@ Carto - you make a lot of valid points... the one part I can relate to coming out as atheist is challenging everything I'd been brought up to believe and rejecting the carrot/ stick concepts of eternal life and Hell. Simply not existing after you die in any other tangable form than wormfood takes some getting used to if you've been weaned on promises of heaven since year dot, but that was probably the biggest hump. My secondary school ceramics teacher weaned me off Pascal's wager by pointing out the obvious "If your neurones have stopped firing how would you be concious of death, and why would that concern you?"

But it makes me realise how lucky I am to live in a part of the world where for the most part no-one could care less if you believe or not when I read the accounts of UGAtheist and sbrogon.