At around the same time his mother was killed by a drunk driver in Chatham-Kent, former church minister Bob Ripley lost faith in his religion.
Ripley's mother was one of four women, known as the pie ladies, who died in 2007. Ripley was in Chatham over the weekend talking about his new book "Life Beyond Belief -- A Preacher's Deconversion."
Although Ripley says this tragic event didn't trigger the change, many things went into his decision to turn his back on Christianity. "During the reading of the psalms I began to hear portions of the psalms in which God's character sounded very vindictive and angry and brutal," says Ripley. "I began to read the psalms, actually read the whole Bible, in a whole new light."
The book takes a close look at how Ripley's life has changed over the last seven years going from Christianity to Atheism. After making his opinions public, Ripley says he received a lot of angry letters, but also ones of affirmation. "In many ways I actually feel freer than I ever have before because for some time I was wrestling with doubts and at the same time I was a practicing minister," says Ripley. "I was a victim of classic cognitive dissonance, which is trying to hold on to two conflicting notions at the same time."
