Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists

by Dan Barker

He began to read the “other side,” and eventually came to respect the reasoning of freethinkers, philosophers and scientists. The same Wisconsin Magazine article quotes my father, Norman, discussing how he dealt with his son’s change of views: “I tried to straighten him out. It worked the other way around.”

Back in the 1950s, when he and Mom became “born again,” Dad abandoned his musical career, threw away his collection of swing recordings, turned his back on his “sinful” life and played his trombone only in church. He had come to view popular, worldly music as a threat to spiritual health and godly morality.

He traded “Onward, Christian Soldiers” for “Don’t Get Around Much Any More.”

Today, with more fervor and skill than he ever exhibited as a Christian, Darrell is a walking, driving advertisement for freedom of thought. (He often plays freethought music and initiates skeptical conversations with passengers on the airport shuttle van he owns.)

I should have known that in a family built around true love and acceptance, there is nothing to fear. The fact that these born-again, door-to-door preachers were open to change gives me hope. Some values are truly transcendent (in the natural sense), rising above religious walls. Human love, kindness and intelligence are better than belief, and superior to superstition.

My Christian marriage did not last either. When I told Carol that I was writing this book, she asked me not to say anything about her. I suggested that it would seem strange, even insulting, if I cut her completely out of the story. So she asked me to keep it to a minimum. Carol had always wanted to be married to a minister, and although she tried to adapt as much as possible to my change, she could only bend so far without breaking.

I could no longer imagine a marriage in which the man is the “head” of the wife, as the bible sets it up. Divorce is always painful, but we were fortunate that it was not too messy. We did not have much property to fight about, and neither of us wanted to fight anyway. She remains a faithful believer and is now married to a Baptist minister, as she continues to see that as her role in life.

Computer programming became the perfect transitional job for me until I was able to go to work with the Freedom From Religion Foundation. In 1985, the company I was working with moved me to the midwest to be close to the railroad dispatching systems we were installing in Indiana and Illinois. That job was fun! We moved real trains on real tracks, using a custom real-time multitasking system, one of the tasks which I designed myself.

In May 1987, Annie Laurie and I were married. The freethought-feminist wedding, a “match not made in heaven,” took place in Sauk City, Wisconsin, at historic Freethought Hall.

The next month I was hired full-time as public relations director for the Foundation.

In 2004, Annie Laurie and I were elected co-presidents of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which is today the largest organization of atheists and agnostics in the country.

But I have repeatedly told all my children that my love for them is not contingent on what they believe. They can be Christians if they want, as long as they are good people and don’t hurt others. They went to church with their mother, who worked at a Christian school, and their stepfather, a youth director at a Baptist church and later a pastor. They know what I think. I have never wanted them to be forced into a position of having to choose between parents. They are smart kids, and I have to trust that they have the ability to sift fact from fiction, and right from wrong.

No one can tell you what to think. Not your teachers. Not your parents. Not your minister, priest, or rabbi. Not your friends or relatives. Not this book. You are the boss of your own mind. If you have used your own mind to find out what is true, then you should be proud! Your thoughts are free.

When I moved to Madison I started playing jazz piano, averaging more than 100 gigs a year since then.

Jesus has still not returned, and never will. But who needs him?

Chapter Four

The New Call

The motivation that drove me into the pulpit is the same one that drove me out. I was a minister because I wanted to know and speak the truth, and I am an atheist for the same reason...

Religious conservatives do not want to move on. Religious conservatives have consistently resisted progress, preferring to maintain tradition for the sake of tradition alone, even if the tradition is bad.

When was the last time an atheist knocked on your front door? Has an agnostic ever handed you literature on a street corner?

Faith is what you need when you don’t have certainty. The more you learn, the less you need to believe.

“I love (heart-shape) Dan Barker, but if God told me to kill him, I would. (smiley face).”

Atheism is exquisitely vulnerable to disproof. Theism is not.

If God is infinitely merciful, he can never be just.

A God who is both infinitely merciful and just not only does not exist, he cannot exist.

incoherency). If God is defined as a married bachelor, we don’t need to discuss evidence or argument; we can simply claim a logical impossibility.

PART 2

Why I Am an Atheist

Chapter Five

Why I Am an Atheist

A strong clue that a person is arguing from a position of weakness is when they attack character rather than arguments and facts.

The only times the opponent’s character is relevant in a debate are when the specific topic is morality, when it is fair to examine possible hypocrisy, or when eye-witness evidence is being offered and a history of dishonesty might weaken credibility. In those cases attacking character is not ad hominem.

Love is not self-denial. Love is not blood and suffering. Love is not murdering your son to appease your own vanity. Love is not hatred or wrath, consigning billions of people to eternal torture because they have offended your fragile ego or disobeyed your rules. Love is not obedience, conformity or submission. It is a counterfeit love that is contingent upon authority, punishment or reward. True love is respect and admiration, compassion and kindness, freely given by a healthy, unafraid human being.

If there is evidence for a hypothesis, then I will gladly look at the data. If the claim itself is illogical, however, or if it is based on something other than honest investigation, it can be dismissed as wishful thinking, misunderstanding or a lie.

I am an atheist because there is no reason to believe.

If they want me to believe, too, they have to convince me, not just themselves.

Perhaps in a court of law it is more relaxed. In a trial any object or testimony that might have a relevance to the case may be considered “evidence” before there is a verdict. In science it is the other way around: a fact is admitted as evidence only after the connection has been made.

We should start with nature. We should start with the nonexistence of God and then the believer should argue for God’s existence, not demand that atheists argue against it. The burden of proof in any argument is on the shoulders of the one who makes the affirmative claim, not the one who doubts it.

I am willing to change my mind, but I don’t see many believers admitting even the possibility that they might be wrong—that they are the ones with the problem.

Christians may be loyal and dishonest, but they still may be correct. Atheists might be rational and honest, but they might be wrong.

If it is necessary to have a degree in theology before making an informed decision, then millions of Christians will have to be ushered out of church. Even the least educated atheist knows enough about the bible to judge its reliability or relevance.

Scientists and rationalists gain knowledge by applying limits. Believers do the opposite, as faith has no borders.

The scientist and historian—anyone in pursuit of verifiable knowledge—applies specific criteria in a uniform manner across time to help determine what is true or false.

If I say that I possess an honest inductive conclusion that all ravens are black or that people do not resurrect from the dead, based on careful observation of the world around me, then is it fair to say that such views are based on an a priori dismissal of any and all possibilities?

There is nothing there. No advantage, no inside track, no superior abilities or sublime knowledge. Ministers are only successful if people want them to be. There are no preachers alive who could succeed without a following, without gullible people willing to call them “Pastor,” “Reverend” or “Father.”

Many atheists know far more about the bible than most Christians. Many of us have given Christianity (or Islam or Judaism) more than a fair shake and have done all the work that, if we were believers, should have earned us the respect granted so easily to others.

Agnosticism addresses knowledge; atheism addresses belief. The agnostic says, “I don’t have a knowledge that God exists.” The atheist says, “I don’t have a belief that God exists.” You can say both things at the same time. Some agnostics are atheistic and some are theistic.

Agnosticism is the refusal to take as a fact any statement for which there is insufficient evidence. It may be applied to any area of life, whether science, UFOs, politics or history, though it is most commonly invoked in a religious context as it was first used.

The word agnostic was coined by Thomas Huxley, who attached the prefix a- (not, without) to gnostic, which is fr...

It turns out that atheism means much less than I had thought. It is merely the lack of theism. It is not a philosophy of life and it offers no values. It predicts nothing of morality or motives.