tags: books, memoir, godlessness, losing faith, William Lobdell
I am most pleased to tell you that William Lobdell, an award-winning journalist from the LATimes, who is also a new book author, as well as a blog writer, college lecturer and public speaker and media consultant, will be in NYC this coming Saturday to talk about and read from his hot-off-the-presses book, Losing My Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America -- and Found Unexpected Peace.
When: Saturday, March 14, 300pm - 430pm
Where: The third floor of the Muhlenberg Branch of the Public Library, 209 W. 23rd St (23rd & 7th) [map]
What: Meet the author for a book reading/signing
Cost: Free!
NYC's Center for Inquiry (CFI) and the Secular Humanist Society of New York have joined together to present a special, free "Meet the Author" event featuring William Lobdell, who will read from and sign his new book, Losing My Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America -- and Found Unexpected Peace. This book tells the fascinating story about how Lobdell, a devout evangelical Christian working the religion beat for the Los Angeles Times, ended up as an atheist only eight years later.
Brief Bio: Lobdell worked for 18 years with the Los Angeles Times and its sister newspapers, covering religion for The Times for eight years, first as a columnist and then as a beat reporter. He earned several national awards for his work before becoming a metro editor for the paper in 2006. He left the paper in 2008. Lobdell has also been a visiting faculty member for 12 years at the University of California, Irvine, where he teaches "Religion and the Media" and "The Internet, Blogs and Politics."
Lobdell will talk about his book, then he take questions from the audience. The event will end around 4:30, at which time everyone will walk to Pongsri, a nearby Thai restaurant at 165 23rd street (23rd & 7th) [map]. There, Lobdell will sign books or you can buy a copy if you don't yet own one. Lobdell is very kindly sending me a review copy of his book so, with some luck, I might have a review published on my blog before this event takes place.
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But what if Lobdell commits blasphemy against the Church of the Flying Molecules?
Another writer in a similar vein is Bart Ehrman, a Biblical scholar who found that the deeper he delved into Biblical truth the less truth he found. He doesn't proclaim himself an atheist but he has come to terms with the idea that Christianity as it is today is based on myths and fictions and 3rd century politics.
I will have to check out Lobdells book. I have read a column he wrote that covered his personal journey away from faith. It was a good read.
Another former religious affairs writer is Stephen Bates, who wrote The Grauniad's religious affairs column for seven years, starting in 2000. He described his experiences in a brief article, which ends:
So many people have had similar experiences! I found yet another book about somebody who de-converted. This one is Christian No More by Jeffrey Mark. That's the one that I read, and I'm looking forward to reading Lobdel's book!
~~Ariel
People when are we all going to wake up and come to terms with the fact that religion is an Institution designed by man and like any human institution, be it the institution of Politics, institution of Economy, Institution of marriage, or institution of religion it is bound to FAIL, you see God is not a religious being God is not Christian and he is not Jewish nor is he Muslim for all that is religion is of man and all that is Spiritual is of GOD, So when you speak of any religion you speak of profits, books, politics and Speaking engagements and when you speak of Atheists you speak of profits, books, politics, and Speaking engagements, but when you speak of the spirit you now have an intersection of Science and God (read- not religion) because we all have "souls", that in us that gives us energy, And energy can never be created nor destroyed it simply changes form (fundamental belief of science "conservation of energy"). So with that being said every religion is fundamentally flawed, because to say that only one way is the right way is to say that God is finite and bound by limits of whatever human religious beliefs one wishes to accept (read-including Atheism). We are human and as intelligent as we think we have become we still can't predict the Weather, nor the next recession, nor cure cancer, nor build a simple perpetual motion machine, yet We think that that we have figured out GOD by saying there is no GOD only because we are incapable of understanding Him, yet he made sure we would all at one time or another have believed in him by placing in us the "GOD Module" so Atheists, Christians, Muslims, Hebrews, take note and Know that he loved us enough to give us this region of the brain and irregardless of what we believe or will come to believe we will all eventually have to answer to him no matter how smart we think we have become.