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The thread title pretty much says it all. :-) I'm just curious as to whether any one religion (Catholic, Lutheran, Jewish, Muslim, Baptist, Pentecostal, etc etc etc) might tend to produce more "escapees" than others.
Recently I had a conversation with someone who is a believer but was raised Protestant (don't know which denomination) and eventually abandoned organized religion altogether when in her early fifties. She asked me "if most atheists used to be Catholic" and I said I had no idea but it got me wondering.
The thread title pretty much says it all. :-) I'm just curious as to whether any one religion (Catholic, Lutheran, Jewish, Muslim, Baptist, Pentecostal, etc etc etc) might tend to produce more "escapees" than others.
Recently I had a conversation with someone who is a believer but was raised Protestant (don't know which denomination) and eventually abandoned organized religion altogether when in her early fifties. She asked me "if most atheists used to be Catholic" and I said I had no idea but it got me wondering.
I was raised Catholic.
I was raised in the Church of Christ. But I got over it by the time I was 13.
The thread title pretty much says it all. :-) I'm just curious as to whether any one religion (Catholic, Lutheran, Jewish, Muslim, Baptist, Pentecostal, etc etc etc) might tend to produce more "escapees" than others.
Recently I had a conversation with someone who is a believer but was raised Protestant (don't know which denomination) and eventually abandoned organized religion altogether when in her early fifties. She asked me "if most atheists used to be Catholic" and I said I had no idea but it got me wondering.
I was raised Catholic.
I did a bit of a study a couple of deades ago, based on deconversion stories, and I got the impression that 'weak' theists like Prostetants either deconverted (to irreligion) more or opted for a stricter religion. I got the impression that they didn't like being allowed to doubt. Others tended to swap religions. Perhaps one convincing doctrinal apologetic hit home.
More recently (this year,in fact) I looked at some deconversion you tubes, and they seemed to be Jew to islam, Islam to Jew, Muslim to atheist, Atheist to Christian. And apart from the atheist deconversion videos whoch are of course all perfectly genuine who knows what Muslim is standing up and giving a "I used to be a Christian, like you...until..." story.
I won't go into one with an Aussie entertainer giving a 'How I converted to Islam' talk, but anyone listening to what he said, rather than the entertaining way he said it ) would see the problems (how he skips with a light chuckle over no beer in Islam should set off the Alarm bells).
But conversion and deconversion while being interesting is a bit complex, and i sometimes wonder whether the converts into, away from or between religions, (even if they are honestly telling their story) really know what it was. I think it's a process that goes on subconsciously and the 'thing' that converts them is very often nothing. A very insignificant thing, but it just is the tiny trip -switch that releases all the pent up change of mind that had been building up.
I was raised Catholic and I suspect that this faith is very well represented among atheists. There is so much about it that drives people away. The obligations....mass every Sunday, the Holy Days of obligation, confession at least once a year, communion at least once a year, no meat on Fridays (defunct now) ..and that is just to meet the minimum requirements.
The mass itself is a repetitious, colossal bore, priests can be creepy, nuns could be tyrants (at least most of mine were), permission had to be obtained to marry outside the faith and the outsider had to promise that any kids would be raised Catholic. No divorce....if you make a mistake in your spousal choice, you are stuck with that mistake for life.
My mother's head was so filled with obligations that it wound up driving a wedge between her and her best friend. The friend had been in a loveless 28 year marriage to one of my uncles, and after all the kids were raised and gone, she worked up the courage to leave the guy, for which I didn't blame her a bit, he was a D-bag.
She had a new love interest and wanted to marry him, but the church would not give permission for a divorce, only if the marriage was annulled, could she remarry. She figured out a way to get the annulment, but it would have required my mother telling a harmless white lie about their marriage. She adamantly refused and her friend was offended and cut her out of her life. I suppose that one might admire my mother sticking to her principles even at a cost to herself, but her cause was so stupid that it wiped away the gain.
Catholic schools seem almost designed to drive away the faithful.
Dad was a barely-observant Jew (never went to temple; did do Hanukkah candles), Mom was a Protestant-raised atheist; I have been a near-atheist agnostic my whole life. Not a spiritual bone in my body, even after surviving two life-threatening illnesses.
Grew up in a Methodist household. We attended church almost every Sunday, and went to any and all events that may be happening. This was growing up in North Carolina. When we moved to Memphis, in 1998 (when I was 12), we went to several churches and never found one that my parents liked. After about a year or so, they stopped going, which meant I stopped going. It was around that time that I was starting to doubt the whole religion thing.
However, living in the south, all of my friends pretty much went, so I ended up going with them on Sunday's, hanging out with their youth groups, going on trips, and trying to talk myself into believing. Long story short, it didn't work, and here I am.
There was no religion in our home. My mother was raised church of Christ, whatever that means.
It means you are lucky she rejected the teachings of childhood.
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like Prostetants either deconverted (to irreligion) more or opted for a stricter religion. I got the impression that they didn't like being allowed to doubt. Others tended to swap religions. Perhaps one convincing doctrinal apologetic hit home. 
who knows what Muslim is standing up and giving a "I used to be a Christian, like you...until..." story.
) would see the problems (how he skips with a light chuckle over no beer in Islam should set off the Alarm bells). 
