Boing Boing links to a long confessional piece by the L.A. Times's former religion reporter, William Lobdell, about how eight years of covering religion turned him from a born-again Christian to an atheist. It's an interesting story, but not one I necessarily can relate to, as I never really had the "conversion" experience one way or the other.

I've never really understood why mere exposure to the existence of religions other than your own isn't sufficient to turn everyone into agnostics, if not outright atheists. The cognitive dissonance required for such a fundamental failure of reflexivity would seem to be intolerable, and yet the vast majority of people alive appear to have no problem with it. My brain just doesn't work that way.

And this is why I can never be president.