How can people be actually converted?

Have you ever convinced a religious person to become atheistic?

Yes, a few dozen, exclusively through my writing.

My impression is that the arguments have almost no effect. What has an effect is being smart, likable, and altruistic, while occasionally mocking religion and sending signals that being religious is socially uncool.

I don't know of anyone who argued someone else into atheism, ever. (Of course this may happen, but not so frequently.)

But I know plenty of people who were swayed by being a third party to a good discussion, or by reading someone else's ideas as a passive observer.

This suggests to me that Task #1 is finding ways for people to engage with your ideas without involving a status competition between you and them.

At least a few, online and in person, possibly more than I'm aware of. One person mentioned that he'd become an atheist as a result of observing my online debates over the course of a few months, but he never went out of his way to tell me, I only learned from following a later discussion; there might be others I've similarly influenced who've never told me.

Unlike Luke, all the people I know I've caused to convert professed to have been swayed by my actual arguments (and a fairly common reason for conversion I've heard is "I followed online debates and the atheists always had the better arguments,") but I've never known it to happen as an "aha!" moment upon being exposed to a single knockdown argument. In my experience it's always taken prolonged exposure to atheistic arguments for a sense of familiarity to build up, after which the person can have an "aha!" moment and realize they have somewhere to go from there.

Different people tolerate different demeanor, but I've never known of anyone converting someone else without making themselves likable to their targets.

In all the cases I can think of, conversion has taken a minimum of a few months of exposure to atheist ideas.

I have normalized your formatting.

Two conversion stories of my own.

My atheism feels inevitable now, but may not actually have been. I was raised as a catholic and believed myself to be having conversations with God (admittedly one sided ones), and that he was observing me al the time (which was awkward when I thought about it). I was exposed to reason and logic, as well as left wing politics. I was aware of the contradiction between my mother's belief and her not agreeing with most of the church's positions. I grew more detatched, and started declaring myself as a deist (although, having not been exposed to that particular term, I claimed (at age 17) to believe in God but not religion). Soon after I came to the realisation that there was no-one I was talking to on the other end.

I would owe most of that conversion to a supportive, non-forceful environment (while my primary school was catholic, my secondary school was secular. That said, one of the staunchest atheists, and indeed rationalist that I know went to a catholic secondary school as well), and exposure to scientific ideas. There was no pressure on me to believe a particular thing- in particular no social group required me to continue belief.

The other personal conversion moment, and the biggest "changing my mind" moment in my adult life was on vegetarianism. I was a devoted eater of meat throughout my childhood, and I presume I still love meat (admittedly it has been seven years since I have eaten it), and even mocked arguments for vegetarianism. Then at age 19 I read a book of popular philosophy. The name escapes me: it wasn't terribly good, but went chapter by chapter through popular conundrums (teleportation dilemma, for instance). There was a chapter on vegetarianism, and I found its moral arguments fairly compelling. I discussed this with several people, hoping for them to convince me that I was wrong, but failed to find a convincing counter argument.

Then a year later I had joined environmental groups at university, and had a desire to live a more ethical and environmentally friendly lifestyle. During a meeting, a compelling argument was made that one of the most significant personal actions I could take to reduce my carbon foot print was to stop eating meat. So I did.

I genuinely believe that the arguments persuaded me there. I certainly wanted to fit in with `ethical' people, but the decision that vegetarianism was more ethical was my own.

I think converting when you know that you are on your own is harder and a braver thing to do, and both those conversions cost me not that much; my family was supportive of both choices, the only real cost is not eating meat anymore. For people who stand to lose social standing and possibly good friends by changing their minds I suspect it would be much harder.

My brother's opinion of religion changed after he had to study Catholic theology because our young cousin wanted him to be her Confirmation sponsor. The guy who was his tutor was very much the "holier-than-thou" type and he found the actual positions of the Church on various social issues repulsive.

So that's one way. ;)

I have an anecdote, but my situation is probably not representative. I started out as an evolution-accepting theist who didn't belong to an organized church. I'm pretty sure I believed instead of belief in belief, but since my beliefs didn't match those of any organized religion, I didn't have a community of other believers around me.

I was converted to atheism by watching atheist youtube videos, to which I was introduced by a series mocking creationists. When I realized that the smartest, most science-savvy commentators were atheists offering good arguments for atheism, I converted over a period of a month or two. The key arguments for me were that my personal religious experiences were understood to be my own brain and not necessarily God, and that the burden of proof was on theists.

Hopefully this is beneath us, but it seems that Flirt to Convert is a pretty common and powerful technique that religionists use to obtain converts.

I think from my own experience a conversion is just a switch of tribal affiliations. That means, it takes two components:

1. a sense of rejection from your previous community.

2. a sense of connection to the new one.

So the reason why indirect arguments seem to work better would be because if you argue directly you don't normally argue with someone but against them which reduces if not reverts the sense of connection. If my theory is correct then in direct conversation a more socratic method would be better. But you will probably not be successful until you somehow disconnect the theist from his circle or catch him at a time when he feels somewhat disconnected.

Putting all of the "social mechanisms of conversion" ideas together, it seems to me that the best way to help de-convert a religious person is to welcome them into a non-religious social circle, thus giving them the social freedom to explore their doubts without fear of total ostracism. (The group doesn't even have to be mostly comprised of non-theists, just not comprised of people who all belong to similar religions!) And if they bring up their doubts to you, it's a good time to talk.

And the best part is that whether or not it changes anyone's mind, you've just gained a friend.

(The flip side is this: avoid joining social circles where a majority are devout followers of the same religion- it will mess with your head...)

I was told once that things I said in english class helped convert a friend of mine to atheism, but this was so long ago that I can't really remember what I said. In terms of my own experiences of giving up beliefs I've had, a key factor is readability and honesty in presentation. Things like Yvain's non-libertarian faq are fun to read and seriously strive to address the viewpoints that I formerly held as a libertarian. It didn't make fun of libertarianism, but allowed it to reveal its own silliness by talking about it.

A number of commenters have referenced the idea of being a spectator instead of a target, and I think this is important. One-on-one debates often have a competitive aspect to them that can make people defensive (nobody wants to feel like they've "lost" the "argument").

And really, converting people on a case-by-case basis is probably one of the least efficient approaches to cultural change. My guess is that it's more important to create a healthy "atmosphere for conversion", and I think a big part of that is just being outspoken and unashamed about your atheism. The more people do that, the more it'll be normalized - exposure>persuasion. The arguments are all out there anyway. When someone is ready, they'll seek them out, whether that's talking to atheist friends, watching youtube videos, reading books, or whatever.

And for the record, my own transition occurred in my mid-twenties, somewhere between starting an introduction to philosophy book and finishing Michael Shermer's "Why People Believe Weird Things".

»A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.« Debate culture is often not particularly well developed, so no hook to start from.