The Homemade Atheist: A Former Evangelical Woman's Freethought Journey to Happiness

by Betty Brogaard

Why is homemade pie better than store-bought? Because it is made with love, special care and personal attention. Betty Brogaard's atheism is just like that. She knows that life without faith is not only intellectually justified, it is emotionally fulfilling. Betty's story is proof that atheism leads not just to truth, but to happiness.

--Dan Barker, author of Godless

This outstanding volume progresses magnificently along two beautifully interwoven lines--a personal story and the scientific method.

--David Mills, author of Atheist Universe

Betty Brogaard was raised to be a good Christian. By the time she was 20 years old, she had joined a fundamentalist church. She even met and married a young man who became a minister in the congregation. However, the more she came to understand Christianity from within, the more she found herself asking questions instead of finding answers.

In The Homemade Atheists, Betty shares her sincere, personal and fascinating journey from the mental slavery of religion to the happiness she found in freethought. Along the way and without malice, she offers questions that challenge you to analyze your own beliefs--exactly as she did over a peroid of many years.

Her transformation provides a wealth of insight is for anyone seeking a path to a nonreligious way of life.

Genres: Philosophy

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

Reviews

[Sarah]

although interesting at times, this book was also disappointing. I picked it up because I thought it would be a memoir, a description of how she was involved in evangelical Christianity and then left. In the book, she only briefly touches upon her life as a Christian. She does not give a lot of details as to what it was like how she experienced her conversion. She does touch upon why she left, but briefly and only in one chapter. Most of the book consists of essays about why she feels atheism is better and about how the world could be a better place without religion. I could identify with a lot of what she said, though I think her view that religion is the cause of most of the world's problems is a little bit overstated. I feel like I'm not alone after reading this book – that other people have come through evangelical Christianity and found it emotionally harrowing as well is poorly supported by the facts, and therefore left the religion. But I felt like I didn't learn anything new, and while the author was very likable and her ideas were interesting, I would've liked to read more of a memoir – more why she left the religion on a personal level, what her life as a Christian was like, and what her life is an atheist has been like by comparison.