I've been an atheist all my life, and as such have hung around on the fringes of the atheist movement. Over that time I've observed that the best way to get peo

I've been an atheist all my life, and as such have hung around on the fringes of the atheist movement. Over that time I've observed that the best way to get people to move away from faith is to let them question it themselves. I've seen so many flamewars where people just dig in and lob grenades at each other, and no-one moves. But the people who do rationally question their faith themselves - those are the people who move around. They don't change themselves because of an opponent's "perfect logical statement". It's also a slow process - most people moving away from faith take years to do it, at least, the ones I've seen. I remember an episode of The Spirit Of Things, where they were talking to an atheist who used to be very christian, and was going to an adult Sunday School. She turned herself atheist by simply asking a lot of questions, like "wasn't it wrong of God to ask Isaac to slay his son in the first place". The more questions she had, the more she said the answers sounded more like evasion than solid moral grounding; that the priest was only able to excuse biblical actions rather than explain a real moral lesson from them. So she asked more questions and grew more and more dissatisfied with the lack of internal consistency. Long story short, it means I see a point in asking people of their histories, and getting them to think about why they're where they are today; why they do the things they do today. I don't think that that means biography excuses bad actions, but that getting someone to give something deeper about themselves rather than just rote talking points... it brings something else to the table. It can also be interesting in and of itself. TL;DR: You're more likely to win people over by inviting them than by opposing them. :)