After This Christian Deconverted, He Sought Out the Atheist Who Changed His Mind
July 19, 2017 by Hemant Mehta

Anthony Magnabosco is a “street epistemologist” who enjoys chatting with strangers to get to the bottom of how they think. He probes their methods and asks them to explain how they decide what’s true. Since many religious people were raised with their beliefs, and they didn’t come to them through logic and reason, it makes for a very interesting discussion.

Nearly two years ago, Anthony ran into a guy named Daniel in San Antonio, Texas and they had a typical conversation about beliefs. You never know what seeds you’re planting when you have these discussions or if people like Daniel will even think about that conversation again after he walks away.

In this case, Daniel did think about it. And he later became an atheist.

He recently reached out to Anthony to tell him this, and they arranged to meet again to discuss his “deconversion.”

Around the 14:15 mark, Daniel points out that the question that changed him the most was: How was his faith in God any different from a Muslim’s faith in God? He had never thought about it before, but the realization that so many people believe in God — and the various groups all believe the other groups are wrong — was a big deal.

Moral of the story: You may not be able to convince someone to shed their faith in a short conversation, but Anthony planted the seeds of doubt in Daniel’s mind in about 20 minutes back in 2015, and Daniel eventually figured it out on his own time.