richard_dawkins_-_the_god_delusion

324 T H E GOD DELUSi O N
not-believing-in-God glasses for a moment, just for a second.
Just put on the no-God glasses and take a quick look
around and then immediately throw them off.' And I put
them on and I looked around.
I'm embarrassed to report that I initially felt dizzy. I
actually had the thought, 'Well, how does the Earth stay
up in the sky? You mean, we're just hurtling through
space? That's so vulnerable!' I wanted to run out and
catch the Earth as it fell out of space into my hands.
And then I remembered, 'Oh yeah, gravity and angular
momentum is gonna keep us revolving around the sun for
probably a long, long time.'
When I saw Letting Go of God in a Los Angeles theatre I was
deeply moved by this scene. Especially when Julia went on to tell us
of her parents' reaction to a press report of her cure:
My first call from my mother was more of a scream.
'Atheist? ATHEIST?!?!'
My dad called and said, 'You have betrayed your
family, your school, your city.' It was like I had sold
secrets to the Russians. They both said they weren't going
to talk to me any more. My dad said, 'I don't even want
you to come to my funeral.' After I hung up, I thought,
'Just try and stop me.'
Part of Julia Sweeney's gift is to make you cry and laugh at the same
time:
I think that my parents had been mildly disappointed
when I'd said I didn't believe in God any more, but being
an atheist was another thing altogether.
Dan Barker's Losing Faith in Faith: Front Preacher to Atheist is the
story of his gradual conversion from devout fundamentalist minister
and zealous travelling preacher to the strong and confident atheist he
is today. Significantly, Barker continued to go through the motions
of preaching Christianity for a while after he had become an atheist,