Atheists: Have you ever been personally responsible for turning someone into an atheist? Did you feel bad? If no, would you feel bad?

It's an interesting question, and it raises another one; Would a religious person WANT to know that gods don't exist if that could be proven? If the choice is between being less happy but knowing the truth, and believing a lie but being happier, what would most theists choose? Personally, I'm a big advocate of knowing the truth even if it that truth is unpleasant, and I distrust wishful thinking. So personally I don't hesitate to help someone question their belief system if I have reason to suspect that belief system is based on incorrect assumptions, as I feel religions are. I draw the line only at enlightening children below the age of 8, as I see their fantasies to be essentially harmless. Unlike religion.

Not that I'm aware of; not even my own son, who was never aware that I am an atheist until he told me that he is one.

No, I wouldn't feel bad but I'd also never go about trying to convert anyone in the first place. The reason I wouldn't try is because some people are so dependent on their imaginary beliefs that I might end up being the "security blanket" of someone that I really didn't want to play that part for.

Religion is something that I've learned to never discuss with most of my family. My closest relatives know what my views are, but none of them are religious in the conventional sense- the only one I can think of who says she's "Christian" (one of my sisters) never attends a church.

I have been at least partly responsible for converting a friend, not that I tried to. I just explained some of the things I thought were wrong with Christianity when he asked me about them. I told him not to just take my word for it, but to ask a priest or believer. I don't know whether he did that be he told me he was an atheist some time later.

It sounds to me that you think that there is a benefit to believing in God or that deep down you believe that God may exist. If you knew for example that trolls did not live under the bridge you would not have any issues telling that to your family. But, because you care about your family and you want what's best for them your conscious is telling you it would not be a good idea to try to convince them of something that could be false like atheism. You should listen to that conscience because your conscience is usually right. You don't know that God doesn't exist. And there are many evidences like miracles that happen all the time. I would look into these miracles as well as logical arguments for God. Read "The Last Superstition" by Edward Feser. Also good to read is Thomas Aquinas and Dr. Peter Kreeft. To name just a few.

No, because I don't force my lack of belief in god down their throats like they do to me. I have WAY more respect than that.

If I wanted to get into it with someone and lay down the facts etc, possibly. But most people who are in a religion and believe in god have been taught that is the ONLY possibility and that if they want to go to heaven then must remain a follower.

If you want to share what you feel and know with other people, that is one thing, as long as it isn't done in a pushy "I know better than you" way and they end up atheist at the end of it? Then great.

That's like asking if a psychiatrist feels bad for making a patient stop hallucinating. Of course I wouldn't feel bad.

No, of course not....

Unlike some Evangelical Christians who pushed me down in the street, called me a harlot and screamed at me that I was going to Hell, atheists do not feel the need to tell anyone anything .... everyone is entitled to their own beliefs...... Mo University Lecturer Atheist

I don't claim to be responsible for anyone's beliefs or lack of beliefs in any gods. I think some people believe in God simply because they think they are supposed to. For them, it's really about whether they want to believe or not. If they want to believe, there is nothing you can say to them that will change them, if they do not want to believe, then they will be open to skepticism about their beliefs.

Yes, I've gotten several family members to identify as atheists and they're better people for it.

The positive things people derive from religion are community and purpose. The existential theology of Christianity is at least as silly and twice as depressing as that of your typical fantasy video game. In a fantasy videogame, "You are the chosen one, the hero who through overcoming great trials, will lead our kingdom to glory!" In Christianity, you're a vile, disgusting sinner who must self-loathingly submit to the wims of an invisible tyrant to redeem himself in the least. And among the attendants of religious congregations there's rarely any sort of meaningful connection between them beyond blatant, unashamed tribalism.

An atheist might be depressed for a while if they're still trying to uncover the identity that was so long enshrouded by the depressive veil of religious fantasy, but they're ultimately far more likely to lead meaningful lives than they would under religion if they're at all capable of the introspection and exploration which will allow them to find the sort of people and activities that they find truly invigorating. And chances are that they are capable, if they're clever enough to have seen through the religious charade.

Such a journey is difficult, but it certainly seems to me like a preferable alternative to self-diagnosing yourself as a lost soul and slapping on the one-size-fits-all God band-aid which far too often has a secondary usage as the godly soldier's armband in waging the war against truth and freedom. Even if most people are too dull to achieve full self-realization beyond the yoke of some sort of pre-packaged doctrine, I think we could stand to benefit from trading in our religious people for a few lethargic nihilists.

True, such nihilists are the dregs of society, but the godly soldiers are a cyanide tablet. It's better to stagnate than to actively promote a system of lies and tyranny. And after a century of abortion clinic bombings, murders of cartoonists that dared satirize Muhammed, the inability to pursue technological advances that could save millions of lives like those we could get from stem-cell research because of religiously motivated regulations, war after war between western nations and Islamic nations, none of which have had any clearer a purpose than the Crusades which preceded them, the continuing oppression and degradation of women and homosexuals, the refusal to give the children of our society a real science education, the election of joker after joker like Reagan and the Bushes to president because they can posture as decent, godly men, and innumerable other offences, I think it's pretty clear that these godly soldiers are far from the minority within the religious population.

I have enlightened many people away from fairy tales and allowed them to open their mind.