Abstract
The influence of organized religion is decreasing in the West, and trends show a growing number of people abandoning their religious beliefs, or deconverting. However, this phenomenon has received relatively little attention in the psychology of religion. The current study asks “How do religious people become atheists?” and aims to further the understanding of the process of religious deconversion by offering a proposed model of deconversion. The main findings within the literature are examined, and consideration is given to the concept of deconversion itself and to biases within the psychology of religion. Employing an inductive grounded theory approach based on Strauss and Corbin’s guidelines, we investigated the process of deconversion among a sample of atheist individuals who previously identified as religious. The data consists of 30 testimonies obtained from former clergypersons and six semi-structured interviews with atheist participants recruited through an advocacy group. The resulting model of deconversion is comprised of three core categories: reason and enquiry, criticism and discontent, and personal development. Despite being closely interlinked, these categories were clearly distinct and represent an intellectual impetus, moral and ethical judgments of religion, and overcoming personal issues, respectively. For all participants deconversion developed gradually within the close context of family and local community and the wider cultural context of society at large. Findings are discussed in relation to previous research and psychological theory.
Highlights
The rejection of religion is as old and perennial as religion itself
grounded theory (GT) was developed as a set of procedures to collect and analyze data in a systematic and cyclical fashion in order to allow concepts to emerge and generate theories grounded in data (Glaser and Strauss 1967)
This methodology was fundamental to the development of qualitative research in the social sciences (Kenny and Fourie 2014), and today three main versions of GT can be recognized (Willig 2013): the original, often referred to as “Classical” or “Glaserian”; the approach proposed by Strauss and Corbin (1998) or “Straussian”; and a version put forward by Charmaz (2006) based on a constructivist paradigm
Summary
The rejection of religion is as old and perennial as religion itself. Traditions espousing a naturalistic view of the world long predate the Enlightenment, dating back to cultures of ancient India, China, and Greco-Roman classical antiquity (Thrower 1980). The historical western hegemony of religion as the dominant worldview has changed, with many high-income countries in particular noting a reduced influence of organized religion and a growing trend towards secularization (Hunsberger and Altemeyer 2006; Lipka 2015). As evidenced by the works of Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens and Dennett, a more active form of atheism has emerged within the religious debate. This “new atheism”, as it has been called, is keen to engage in rebutting religious arguments, often pointing at the dangers of religion, and considers God and the supernatural as legitimate areas of scientific enquiry (Fazzino 2014; Stenger 2009)
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