Two sociologists discuss their new book, “Goodbye Religion: The Causes and Consequences of Secularization,' on why Americans leave a faith.
Picture bacchanalian revels, wine, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll! That’s what people who leave religion are up to, right? Without the moral strictures of religion, and with all that additional time they would have spent on being religious, nothing’s holding them back.say the reality is actually pretty boring. Read on for that finding and six others from the book, an informative and often entertaining read that is chock-full of data and interviews with nonreligious Americans.
“They’re just doing normal things, right? None of it is crazy. They’re not out at the bars spending hours and hours. They’re spending a little bit more time with their family and a little bit more outdoors,” Smith said. “They go hiking, they watch more TV, and they get more work done.” Oh, and, according to the book, they might be a tiny bit more statistically likely to be having sex. Perhaps in between loads of laundry.In past years, the archetype of someone who left religion was a young, well-educated white male. Today, the nonreligious look as diverse as the general population, a function of more and more people either leaving religion or being born into nonreligious families . As a result, said Cragun, “Just focusing on demographics doesn’t tell us very much.
When people experience too much value misalignment and find themselves disagreeing more and more with their religion’s political stances, they’re more likely to head for the doors.“A lot of the literature looks at deconversion,” Smith said, but focusing only on the “push factors” — the things that people found unattractive about religion — ignores the corresponding “pull factors.
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