

I would love to have you appear on my podcast, "Ardent Atheist" next time you're in LA, Dan.

@Lagger6 -- Would love to talk to you about getting you a copy of the book. Please e-mail generationatheistbook@gmail.com so that we can connect.

@Lagger6 -- I agree that evolution is a serious problem for those who ascribe to any organized religion. It unifies humanity literally into one family, revealing many of the myths of the world's religions. As someone in the book noted about global ethics -- "It's not relative because we're all relatives."

@Emery -- I agree that coming out of the closet as an atheist is becoming more and more of a trend. I think that's being caused by many factores, two of the biggest being the internet and identification. It's hard to keep information from people anymore, and like the gay rights movement, if you know an atheist, if you're dating an atheist, if someone in your family is an atheist, that puts a human face on a group of the population that was once / is currently viewed with suspicion. I wanted the book to put a human face on atheism, and show people what's it's like to become an atheist in (often) intimidating circumstances.

Hey dan, im the founder of an Atheist page on facebook entitled Atheist Logic. I run the page with 5 other admins who are scattered around the world. Is it in any way possible to receive a paper back edition of your book so i can use reference to your personal story and the 25 others? Thanks
-kirby

I love that you put these stories down for others to read and understand. One of the most significant problems with being and/or becoming atheist is a graphic misunderstanding of what it means to be atheist and what motivates someone to identify as atheist or agnostic.

That said, why do you think so many would be so anxious to be recognized as out of the closet atheists? I know this is a relatively new trend and I wonder if your work on the book has given you an opinion as to why we are seeing such a shift.

While religious texts around the world vary in their calls for violence / subjugation of certain peoples, any religion, if taken in a certain way, can inspire acts that I would consider dangerous. That's true for any form of ideology; religion, unlike other ideologies, has the added danger of advertising itself as being from a deity and therefore following its commandments as a requirement for humans. That said, it would be difficult to get the followers of the Jain faith to commit widespread acts of violence based upon its tenets.

Just got off my jazz gig. Kirby here for AL,

With the question on evolution i brought this up a few years ago and the theory went viral.

If you believe in evolution, macro and micro, i feel that you cant be a man of faith because you must throw out the creation of adam and eve. When you throw out adam and eve, you must throw out the first sin, free will, heaven and hell. When throwing those out the window, there is no point in having jesus come die for our sins, therefor christianity being avoided at all
Costs.

-kirby

Religion is a poison, with that said can you list off, in your bias opinion, the worlds worst religions created?

Hi Emery Emery,

Good question. The majority of the people I chronicled in the book I knew personally from my time as a secular organizer at the Center for Inquiry. I proposed the idea for what became this book at a summer conference when I worked at CFI, and was very happy with the result: nearly half of the students in the audience said that they wanted to be a part of this project. There are stories like those who are featured in this book all over the world, and I wanted to create a collection that told their stories.

If by God you mean an entity who -- hypothetically -- is responsible for everything that happens in this universe, including every facet of my own life, then yes, there's no question that I have had a better life than the vast majority of the human beings who have ever lived on this planet. However, I think many of the reasons for why I have had such a fortunate life -- access to clean water and food, access to education, freedom from governmental oppression, freedom of movement -- are the result of human-created Enlightenment philosophy related to the rights of the individual and the pursuit of happiness, rather than because of following a religious code or dogma. I feel I owe a debt to many of the great thinkers and actors of the past for affording me with this life. I like Ingersoll's vow, which I quote in the book, seen here:

http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/vstenger/RelSci/vow.html

Hello, Dan, and congratulations on the release of your book. How did you find and choose the people whose lives you've chronicled in your book?

If there is a god, would he have been good to you?

I certainly know of people who are men of devout faith who believe in evolution -- Francis Collins, the leader of the project to map the human genome is probably the most well-known. For me, the theory of natural selection is a unifier of knowledge in many ways, and it explains our existence on Earth in a profound way. In knowing its details -- that the universe is a "Blind Watchmaker" to quote Richard Dawkins -- it can both explain why bad things happen to good people and how we got here in the first place. While I know that there are people of faith who believe in evolution, I find it hard to understand how that's possible. Nature is not concerned with human affairs; it's my belief that we have to recognize the universe's indifference to us and take that concern into our own hands.

My first question for you is: Is it possible to be a man of devout faith and also believe in evolution? (Including Macro and micro evolution)

Hi Dan,

Kirby here with Atheist Logic. Thanks for doing this chat.

I am ready to chat with Dan!

Hey everyone, we're getting ready to chat with Dan Riley, author of Generation Atheist. The book describes the personal narratives of 25 people's search for truth and meaning without religion. Many of their stories start with childhoods in deeply religious families and explore their own migrations away from those roots.

I look forward to the live chat at 5pm PST today!

The preview of this book is awesome!