Just wondered how many people on this forum have deconverted/ recanted from the Christian faith?
How or why did this happen?
Seeing as the whole "you were never really a Christian" thing has blown over far more quickly that I thought it would (at least for now), and actual discussion appears to be happening, I might as well join in.
I basically grew out of Christianity, I suppose. I became very attached to it when I was in school, and I'm still quite attached to my old church in various ways. Once I left compulsory education, things started to change. Not having to study subjects, and being able to choose them, made learning in general far more interesting, and I actually learned more of science and the world through my own interest than anything I was taught in a classroom. With that, suddenly I was confronted with actual explanations for things that previously I had merely assigned to God. Faith is different to simple belief (say, that a chair will hold my weight when I sit on it), but it still has to be based upon something. As every reason for God's existence slowly began to be replaced with actual explanations, I realised that I was merely filling in the gaps of my knowledge with God. I see other religious people doing the same thing all the time; "I don't know" is never really considered as an actual answer. Once I'd realised that, I very quickly decided that it was no longer worth pretending to be something I evidently was not
(edit: here I refer to that specific moment in my life, not the entirety of my life as a Christian). Not long after, I started posting in forums like this one, to work out exactly where I stood. Seeing the various arguments put forward for God only strengthened my position, as I quickly realised that there are no arguments for God (at least none that I know of), only vague approximations of a "higher power" or "first/greatest being".
That was pretty long-winded, but it's quicker to put all the details in one post, especially as I'm not sure how long it will be before certain posters start trying to define other people's lives for them.
EDIT: On the WLC discussion, it's worth remembering that verbal debates are rarely there to prove an argument. All they show is which debater has the better rhetoric - if I were good enough, and picked my opponents carefully enough, I could "prove" the moon was made of cheese through such debates. When you strip away the rhetoric, and simply look at the points put forward and the arguments for them, you quickly find that WLC's arguments rarely reach the conclusion he is claiming, let alone the fact that they're not even very good at that. The problem for the people he challenges is that by accepting a challenge, you legitimise your opponent. Philosophy simply does not have the "proving power" it once did, and for a scientist to accept means that WLC's thought experiments and conjectures are put on the same pedestal as empirical science. For WLC, these debates are primarily a way of making his position seem strong without actually showing much evidence.
EDIT THE SECOND: I should also point out, for the sake of balance, that many promoters of atheism use the same strategy. The people who really prove a point are the people who sit down and actually work things out, instead of immediately trying to show everyone else to be wrong. They are the scientists and thinkers that you've probably never heard of (the scientific community is a rather closed-off one, because if you're interested enough, you're probably already in it), yet who define the way that we progress as a people.
