Dan Barker - Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America’s Leading Atheists

Table of Contents

Advance Praise for Godless

I think Godless is fabulous. It came on Friday, and I
spent much of the weekend reading it. It was a revelation to me.
Others have made the journey (faith to reason, childhood to
adulthood, fantasy to reality, intoxication to sobrietyhowever
one likes to put it), but I dont think anyone can match the
(devastating!) clarity, intensity, and honesty which Dan Barker
brings to the telling. And the tone is right all the way through
not belligerent or confrontational (as is the case with so much, too
much, of the literature on this subjecton both sides).
I think Godless may well become a classic in its genre.

OLIVER SACKS
author of Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain

Atheists are the last of the minorities in America
to come out of the closet, and like other civil rights movements
this one began with leaders like Dan Barker and his Freedom
from Religion Foundation defending the civil liberties of godless
Americans, who deserve equal protection under the Constitution.
In his new book, Godless , Barker recounts his journey from
evangelical preacher to atheist activist, and along the way
explains precisely why it is not only okay to be an atheist,
it is something of which to be proud.

MICHAEL SHERMER
publisher of Skeptic magazine, monthly columnist for
Scientific American , author of How We Believe ,
Why Darwin Matters , and The Mind of the Market

Conversions on the road to Damascus are for those
who hear voices and fall prey to delusions and who would be better
off seeking professional help. Much more valuable in the human
story are the reflections of intelligent and ethical people who listen
to the voice of reason and who allow it to vanquish bigotry and
superstition. This book is a classic example of the latter.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
author of God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

My kids are in the process of learning about literature,
and a rule of thumb theyve picked up concerns how to
recognize the protagonist of a story: Its the character who
undergoes the greatest transformation. This makes sense, because
one of the hardest things we confront is the need to change.
By this criterion, in the enormous story of what we all do with
our lives, Dan Barker is one of the most interesting and brave
protagonists I know. Godless is a fascinating memoir, a tour of one
distressing extreme of religiosity, a handbook for debunking theism.
But most of all, it is a moving testimonial to one mans emotional
and intellectual rigor in acclaiming critical thinking.

ROBERT SAPOLSKY
author of Why Zebras Dont Get Ulcers:
An Updated Guide to Stress, Stress-Related Diseases and Coping

Dan Barkers esteemed reputation is richly deserved.
I recommend getting three copies. You will need one as
a source of evidence to which you will frequently refer. There
will be miles and miles of underlining as you mark the pages
of special interest to you. You will need your second to lend to
others. You will be enthusiastic about this book, and you will
want to share its wisdom with family and friends. Others will
likewise want to share it, and the book will never be returned
to you. Finally, you will want a third copy to be in pristine
condition on your bookshelf, since Dan Barker has created
a volume which will only grow in its historical significance.

DAVID MILLS
author of Atheist Universe

This book profoundly affected me. Its funny, and poignant,
and most importantly, true! You must read this book.

JULIA SWEENEY
comedian, actress, Saturday Night Live alum

For bonnie Annie Laurie

Foreword

It isnt difficult to work out that religious fundamentalists are deludedthose people who think the entire universe began after the agricultural revolution; people who believe literally that a snake, presumably in fluent Hebrew, beguiled into sin a man fashioned from clay and a woman grown from him as a cutting: people who find it self-evident that the origin myth that happened to dominate their own childhood trumps the thousands of alternative myths sprung from all the dreamtimes of the world. It is one thing to know that these faith-heads are wrong. My mistake has been naively to think I can remove their delusion simply by talking to them in a quiet, sensible voice and laying out the evidence, clear for all to see. It isnt as easy as that. Before we can talk to them, we must struggle to understand them; struggle to enter their seized minds and empathize. What is it really like to be so indoctrinated that you can honestly and sincerely believe obvious nonsensebelieve it with every fiber of your being?

Just as Helen Keller was able to tell us from the inside what it was like to be blind and deaf, so there are rare individuals who have broken the bonds of fundamentalist indoctrination and are also gifted with the articulate intelligence to tell the rest of us what it was like. Some of these memoirs promise much but end up disappointing. Ed Husains The Islamist gives a good picture of what it is like to be a decent young man gradually sucked in, step by step, to the mental snake pit of radical Islamism. But Husain doesnt give us a feeling for what it is really like, on the inside, to believe passionately in arbitrary nonsense. And even at the end of the story, when he has escaped from jihadism, it is only the political extremism that he abjures: he seems even now not to have shaken off his childhood belief in Islam itself. Faith still lurks, and one fears for the author that he remains vulnerable. Ayaan Hirsi Alis Infidel is a fascinating and moving account of her escape from the singular oppression that is a womans lot under Islam (and under is the right word), including the unspeakable barbarism of genital mutilation. But even at her most devout, she was never the kind of zealot who goes around preaching and actively seeking victims to convert. Again, her book doesnt really help the reader to understand mental possession by religious delusion. The most eloquent witness of internal delusion that I knowa triumphantly smiling refugee from the zany, surreal world of American fundamentalist Protestantismis Dan Barker.

Barker is now one of American secularisms most talented and effective spokespeopletogether with his delightful partner (in all senses of the word) Annie Laurie Gaylor. Dan, to put it mildly, was not always thus. He has a truly remarkable tale to tell of his personal history and breakout from the badlands of religious fundamentalism. He was in it right from the start, up to his ears. Dan was not just a preacher, he was the kind of preacher that you would not want to sit next to on a bus. He was the kind of preacher who would march up to perfect strangers in the street and ask them if they were saved: the kind of door-stepper on whom you might be tempted to set the dogs. Dan knows deeply what it is like to be a wingnut, a faith-head, a fully paid-up nutjob, an all singing, all glossolaling religious fruit bat. He can take ussimultaneously laughing and appalledinto that bat-belfry world and even make us sympathize. But he also knows what it is like to stumble upon the unaccustomed pleasure of thinking for oneself, without help from anybody else, right in the teeth of opposition from what was then his entire social world. The socially unacceptable habit of thinking led him directly to realize that his entire life so far had been a time-wasting delusion. All by himself, he came to his sensesin a big way. Unusually, he has the verbal skills and the intelligence and the sensitivity to tell us the whole story, step by painfuland yet exhilaratingstep.