Episode 005: My Brother’s Journey To Atheism (Pt.2)

Hi all,

Thanks for the great feedback about Pt. 1 with my brother Andrew as he talks about his slow “death of a thousand cuts” journey from Christianity to Atheism.  In this second part of the interview Andrew discusses the affect his journey had on his wife and kids.

For myself I particularly liked the part in the discussion where he talks about the filters we have as believers that remove crazy notions of God we don’t really want to deal with.  When Andrew and his family visit their church after a time away they hear a message of how they are all unworthy of God’s love but through Jesus they are made worthy.  Andrew’s wife, concerned that their children would hear that God finds them “abhorrent” apart Jesus,  comments on the way home how much their message seems to have changed but Andrew responds that no, they are giving the same message they have always given but that they no longer have the filters to process and remove the toxic elements.  It was, in fact, they that changed, not their church.

In the end we discuss strategies people have employed to “win him back” to the faith which I think you’ll find a little amusing.

A couple links you may enjoy:

Andrew’s Blog where a lot of his journey is chronicled

A post over at Ojo Taylor’s site where my brother lists the “types” of responses people have to his leaving Christianity

Peace,

Steve