Could be. A recent study showed that when test participants were taken through a relaxation/visualization session to make them feel safe and secure, their exit survey answers matched those of liberals, although their pre-session surveys showed them to be Conservatives.

Since liberals are often nonbelievers, perhaps this technique would also de-religion people also.

I have de converted a few and it is a long process. Different people need different sets of evidence. In what I consider to be the most successful de-conversion, (he thanks me more then others) a once troubled Catholic was finally able to see the light when I introduced him to the youtuber Edward Tarte (once a Catholic priest now an Atheist) The most amazing story I have run across (including stories from others who sited this as the thing that changed their mind) is this link. Even as an atheist or sceptic, It is really worth (educational and entertainment value) watching the entire series.

Well, I think experience and exposure changes people. I use to believe in demons and ghosts up to the age of about.... 19. Going through a bunch of short relationships, being in debt, seeing 9/11 on TV, seeing a recession, wars, people losing their homes to forclosure, and health problems showed me there are scarier things in reality.

What has always soured me about religious people, even when I was young is their lack of empathy. I've seen a sex scandal where a predator was hitting on girls in the temple. He was suppose to teach them religious music. That was my rude wake up call that it was a scam.

Finding out about science helped enormously. Also finding most aspects of religion unutterably boring (good quality music excepted).

Two incidents, separated by years, were instumental for me. The first: I was about 12, attended services regularly, and listened every sermon and benediction. One Sunday after the service I buttonholed our minister and asked him about something he had said that puzzled me. He told me not to worry about it. First crack in the schism. The second happened while on deployment. I had begun to recover after a mental breakdown and I took to reading scripture. I read the bible all the way through 3 three times. By the end of the third reading I realized that it made,less sense than when I had started out. I was alarmed and dismayed, so I withdrew into thought, emerging a little bit, just enough to function in my duties. After a rather protracted period, all of those things like morals that I had believed unique to my faith began to shed their veneer. Church was not a prerquisite for understanding myself and other people. The bible was just a book, a historical fable and allegories. I had been caught in the rapture of an inspired fraud.

I agree we need a road map and to keep active with it but there must be many thousands of stories for the conversion. Perhaps with more stories told we could look for patterns?

A friend told me when I was younger that god wasn't real and that the bible is fictional.

The Abrahamic religions appeal to our arrogance but come to us in a facade of humility. Once I read the scripture and other religious texts I began to see how these writings are not about the divine at all, but are about humans struggling for control and power over a cosmos which is well outside our power and control.

Religion for some people provides a general "understanding" of themselves, others, and the world we live it. It gives them something to believe in that helps them respond to and accept events when they have no other way of understanding them or responding. I gave up religion when I discovered the field of psychology as a college freshman, which gave me a better way of understanding myself and others in a manner that was important to me.

I was very young when I figured the entire "Church" thing was nothing more then theatre to scare children into doing what adults wanted them to do. Not sure I really fully drank the cool-aid but during the story about the "Star of Bethlehem" I quickly (as about a third grader) figured stars don't work that way so this entire story (then book) is BS.

Hi racocn8. Disillusionment over something that has more personal meaning than the contentment that religion gives.

(a)  Get bored
  Wonder why wasting money, time and brain space
  Lose interest
 Don't turn up for church
  Go to the beach or the mall or the sportsground