A reader writes:
In your post "Why Don't People Trust Atheists?", you quote Tom Rees: "I think there is a special feature of atheism that separates it from many other kinds of prejudice – and that's the fact that atheism is a choice." Most atheists, myself included, would argue that our atheism is not a choice. Many of us lost our belief in God not because we just decided, "Hey, I think I'll choose not to believe in God any longer." Rather, the weight of the evidence against the existence of a deity as well as our life experiences led us, inevitably, to a point where we could no longer believe in God. We did not choose to relinquish our faith any more than Christians choose not to believe in Zeus or Kali or any number of other non-Christian deities. To borrow a phrase from William James, belief in God ceased to be a live option for us.
I have many atheist friends who deeply regret that they can no longer believe in God. If belief in God were a choice, they would choose to believe in him.
The Dish 