There I was, happily drawing (a picture of Jesus). My big brother Bob asked, 'Why do you believe in God?' Just a simple question, but my mum panicked. 'Bob... Shut up'. Why was it a bad thing to ask? If there was a God it didn't matter what people said.
Oh... hang on. There is no God. He knows it, and she knows it deep down. It was as simple as that.
I don't think for me there was a single hard edge to my loss of belief in Christianity. But like Gervais I think what led me to putting it aside was the realisation that the Christians I knew didn't really believe in it, deep down. When you asked them questions (as in the example) they were anxious and embarrassed. Bob, shut up. It wasn't a theological insight, it was a social intuition (children are good at picking up the subtext of adults' words) which I think is what Gervais is describing too.
Nowadays on the internet and in politics the embarrassment expresses itself in a more angry guise, but I think at core it comes down to 'Bob, shut up'.
I had to laugh at his conclusion:
I hope I haven't offended anyone with this article. OK, that's a lie.