Well I'm an atheist now, but the primary reasons I had for not being an atheist, could be summarized as follows:
1) Theism was all I knew
2) Theism provided my entire social support system
3) Theism had convinced me that it was essential for successful living
4) Fear of losing my support system and the approval of parents / extended family, mentors, etc.
5) Learned helplessness -- including the notion that it would be "impossible to live without god", and that certain trains of thought were utterly taboo.
All it took to undo that pretty quickly was for my life to become painful, filled with grief and loss and tragedy. Beware the man who has nothing to lose. He is apt to question the beliefs you use to control him.
Put another way, when (3) collapsed, it took a major part of my social support with it (2), made the sufficiency of theism (1) questionable, removed most of the fear of (4), and forced me to find other ways of thinking in order to cope (5).
1) Theism was all I knew
2) Theism provided my entire social support system
3) Theism had convinced me that it was essential for successful living
4) Fear of losing my support system and the approval of parents / extended family, mentors, etc.
5) Learned helplessness -- including the notion that it would be "impossible to live without god", and that certain trains of thought were utterly taboo.
All it took to undo that pretty quickly was for my life to become painful, filled with grief and loss and tragedy. Beware the man who has nothing to lose. He is apt to question the beliefs you use to control him.
Put another way, when (3) collapsed, it took a major part of my social support with it (2), made the sufficiency of theism (1) questionable, removed most of the fear of (4), and forced me to find other ways of thinking in order to cope (5).
