I was very interested in this book as I was raised a minister's daughter in a small conservative church myself. I find Barker's writing both Christian and Atheistic to be well written and compelling.
Actually, for every rebuttal of Christianity there is an apologist that can make an excellent case, in which there is an atheist with a yes, but... rebuttal. Each camp has compelling points of view, it is then up to the reader to determine which evidence is more compelling, as well as what "works" in the "down and dirty" pathways of life.
I do find the extreme right "fundamentalist" way of thinking to be self-serving and arrogant. I can understand how one can become disillusioned in the pitfalls of religion, and lose their faith. I don't understand how someone can meet the person of Jesus Christ, experience a life of peace and contentment, be confident in who they are, be carefree, love others regardless of their way of life, and still turn away. I suspect Mr. Barker IS a casualty of religion, as well as a mid-life crisis.

"The very concept of sin comes from the bible."
Answer: If the people failed to understand the concept of sin then all will fall to sin. A cannibal won't know that eating his neighbor is wrong until somebody tell him it is wrong.

"How happy can you be when you think every action and thought is being monitored by a judgmental ghost?"
Answer: How sad can you be when you somebody just stabbed you with a knife in you back for there is no conviction on doing so.

"You can cite a hundred references to show that the biblical God is a bloodthirsty tyrant, but if they can dig up two or three verses that say God is love, they will claim that *you* are taking things out of context!"
Answer: God is love for those who deserve love and he is death to those who deserve death.

"I do understand what love is, and that is one of the reasons I can never again be a Christian. 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 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."
Answer: Love is being like Christ.

"I have something to say to the religionist who feels atheists never say anything positive: You are an intelligent human being. Your life is valuable for its own sake. You are not second-class in the universe, deriving meaning and purpose from some other mind. You are not inherently evil--you are inherently human, possessing the positive rational potential to help make this a world of morality, peace and joy. Trust yourself."
Answer: Atheist should just stay shut -- unlike Christians who were told to spread the good news, atheist doesn't have the same calling.

"It's not easy to change world views. Faith has its own momentum and belief is comfortable. To restructure reality is traumatic and scary. That is why many intelligent people continue to believe: unbelief is an unknown."
Answer: It is not believing in an unknown. It is believing in a higher being that must exist, a God. Unknown and God is not the same.

"Not thinking critically, I assumed that the successful prayers were proof that God answers prayer while the failures were proof that there was something wrong with me. "
Answer: Prayer is not asking for something, it is simply talking to God.

"To think that the ruler of the universe will run to my assistance and bend the laws of nature for me is the height of arrogance."
Answer: It is not arrogance but authority.

"Without The Law of Moses would we all be wandering around like little gods, stealing, raping, and spilling blood whenever our vanity was offended?"
Answer: Yes. And Dan Baker learned committing all this is wrong from Christianity.

"Truth does not demand belief. Scientists do not join hands every Sunday, singing, yes, gravity is real! I will have faith! I will be strong! I believe in my heart that what goes up, up, up must come down, down. down. Amen! If they did, we would think they were pretty insecure about it."

Answer: Belief demand truth. Men said before that there are 9 planets in the solar system, but they were wrong.

"I am an atheist because there is no evidence for the existence of God. That should be all that needs to be said about it: no evidence, no belief."
Answer: Ahem!

"If the answers to prayer are merely what God wills all along, then why pray?"
Answer: If you pray for your enemy to choke and die then all of us are all dead.

"Some theists, observing that all 'effects' need a cause, assert that God is a cause but not an effect. But no one has ever observed an uncaused cause and simply inventing one merely assumes what the argument wishes to prove."
Answer: Then what caused god is a God. Something can't just exist with plain nothing anyhow.

I did enjoy the book enough to request further information from the Freedom From Religion Foundation, but I think that's mostly due to the fact that I was already curious before reading Losing Faith in Faith. I agree that the Bible is filled with inaccuracies and contradictions, but I think Dan Barker chose to harp over and over on some of the relatively minor ones. I think if you have an existing faith in the Judeo-Christian God, this book will not change your beliefs. Perhaps a complete atheist would enjoy the book more than I did. With Mr. Barker's background, I was expecting more of an informative, point-by-point "rebuttal" to the Bible; instead I felt that he took a somewhat immature path, riduculing and belittling believers rather than allowing for opinions other than his own. My personal stance on religion and faith is: I believe there is something out there, but I don't think any of the books written on the subject have it right. I bought this book expecting to learn quite a bit from it, but I ended it feeling somewhat cheated. If you want to read the story of Dan Barker's life, it's an easy read; if you're looking for something deeper, keep looking.

I think that this book is really a nice read. It has some very good arguments in it. Mr. Barker is a very rational person and he seems to have honestly explored the truth without too much bias. I don't particularly care for reading, but after reading this book I am going to read some other books that Dan has sited. This book wants you dive deeper into the topics it presents.

XXXXX

"Dear friend,

You probably already know that I have gone through some significant changes regarding spiritual things. The past five or six years have been a time of deep re-evaluation for me, and during the last couple of years, I have decided that I can no longer honestly call myself a Christian. You can probably imagine that it has been an agonizing process for me. I was raised in a good Christian home, served in missions and evangelism, went to a Christian college, became ordained and ministered in three churches as Assistant Pastor. During those years I was 100 percent convinced of my faith, and now I am just about 100 percent unconvinced."

The above is the first paragraph of a letter the author of this amazing book sent in January, 1984 to more than fifty of his colleagues, friends, and family members. The author is Dan Barker (he belongs to two IQ societies) who after being a fundamentalist minister for 17 to 19 years became an atheist. He is now Co-president of the Freedom from Religion Foundation, Inc.

In a nutshell, Barker, in this book, explains in autobiographical form why he left the ministry by offering an analysis of why he rejects belief or "faith" in a god and the claims of religion. He explores the fallacies, inconsistencies, and harmful effects of Christian doctrine and theistic dogma. (The majority of the articles presented were written before but there are a few new memoirs.)

In religion's place, he issues a plea for free thought or free thinking, reason, rationality, and humanism. (A free thinker is a person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief.)

This book will present a challenge to believers and be an invaluable arsenal for skeptics.

To give the potential reader a "feel" for this book, I will give the title for each part as well as a thought-provoking sentence or sentences from each part:

(1) Losing Faith (8 chapters): "There is no basis for believing that a God exists, except faith, and faith is not satisfactory to me." (Faith is unquestioning belief that does not require proof or evidence.)

(2) Finding Free Thought (12 chapters): "Faith is a cop-out. If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits. It is intellectual dishonesty. With faith, you don't have to put any work into proving your case. You can `just believe.'"

(3) Re-examining the "Good Book" (9 chapters): "Why would an intelligent God write a book that is so easily misunderstood?"

(4) Critiquing Christianity (8 chapters): "Looking through a hymnbook recently, I was shocked at how many Christian songs deal with blood. Blood that is shedding, streaming, flooding, dripping, staining, ebbing, flowing, washing, sprinkling, and generally splattering all over. When blood is not in its proper place, it is obscene."

(5) Spreading The Best News (8 chapters): "There were five [people on the panel] on the "afterlife" show [a program on the Phil Donahue talk show]: Rev. Smock, a frowning hell-fire preacher who thinks most people are damned and only a select few will go to Heaven; Rev. Berkich, a smiling Christian who believes we all go to Heaven (Universalism); Father Quinlan, an animated, loquacious priest ousted by the church partly because he believes that Heaven and Hell are just useful metaphors (but God) is real); Lady Sabrina, a friendly Wiccan priestess (witch) who preaches reincarnation; and myself, an ex-preacher who thinks all of the above is nonsense."

(6) Separating Church From State (4 chapters): "The Declaration of Independence has nothing to do with religious freedom, and many of its concepts are contrary to the Bible."

(7) Exposing Christian Morality (1 chapter): "Why do believers assume a HIGHER power is necessarily a MORE MORAL power? How do they know it is not the other way around?"

(8) History or Myth? (1 chapter): "As a freethinker...I am now convinced that the Jesus story is just a myth. Here's why: (i) There is no external historical confirmation of the New Testament stories (ii) The New Testament stories are internally contradictory (iii) There are natural explanations for the origin of the Jesus legend (iv) The miracle reports make the story unhistorical.

(9) A Match Not Made in Heaven (1 chapter): "A MARRIAGE is an affectionate agreement between equals, a loving contract between peers that requires no blessing above or beyond the mutual respect, admiration, and trust of two individuals who cannot imagine not spending the rest of their lives together."

In the middle of the book are almost twenty black and white photographs. My favourite has the following caption:

"Conversing with minister Paul Ratzlaff at the Morristown NJ Unitarian Society, 1986. Speaking and singing for freethinkers and humanists is a lot more fun than church."

As well, peppered throughout this book are songs that the author wrote. There are a almost fifteen. My favourite: "Just Say `NO' To Religion."

I want to emphasize that the author is in no way attempting to de-convert others who are believers. This is just the story of his de-conversion.

Finally, at first I thought there was no index for this book. Actually, there is but it's not mentioned in the table of contents.

In conclusion, this is an extraordinary book. The one great thing I learned is that reason, rationality, humanism, and logic can trump indoctrination, authority, and faith.

(first hardcopy printing, June 2006; introduction; prologue; 9 parts or 52 chapters; main narrative 385 pages; index)

<>

XXXXX

This book is a collection of stories and anecdotes each interesting enough to be a separate publication (and a lot of them are)
Some funny, uplifting others made me cringe about the beliefs that some people apparently have.
ps. I love the FFRF podcasts that he does too.

This book is a collection of stories and annecdodes each interesting enough to be a seperate publication (and a lot of them are)
Some funny, uplifting others made me cringe about the beliefs that some people aparently have.

Dan Barker's book is down-to-Earth, easy to read, and entertaining. It is a common sense examination of the Bible, Christianity, and atheism.

The book contains 374 pages of text (except for a few photos). There are 9 parts to the book, each divided into subsections (or chapters).

Part 1: Losing Faith
Part 2: Finding Freethought
Part 3: Re-Examining the "Good Book"
Part 4: Critiquing Christianity
Part 5: Spreading the Best News
Part 6: Separating State and Church
Part 7: Exposing Christian Morality
Part 8: History or Myth
Part 9: A Match Not Made in Heaven

If you are an open-minded and honest truth-seeker, wanting to know if the Christian God is real or if the Bible is His holy word, then read Losing Faith in Faith. There is no better argument against the Bible than the Bible. I highly recommend this book!

Dan a preacher for over a decade eloquently describes his transformation from a religious know it all to a humbled non believer recognizing the bible for what it is; specious lies.

I highly recommend this book for anyone looking for an intelligent, articulate argument against many claims by religious fundamentalists. This book comes from an interesting perspective of a preacher turned atheist. Dan Barker is a great person who is involved with the freedom from religion foundation, which is a key organization in this country in the fight for separation of church and state. Thank you Dan Barker for this book and everything you do for this country!

This is so sad. He never had true faith . There are many false converts.

I pray he will one day find a true relationship with Jesus.

Dan Barker's painful de-conversion from christianity brings a very different perspective of the religion. You have an "insider" telling you what it is really like after you believe, without all the hype and glorious sayings of christians. Though he sometimes shows his contempt of the religion, mostly because he now knows the religion is not what it claims to be, his analysis is very objective and to the point. You got a sense he wanted to convince himself first before the material was presented, and it makes it that much more convincing!

...and an excellent speaker and debater. I had the chance to do a formal debate with Dan at the University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point in April of 1999 and we very much enjoyed each other's company (despite the fact that we were on different sides of the debate). An odd side note too, I was the narrator in one of the Christian kid's musicals that he wrote: "His Fleece Was White As Snow" back when Dan still referred to himself as a Christian.

The reason that I came in contact with "Losing Faith in Faith" was for the purpose of our debate so I would have a better idea of what Dan's perspectives were. On first read, they were brilliant. As I said in the title of my review, Dan is an excellent writer and that shines through clearly in his book (as well as in his debating). Unfortunately, the more I read Dan's book the more that I realized that it was all sail and no true anchor: but I don't blame him, and here's why.

Dan's book really should be called "Losing Faith in the Gospel of Modernism," because that's what his book actually critiques (and critiques very well). Much of the world of Christendom (Christians) are stuck with a modern mindset: a mindset that dictates Cartesian Mathematics and Newtonian Physics as the Laws of God - which, as it turns out, they aren't. In the 17th century (Early Modern Period), theologians started shifting away from biblical expressions of Trinity, Infinity, and Futurity and into the realms of theism, which was radically different than the Trinitarian language of the bible. With this rise in theism there came the central idea (largely through Rene Descartes) of proving God's existence LOGICALLY without use of the scripture (note: only in the modern world is any ONE given form of logic seen as self-evident. This is not to say that there is no such thing as 'logic' but what we may think is a pure form of logic is actually flawed within itself). The concept of proving God without scripture sounds sexy, but the fact of the matter is that when he went down this dark road (and others after him) he created a Theistic God who no longer matched the description of the biblical Trinitarian God. What's worse is that once these modern categories were created, the biblical language was pushed into them and a form of theology was created that was extremely far removed from biblical revelation. When Theism was born and Trinitarianism cast to the side, the biblical understand of the awesomeness of God was plunged in a dark place.

If you want to know what the problems are with the Early Modern notion of a Theistic God, read Dan's book: he brilliantly shows the major flaws in Theism, and why Theism as a system CANNOT stand anymore and is coming crashing to the wayside. It's a historical fact that the creation of the Early Modern notion of Theism is what produced Atheism in its modern form today (see Michael J. Buckley's book "At the Origins of Modern Atheism"). It was originally called Protest Atheism - that is A-Theism - people against the new teaching of "theism" - not the idea of God altogether. Protest Atheism then gave birth to modern Atheism which is a strong denial of the existence of God altogether.

The good news is that many more recent theologians are also taking strong stances against the concept of Theism. One of the world's most foremost theologians Jurgen Moltmann states in his book "The Crucified God" that "For Christ's sake I am an atheist...[o]nly a Christian can be a good Atheist" (Moltmann 1993, p.195), rejecting the modern notion of what "Theism" has come to represent. For a whole book written about the problem of the modern idea of Theism read F. LeRon Shults' recent book "Reforming the Doctrine of God" which is astounding in its critique of modern theism.

I commend Dan for his contribution against Modern Theism with his book Losing Faith in Faith, but bear in mind as you read the book that Dan is critiquing a form of Christianity that's only been in existence for about 300 years. Dan's understanding of the biblical text and the way that he continues to read it today is thoroughly modern and cannot be seen as a critique of true biblical revelation for which he has very little to say.

I can't say enough good things about this book and I haven't even finished it yet! I have quite a few books on atheism & freethought, but this is my absolute favorite! It's easier to read than some of them, funny and well-written. I found myself laughing at times, the way you laugh when you read something that is so obvious yet somehow never occured to you before. I was raised in a strict Christian (Mennonite) church, left when I was 17 (though for years I lived in fear of the teachings I was raised with and still considered myself Christian), then several years ago turned to Paganism, now recently to atheism, not out of bitterness or anger, but because it's logical. I am one who is skeptical about everything, yet until several years ago never questioned the basics of what I was taught to believe. Reading about Dan Barker's journey from fundamentalist Christian to atheism has been fascinating and I have a hard time putting the book down. And his story of how his parents became atheists after he told them of his deconversion is great! I intend to buy at least 2 more copies, so in addition to my heavily highlighted copy I carry with me everywhere I'll also have one for the shelf, & one to loan out. I don't normally loan out books but this one is too good not to share!

this book was interesting as it told the story of a teenager who made the mistake of adopting irrational beliefs and then trying to live according to them.He became a born-again christian. he's so sincere and trusting that you really feel bad for him when he gets into the secular world where he learns the value of reason and facts in determining the4 truth about the universe and ourselves.
whether dan has issues or not is not the point -- critics that attack dan but ignore his points only demonstrate their ignorance , they do not refute any of his arguments.and boy does he ever have great arguments!

I have not yet read this entire book, but I find Barker's perspective very helpful, as it matches much of my own in leaving Christianity, and discussing my conversion with my Christian family and friends. Someone who has never been a Christian will probably not get much out of this book -- it's not a deep philosophical discourse or even really a treatise on Barker's own beliefs. I would describe it more as "memoirs of a conversion." As a recent convert from Christianity, this book has been vital. I jokingly call it my new "bible." This book is a must-read for ex-Christians or for those who are pondering leaving the faith.

Great book! A lot of interesting points. I highly recommend this book for people of all faiths. It points to a sad reality that most people accept what they're told without any question, reason, or investigation. Dan Barker has done his homework.

Though you abandon all religious or political faith, you will preserve the tenacity and the intolerance that impelled you to adopt it. You will still be in a rage, but your rage will be directed against the abandoned belief; fanaticism, linked to your very essence, will persist there independent of the convictions you can defend or reject. The basis, your basis remains the same, and it is not by changing opinions that you will manage to modify it.

E.M. Cioran

Our group used this book for our discussion this month. It was one of the best discussions I have been involved in. I loved the book and the humor was wonderful. I have underlined many passages to use with my fundamentalist Christian friends and family.

I've yet to read a book on Atheism that isn't intelligent, logical and engrossing. But Dan Barker's personal story is, by far, the most humanistic and endearing.

I'm not the type to go around saying "I love this book", but I did love this book. Perhaps because I could personally relate to Dan's story, which was always frank, free and touching, it made an impact. Every former Christian turned Atheist should find themselves in these pages, and hear their own thoughts in Dan's words - laughing and crying at the common path we share of casting off old, stubborn demons for the liberty of freethought in Atheism.

Dan Barker offers a sensitive, and frequently touching, human side to Atheism that is all too often missing or overlooked in Atheistic tomes (even if I understand and respect why that is).

Worst atheist book I ever read, still fundamentalist in its approach

Dan Barker is a former Pentecostal (fundamentalist) preacher. This book is both his autobiography and an apologetics work against the Bible and (fundamentalist) "Christianity".

I found the parts related to his personal life, quite boring (his life as a fundamentalist preacher , how he converted to atheism and became atheist, his life as atheist preacher). To me this reads just like an evangelical "witnessing" his conversion story to convert people, except that in the present case this is here the other way round, but it is as much irritating and annoying... It shows to me that Barker still has completely a fundamentalist mindset, be it yet atheist. Also the public exposition in the book of his quite private photographs (his wedding, etc.) is somewhat exhibitionist and again typical of American evangelical fundamentalists. His simple black and white view (it is either Biblical fundamentalism or atheism) is also typical of American fundamentalism (who also hold other reductive dichotomies such as either capitalism or communism...).

The anti-Christian part is even more revealing. While there are many serious real contradictions between Bible verses dealing precisely about a given issue in the same context, in particular in the Old Testament, Barker is unable to pick up any real contradiction! Instead like a fundamentalist, Barker picks up unrelated verses out of different contexts from different Bible books and thinks he has proven contradictions... Even when I was a fundamentalist protestant I would never have taken seriously any of the points Barker thinks he is making. To anyone who has studied the Bible with a bit of logical thinking, and the more to anyone who has studied Christian theology, this is quite laughable. But this is also sad, as it shows how little many fundamentalist protestant preachers understand from the Bible and how non-existent their knowledge of theology is...

To be honest, Barker approaches sometimes some good points of criticism. For example the Beatitudes ("The Sermon on the Mount") is considered to be an authoritative, serious teaching of Jesus by many fundamentalist preachers, while it is a derision of the Old Testament legalism. Barker criticizes the Beatitudes as morally useless, but he cannot escape a fundamentalist reading of the text, like everywhere in his book... The problem is that Barker has only a Pentacostal Bible College education but no academic theological education so that he still thinks that the correct reading of the Biblical books is the fundamentalist one. It is probably not difficult to understand why his book was not published by Prometheus books, America's main atheist publisher.

I have given away this thick book which I consider to have no value. I you want a slim (no wasted space) book that criticize Christianity, Johnson's The Atheist Debater's Handbook would do enough: it would not stand any academic scrutiny, but is at least much shorter and not as terribly bad as Barker's book. Or if you want some serious (written by a real theologian) yet accessible books, pick up those by Gerd Lüdemann (even if I disagree with many of Lüdemann's points, but at least this is certainly not fundamentalist.) But if you want some real good books on the Old Testament, get the three academic books edited by Thomas Römer (in French) and published by Labor and Fides on amazon.fr (Introduction à l'Ancien Testament; Le Pentateuque en question: Israël construit son histoire). And if you want some good books on the NT, go to amazon.de and get Klaus Berger's Theologiegeschichte der Urchristentum, Klaus Berger's Im Anfang war Johannes, and Hans-Joachim Eckstein's Die Wirklichkeit der Auferstehung. These are the finest recent books I know, just the opposite of the present book...

Worst atheist book I ever read, still fundamentalist in its approach

Dan Barker is a former Pentecostal (fundamentalist) preacher. This book is both his autobiography and an apologetics work against the Bible and (fundamentalist) "Christianity".

I found the parts related to his personal life, quite boring (his life as a fundamentalist preacher , how he converted to atheism and became atheist, his life as atheist preacher). To me this reads just like an evangelical "witnessing" his conversion story to convert people, except that in the present case this is here the other way round, but it is as much irritating and annoying... It shows to me that Barker still has completely a fundamentalist mindset, be it yet atheist. Also the public exposition in the book of his quite private photographs (his wedding, etc.) is somewhat exhibitionist and again typical of American evangelical fundamentalists. His simple black and white view (it is either Biblical fundamentalism or atheism) is also typical of American fundamentalism (who also hold other reductive dichotomies such as either capitalism or communism...).

The anti-Christian part is even more revealing. While there are many serious real contradictions between Bible verses dealing precisely about a given issue in the same context, in particular in the Old Testament, Barker is unable to pick up any real contradiction! Instead like a fundamentalist, Barker picks up unrelated verses out of different contexts from different Bible books and thinks he has proven contradictions... Even when I was a fundamentalist protestant I would never have taken seriously any of the points Barker thinks he is making. To anyone who has studied the Bible with a bit of logical thinking, and the more to anyone who has studied Christian theology, this is quite laughable. But this is also sad, as it shows how little many fundamentalist protestant preachers understand from the Bible and how non-existent their knowledge of theology is...

To be honest, Barker approaches sometimes some good points of criticism. For example the Beatitudes ("The Sermon on the Mount") is considered to be an authoritative, serious teaching of Jesus by many fundamentalist preachers, while it is a derision of the Old Testament legalism. Barker criticizes the Beatitudes as morally useless, but he cannot escape a fundamentalist reading of the text, like everywhere in his book... The problem is that Barker has only a Pentacostal Bible College education but no academic theological education so that he still thinks that the correct reading of the Biblical books is the fundamentalist one. It is probably not difficult to understand why his book was not published by Prometheus books, America's main atheist publisher.

I have given away this thick book which I consider to have no value. I you want a slim (no wasted space) book that criticize Christianity, Johnson's The Atheist Debater's Handbook would do enough: it would not stand any academic scrutiny, but is at least much shorter and not as terribly bad as Barker's book. Or if you want some serious (written by a real theologian) yet accessible books, pick up those by Gerd Lüdemann (even if I disagree with many of Lüdemann's points, but at least this is certainly not fundamentalist.) But if you want some real good books on the Old Testament, get the three academic books edited by Thomas Römer (in French) and published by Labor and Fides on amazon.fr (Introduction à l'Ancien Testament; Le Pentateuque en question: Israël construit son histoire). And if you want some good books on the NT, go to amazon.de and get Klaus Berger's Theologiegeschichte der Urchristentum, Klaus Berger's Im Anfang war Johannes, and Hans-Joachim Eckstein's Die Wirklichkeit der Auferstehung. These are the finest recent books I know, just the opposite of the present book...

The only issue I had with this book is that it was mainly several different articles that were written over the years for FREETHOUGHT TODAY, the newspaper of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which led to repetition of many different ideas throughout the book. However, that also helped to cement some of the information in my mind.

Dan Barker is not an official philosopher or scholar, but he is well read, which is one of the reasons he had a problem with his faith that progressed until he had to leave the ministry. He was a Christian minister, missionary (learned Spanish for that), published songwriter, and says he probably converted hundreds to Christianity by personal witnessing, and probably thousands by preaching. He never shut his mind off, though, and when he had interest in something, he would read about it. This is a huge no-no in fundamental Christianity, as most Christians know. One is supposed to guard their mind from anything that may contradict what is being taught by their church. Shame be on anyone that even reads Harry Potter.

I did not read this until after I had already made my own evaluation of problems with the bible (from Christian and non-Christian scholars), and read it purely as a way to have someone to relate to. I was shocked by the similarity in some of the thought processes, and confirmation of many of my own conclusions.

If you like this book, a membership with FFRF may interest you (I joined before reading it) -- you get the newspaper they publish, and a percentage off of any book FFRF publishes (including this one).

5 stars, and I wish he would write another (for adults - his other books besides this one are for youth).

The only issue I had with this book is that it was mainly several different articles that were written over the years for FREETHOUGHT TODAY, the newspaper of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which led to repetition of many different ideas throughout the book. However, that also helped to cement some of the information in my mind.

Dan Barker is not an official philosopher or scholar, but he is well read, which is one of the reasons he had a problem with his faith that progressed until he had to leave the ministry. He was a Christian minister, missionary (learned Spanish for that), published songwriter, and says he probably converted hundreds to Christianity by personal witnessing, and probably thousands by preaching. He never shut his mind off, though, and when he had interest in something, he would read about it. This is a huge no-no in fundamental Christianity, as most Christians know. One is supposed to guard their mind from anything that may contradict what is being taught by their church. Shame be on anyone that even reads Harry Potter.

I did not read this until after I had already made my own evaluation of problems with the bible (from Christian and non-Christian scholars), and read it purely as a way to have someone to relate to. I was shocked by the similarity in some of the thought processes, and confirmation of many of my own conclusions.

If you like this book, a membership with FFRF may interest you (I joined before reading it) -- you get the newspaper they publish, and a percentage off of any book FFRF publishes (including this one).

5 stars, and I wish he would write another (for adults).

This is a very thorough, convincing book. If there is an aspect of nonbelief that Dan Barker didn't cover, I haven't thought of it yet, either. At first I was a little put off by the use of previously published articles because it seemed to deliver some redundance. Soon I was enjoying the format; the articles are each delicious. So instead of trying to read it straight through as I originally planned, I took a couple of weeks to read it, a couple of chapters at a time, and I enjoyed the book immensely. It is easy to read, with almost a conversational style.

I read a criticism that this book didn't concentrate enough on the author's process in eschewing religion. I don't believe that complaint is warranted. Personally, my doubts grew, and grew, until I reached the day when I realized that it would never make sense to me, that it couldn't make sense to me. I realized that I couldn't live my life guided by an ancient text, that I didn't believe in heaven or hell, and that all non-Christians could not be doomed. I started breaking off the pieces that I couldn't swallow, until nothing was left. Barker calls this a deconversion. He says he went to throw out the bathwater, and found there was no baby.

The tone of this book at times seems almost evangelical about atheism. But in our political world, I believe that someone needs to be speaking for those of us who aren't mainstream "Christians." Keep writing your essays, Dan Barker. I appreciate your voice.

In true "Christian Tradition" I am offering my personal testimony concerning Dan Barker's book. I read it when it was first released and I was myself losing faith in faith and leaving the Christian ministry. It was a confusing and lonely time for me, and Barker's book let me see that I was not alone in waking up to God merely being an adult version of a child's Invisible Friend. Barker is adept in enabling the reader to use their thinking abilities and see the Bible, religion, and "faith" for what they really are. In a nutshell, "The King isn't wearing any clothes!"

It was a difficult thing for Barker to abandon faith. From personal experience I know that it meant giving up friends, family, loved ones, career. Yet being free is worth it all! If you're a person who prefers comforting fairy tales to adult thinking, avoid this book. If you're mentally and emotionally an adult, this book is for you.

A five-star companion volume is JEHOVAH UNMASKED which is a fascinating Gnostic look at the real identity of the god Jehovah.