Well what a greet meeting we had on Monday speaker for the evening was Professor Callum G Brown, Professor of Religious and Cultural History at the University of Dundee. Some years previously Prof Brown gave a presentation to the Dundee Group on the mass conversions by evangelists which had since been followed by an increasing decline in religiosity, an area of continuing study by Prof Brown.
He became aware that his writing was focusing on negative aspects in this field, and in summer 2009 he started interviewing what he termed "people of no religion" to try to ascertain what had led to their changing their beliefs. He found no single story in the diversity of interviewees, although he had been struck by the large number who had rejected religion when very young, around eight years of age.
Prof Brown demonstrated that there had been very few people claiming to have no religion until the mid-20th century, and pointed out that in many countries it had been technically illegal to affirm the non-existence of God. From his interviews with people of no religion Prof Brown found that their many individual reasons for rejecting and he briefly illustrated the journeys to atheism of various individuals.
Prof Brown indicated that his work in this field was still at an early stage and, although he already had a large number of interviews recorded, he is keen to undertake further interviews, especially of HSS members, including celebrants, and he invited anyone interested taking part to contact him, at his work address http://www.dundee.ac.uk/history/humanism
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