Religion is like a drug. It disconnects people from. Reality. Religion relieves a person from responsibility by convincing them that God will handle it. That whatever happens, good or bad, is God's will and is best for them.

Not all people who simply do not believe in God and thus are atheist are actually Free Thinkers or rational. Yes they all claim to be. We all want to think we are smart and rational. When I see these testimonies "of atheist converted to religion" the story is always the same. It was an appeal to emotion, fallacy of incredulity, etc.

These are people that simply did not believe and never gave it any thought and/or are simply lying.

Loneliness

not all atheists ever WERE christian, so not everyone has that to go back to. for those who used to be christian, i suppose anything is possible. it makes no sense to me. if one can withstand peer pressure to the extent of realizing and admitting there are no gods, it seems odd that they suddenly relapse. as for what "most people" can or cannot do, in terms of standing alone with their ideas, that's a good sound byte but it doesn't sound like a fact to me. most people haven't GOT fully baked ideas as far as i can tell, but those who do have them seem pretty well able to stand alone with them.

g