Coming off of a 3 year hiatus due to a number of factors that I have kept relatively silent about, I found it somewhat difficult to to return to my Youtube channel and create content. Despite atheism once being a fringe minority, I have found myself in an echo chamber of family, friends, and coworkers that I have personally deconverted from the clutches of religion.

At this point what can be said about atheism? The religiously concerned find that the same tried and true methods from years ago can still apply today. They are still lacking the reason and logic that we have consistently demanded for thousands of years. They have never presented any valid argument nor provided one shred of evidence that their chosen deity exists. As atheists what do we say to someone that has chosen blind faith or ignorance? What evidence can you provide to someone that has chosen to create or adopt arguments that have always lacked evidence? You may say, well, Aeolus you have successfully deconverted everyone in your social circle from religion, what would you do? To answer that question, I didn’t really do anything I would consider a counter to religious indoctrination, nor did I discover the key to ending religious belief forever. In many of these cases, I simply maintained my relationships with them without attempting to change their minds and exposed them to the person that I am and the content I have created. Someone that they knew had the courage to question the things they believe in and ask questions about the absurd things they were expected to accept and believe.

It is my understanding that it is not our mission to question the beliefs of others, but to get them to question those beliefs themselves. It is unlikely that you will ever convert a theist to atheism, however, you can be instrumental in their deconversion process. It has long been my position that you have to sow discord amongst their beliefs or to increase their doubt in their own beliefs. Will you change their minds? That is also unlikely. Sometimes it can take many years of persisting in cognitive dissonance in order for those seeds of doubt to take root and begin to have an effect on the individual. The majority of atheists began as religious individuals only deconverting after a long and arduous journey toward the light. There are things that are intrinsic to this process that you cannot teach or instill into someone, such as the pursuit of truth or the value of skepticism. Unfortunately, this means that many people will not be deconverted or will continue on supporting religious institutions despite the evidence of harm that these institutions create and exploit. However, I think that we can look to the decline of religiosity and the rise of the irreligious as proof that at the end of the day we are making a measurable change in the world.

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