Abstract for Online Program Book (maximum 150 words)
Those who leave religion and adopt the atheist identity often attribute their deconversion to logic, reason, or science, and they describe their experience as a sudden awakening to the falsity of religion. Drawing on digital ethnography of the atheist forum on Reddit, this paper argues that deconversion is more often the result of changes to how deconverts felt about religion, rather than what they thought about religion. It identifies a particular ritual practice through which atheists learned to feel angry about religion, explores how that ritual worked in a digital space, and reflects upon the significance of approaching rituals as a means of changing feeling rather than changing beliefs.
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