I would certainly be interested in seeing data on the phenomenon as well. From what I’ve personally seen, I would think there’s a large distinction between a person who was raised atheist/nontheist and a person who had to intentionally and actively extricate themselves from a religious organization (and more importantly all the religious thought that comes with it).
Removing yourself from a social group has costs to achieve and lots of detriments socially. Removing yourself from a massive set of ways of thinking (all tied together in a convoluted memeplex) that have been embedded into you by intelligent adults since you were a small child has a high cost to pull off, is easily emotionally troublesome, and is liable to distance you quite a bit from the people, ideas, social groups, accepted customs, and general life support you grew up with. (If you don’t see an easy way to imagine this, try thinking of how difficult it might be to remove all of Rationality from your own brain. How would you even begin? What kinds of costs would that have on your thoughts, emotions, relationships, social groups, etc.?)
By the time you’re done with all of this, then you’re going to be less likely to widely respect the organization you removed yourself from and any organizations that are similar. You’re likely going to be at least a little bit annoyed at having ever been in a less preferable situation beforehand (do you relish being less rational in the past?) and you’re likely to have lost respect for people who are in the previous state that you used to exist in (those poor irrational people out there!). All of this will, of course, vary widely from person to person and some will be able to give up an organization with a weak hold on their thoughts and social contacts (holiday-only catholic churchgoer?) than others will (three times a week charismatic churchgoer?).
Overall I see Europeans existing in the first group (2nd+ generation atheists) while many Americans live in the second (1st generation atheists). This at least matches up to experiences I’ve seen in friends, though I don’t know if it’s a dominating reason or as common as I currently imagine.
I would certainly be interested in seeing data on the phenomenon as well. From what I’ve personally seen, I would think there’s a large distinction between a person who was raised atheist/nontheist and a person who had to intentionally and actively extricate themselves from a religious organization (and more importantly all the religious thought that comes with it).
Removing yourself from a social group has costs to achieve and lots of detriments socially. Removing yourself from a massive set of ways of thinking (all tied together in a convoluted memeplex) that have been embedded into you by intelligent adults since you were a small child has a high cost to pull off, is easily emotionally troublesome, and is liable to distance you quite a bit from the people, ideas, social groups, accepted customs, and general life support you grew up with. (If you don’t see an easy way to imagine this, try thinking of how difficult it might be to remove all of Rationality from your own brain. How would you even begin? What kinds of costs would that have on your thoughts, emotions, relationships, social groups, etc.?)
By the time you’re done with all of this, then you’re going to be less likely to widely respect the organization you removed yourself from and any organizations that are similar. You’re likely going to be at least a little bit annoyed at having ever been in a less preferable situation beforehand (do you relish being less rational in the past?) and you’re likely to have lost respect for people who are in the previous state that you used to exist in (those poor irrational people out there!). All of this will, of course, vary widely from person to person and some will be able to give up an organization with a weak hold on their thoughts and social contacts (holiday-only catholic churchgoer?) than others will (three times a week charismatic churchgoer?).
Overall I see Europeans existing in the first group (2nd+ generation atheists) while many Americans live in the second (1st generation atheists). This at least matches up to experiences I’ve seen in friends, though I don’t know if it’s a dominating reason or as common as I currently imagine.