Stories of People Who Leave the Faith

It's the human impulse to make order out of chaos. Maybe academics do this more than the rest of society but you see it everywhere. In theology-talk there are many big words meaning almost nothing. When talk turns to people who are religious or post religious there are continuing attempts to categorize groups and give them names.

The link author writes a popular blog. She asked readers a while back to tell their individual stories of how and why they left the faith. She got over 7,000 responses. The reasons are all over the place. In the link she discusses six people who left the faith. All six were unique. One realized at the age of six the tooth fairy, Santa Claus and God all had to be the same. It makes perfect sense. A Lutheran preacher knew all during his career there were things in the faith that did not add up. The day after he retired he decided he simply did not believe and has left it all behind. A woman's husband died and she came to understand her church life was just an attempt to find him. She quit. 

There is new trend for celebrities to blow off the tenets of Christianity. Former President Reagan's son, Ron, does ads for atheism. Arnold Schwarzenegger says we will not see each other after death. When you're dead, you're dead.

The old theme still talked about among some Christians is that atheists merely want to sin and not suffer any consequences. This is ridiculous first because there really is no agreed upon definition of sin and second if there are no consequences such as eternity in hell. Further, there is no evidence atheists commit acts considered "sin" any more often than Christians. Until there is such evidence the narrative of sin and atheism is nonsense. 

Reading the links and recalling explanations given at atheist gatherings it may be the majority of atheists have come to atheism through six or eight portals. Some were raised in homes where religion was never discussed, some discovered the absurdity at a young age, some changed when a large event in their lives came along, some grew into skepticism as their years advanced, etc. The idea they could do things they enjoyed if they were atheists but could not if they remained Christian is something I've never encountered. 

Whatever the many causes, "nones," the nonaffiliated with any religion, are now the larger than any identified group. The "nones" continue to grow in numbers. While pundits continue to offer solutions to reverse this trend, it seems to me Christianity has become a square peg but society is a round hole.