To Skeptics, Scientists, Humanists, and Free Thinkers of all stripes:

Welcome to another edition of SkepticMag Hotline, the internet edition of Skeptic magazine and the cyberspace voice of the Skeptics Society. For further information about the magazine and society, contact P.O. Box 338, Altadena, CA 91001; 626/794-3119 (phone); 626/794-1301 (fax); skepticmag@aol.com and www.skeptic.com or send your message telepathically and we will respond in kind.

Subscription information is on our web page: www.skeptic.com or if you would like to subscribe now, just send us an e-mail to skepticmag@aol.com with your name, address, phone, Visa or Mastercard number, and expiration date, and we will send you your first issue immediately, Vol. 6, #3, with the cover story and theme: WHY PROFESSORS BELIEVE WEIRD THINGS.

Michael Shermer
Publisher

---------------------

In a post earlier this week, with regard to the Great God Debate in which the minister reported that no one abandoned their belief in God that night:

"I am not at all surprised that 0 people abandoned their belief in God in one evening. That is simply not how deconversion experiences happen."

I am pleased to pass along the following disconfirming evidence for my testable hypothesis:

Michael:

Just wanted to dispute this point. After spending my high-school years teaching Sunday School and being an all-round good christian girl (my nickname was Godsquad--really!), I decided to spend one day NOT believing in God, just to experience the awful loneliness and hopelessness of it. By early afternoon, I felt so liberated that there was no going back! Twenty-some-odd years later, I still remember exactly where and when I suddenly felt too big to go back into the box. Sometimes it DOES happen that way.

Diane Pittman
DianLouise@aol.com
Cleveland OH

--- You are currently subscribed to skeptics as: [frice@raids.org] If this message was forwarded from a friend and you'd like to join the distribution list (it's FREE), e-mail join-skeptics@lyris.net