Commenter Peter alerted me to a story on This American Life about a gung-ho evangelical who went through the process that I have described before, where he goes to seminary and on learning Biblical history and scholarship becomes an atheist.
Filled with all the new information he now has as to why Christianity is false, he becomes zealous for atheism and tries to convert his family members, before he realizes that people join religious groups for a lot of benefits that have little to do with belief in god and that sometimes, on a personal level in the private sphere, it may be better to leave them alone.
The story starts at the 8:20 minute mark and goes until the 20:00 mark.
Shalom Mano,
I was with him until he started making excuses for his family. I fully understand the social reasons for religion, my own brother once told me that he belonged to his church for the “fellowship.”
But when he tries to compare religion to liking Star Trek he came off the rails.
B’shalom,
Jeff