Insulting & attacking belief doesn't work.

[Welsh cake]

I used to be a Christian.

Same here.

Every time people attacked me / insulted me about my beliefs, or said things in a harsh way, I ignored them and laughed at them, knowing that they were wrong.

Is that so? I cared whether or not my beliefs were true and sought to understand why my critics didn't also share my beliefs and cared whether or not their souls would be spared condemnation.

Then I had cognitive dissonance when I realised I was more moral than my god. If I were god, I'd want to be omni-benevolent. I'd never want to condemn anyone, no matter how evil they were, to eternal torture.

I went around calling Richard Dawkins a 'loudmouth' without actually having ever watched his shows.

Why?

That's why I was surprised when I did watch one of his shows and found it to be very gentle and permissive and persuasive.

Exactly. So why were you attacking a person whom you knew nothing about? Retrospectively speaking that's very 'un-Christian' of you, if you don't mind me saying.

I began to realize that the demonic aspects of atheists just...weren't there. Some of them were way too outspoken, but the nice ones did have a point.

You do realise the outspoken ones are simply frustrated for the, ahem, aforementioned "demonic aspects of atheism" that theists daily accuse us of and having to deal with the same erroneous presumptions of claims, word-games, and invalid arguments for the existence of god day-in and day-out, over and over again?

This deconversion would not have taken place without the friendly, gentle tone that accompanied the people who made atheism clearer to me.

I de-converted on my own because I cared whether or not my beliefs were justified. It was a painful process. I didn't realise I was an atheist until some years later. Why did you need persuasion or gentle reassurance, when I did not, just to come to terms?

This is just a heads up to anyone who thinks shouting at believers works.

Appeals to ridicule, while fallacious can sometimes be effective, especially if someone is acting like an asshat.

Most of time, we're not attacking someone for what they believe, but rather, we're simply trying to expose the flaws in their arguments for what they believe.