Another day, another link for you! Sorry for all the short, almost link-only posts this week… Too many distractions.
Today’s link is an article from Daylight Atheism. When I saw the title, I could not help but think, “The biggest challenge to staying Christian is that Christianity just isn’t true!”
I’ll leave you with his final thought:
“We atheists shouldn’t shy away from pointing out that we hold to a worldview that’s rationally consistent, free of those gaps and contradictions that cause Christians and other theists so much intellectual difficulty and strife.”
The Complete History of the Universe: A Personal Journey 
Thank you so much for sharing this link! The articles, and more so the comments, are fascinating.
It seems so obviously false once you are on the outside looking in. I kept thinking as I read the comments that here were hundreds of soon-to-be ex-Christians. At least one of the commenter did de-convert, as he commented later at the Daylight Atheism discussion about it.
But for many, I think the social cost is too high. One admitted so much in his comments (he was afraid of what it would do to his marriage). If there were no stigma attached to atheism, how many would de-convert? If there were no fear of (imaginary) hell, how many would de-convert?
Could it be that the real social cost of de-conversion, and the imagined eternal cost, keep many from tossing religion out, which they would otherwise based on their self-admitted doubts about it? I think so.
I definitely agree! Pascal’s Wager is powerful to many, especially when they know the social costs to be real and have been trained from infancy to fear the eternal cost.
On the other hand, however, fear of those costs did not stop or delay me from deconverting; it only delayed being honest about my new viewpoint to family (and for a lesser time, friends). So it certainly isn’t true of all that fear prevents or delays deconversion. It would be interesting to know what percentage of Christians who admit to doubts really are atheists afraid of the label.
Good point. I guess I was projecting. Fear of hell and fear of what it would do to my social network were definitely issues for me. Glad they did not hold you back.