(January 3, 2016 at 11:53 am)mh.brewer Wrote: The only ones I ever known in person were desperate and in need of some type of rescue (financial, medical, emotional, addiction, ........).
As the originator of this thread, I must confess to being in this camp. Six or so years ago, I went through emotional despair over an upcoming job loss (I was about to be laid-off, and I knew it was coming), was going through some mental heath problems, and reverted to theism out of emotional despair, especially, fear of death and nothingness. I had also stopped reading atheist literature a few years earlier, as I had gotten busy with other things, and had been influenced by some William Lane Craig debates, who I now believe to be a conscious, lying charlatan, as well as the ID movement in general. As time went on, though, I found it impossible to continue to believe, as I was, slowly, confronted by the arguments which had led me into atheism in the first place. And, so, while my reversion was a very quick process (probably, over the course of a day or two), my deconversion was a slow one, over many months. I can personally attest to the fact that religious belief is equivalent to a form of drug addiction, and one sometimes relapses back into it.