I’m not sure if this is the right place, but this is where most of the religious stuff I see ends up, so I’ll post it here. Mods, feel free to move.
I just read this story from Time that reports on the new Pew survey of the American Religious Landscape (I haven’t had time to go to the actual report yet). The article talks about “churn” in the churches…which is to say that people seem to change religion fairly frequently. Perhaps that’s not the best way to put it…some change, but many don’t stay with the religion they were raised in.
This got me to thinking about the process of people changing religions. Personally, I was raised Catholic, and somewhere around 16 or 17 I decided that the whole God and Church thing didn’t make much sense to me. I’ve been irreligious ever since. But it seems to me that the mindset is different if moving from one religion or sect to another. For example, what’s going on in someone’s head when they decide that it would be better to convert to Lutheranism than to remain a Presbyterian?
Or, perhaps what I’m even more interested in is people changing due to prostelytizing (sp?). My uncle used to stand around handing out tracts for his born-again church. I’m thinking they must convert some people, otherwise they wouldn’t send folks out to try it. Plus I’m guessing that the Mormon Church wouldn’t send their youth out on missionary work unless they did a decent amount of conversions.
I’ve rambled enough and I don’t think explaining any further will illuminate my point. Let me know what y’all think.
A friend of mine here at work was raised and married Lutheran, but had become pretty inactive. At one point he felt the urge to resume churchgoing, but had some objections to some specific tenets of the Lutheran creed. I forget exactly what they were. He researched all of the christian religions - in fact, he is the person who informed me of UU, which my family of atheists loosely participated in thereafter. He ended up with Methodism, which he felt most closely reflected his personal beliefs.
He’s the only person I ever knew who made such a methodical (no pun intended) search/decision.
Sorry, I should have specifically ruled that out. That’s a clear reason to change. I’m thinking more about the mindset of somebody who doesn’t have an obvious reason like marriage to convert.
I was raised Baptist. When I got to college I realized that my personal beliefs no longer matched what my religion had taught me was correct. I still thought myself Christian but didn’t practice for a few years and got to missing the fellowship and all that stuff. Lately I’ve discovered the local UUs and am thinking of becoming a member as they more closely reflect my worldview.
A lot of what I felt was wrong with my previous religion was the gay-hatred, the need to make their morals into laws for everyone, the lack of acceptance of others, and strictness of old-fashioned gender roles (they got mad that ANOTHER church considered hiring a woman preacher! it didn’t affect them at all!!).
We have some friends who have each gone through about five religions - a wide range. They are both believers, and absolutely convinced that there is some sort of god, but aren’t very logical about what this god should look like, and so wander through religions looking for one that will satisfy their religious bent. When I asked them why they believe, their answer was they just do.
I don’t think someone changing religions once would have that mindset, but I’d suspect people who do it often would.