YAY!
It's starting;
finally!
Sorry; this is something I've been predicting for a while, and is a big part of my tangent regarding the evolution of religion in Western society.
I'll try not to soak too much space with this, but here's what I'm referring to:
When our participants were asked to cite key influences in their conversion to atheism--people, books, seminars, etc. -- we expected to hear frequent references to the names of the "New Atheists." We did not.
That these students were, above all else, idealists who longed for authenticity, and having failed to find it in their churches, they settled for a non-belief that, while less grand in its promises, felt more genuine and attainable. I again quote Michael: "Christianity is something that if you really believed it, it would change your life and you would want to change [the lives] of others. I haven't seen too much of that."
Here's my theory as to why (and I'm really truncating a much longer discourse into the constituents that I've examined over the past decade that aided in forming this theory, so if anyone wants to dig deeper; I can create a separate thread on that tangent that explains those points...allot of it deals with base neurology):
Essentially, human spirituality runs mostly on limbic response satisfaction.
Almost everything related to adherence rests upon this satisfaction.
If the emotional relationship is not imbued with value to the capacity level of earning reverence (holding a special value for the relationship with the constructs of their religion), then the kick-off point begins for the beginning of the adherent's path to slipping out of their given religion; at least traditionally.
The adherent will most commonly attempt to reaffirm their belief system to begin with; trying to find an emotional spark that bonds the construct to imbued value.
As time goes on, if this doesn't happen, they will continue to slip away.
At some point, they may consider that the issue is localized; that their issue is with their specific congregation (Church, Temple, Center, etc...), and attempt to go to a different congregation.
If the new congregation (and environment) fails to engage a sustained emotional imbuement (even if it starts with a "honeymoon" phase related to excitement from the unknown of change), then they may try a congregational change again a few times.
If it persists, they may drop out entirely, or if they are willing to think that there's still a resolution some
where (which is a cognitive error as it's really some
how), then they will often flip sects within their religion (occasionally, due to personality differences, they may flip religions and skip sect-hopping).
Sect-hopping falls into the same run as the congregational hopping, and if that fails to engage an emotional connection, then the adherent may drop out entirely or flip religions, or start mix/matching.
But basically; what's lacking for the individual is the emotional connection with the belief construct. It's not a cognitive system.
The cognitive aspects are reactive, employing our analytical system "worry" for repeatedly attempting to find a solution.
Depending on a wide range of variables of how they are treated during this period, as well as their personality type, the individual (if they decide that they are atheist [a term that I more relate to as, "having no emotional connection to the construct of their given religion"], may potentially become bitter, disillusioned, liberated, or joyful (to name a few differences).
Because there is a growing openness in society of accepting people being non-religious yet still emotionally spiritual (however they define that in their mind), some will just continue on with a mix/match personal brand of spiritual construct which can be a wide range of possibilities as it's being tailored to their satisfaction as best as they can fit together.
My theory would offer to this Christian movement's interest, the following:
That if they are concerned with this, then they need to not look at cognitive solutions, but instead frequency of subjective limbic imbuement potentials.
Meaning; the entire reason the individual is moving away is most probably going to be related to the format of the religion's spiritual practice (what I call) 'order of conduction' and more specifically (again, what I call) 'proanisotropics' (which refers to the specific spiritual practices [prayer, meditation, worship service, et. al. formats and types).
The engagement issue is that the individual is not being delivered interactions that satisfy their limbic imbuement subjectively to their form, and that the interactions themselves are not in line with the frequency rate the individual needs to maintain the limbic imbuement satisfaction.
A tangible example of what I'm talking about here is the relatively new phenomenon of Christians in our society mixing Buddhist meditation practices into their Christian dogmatic constructs.
This interesting demographic is borrowing proanisotropics, but not instaters (the dogmatic constructs of a religion), so to encourage limbic satisfaction of their Christian dogmatic constructs where their traditional Christian proanisotropics and orders of conductions are failing on their own to connect with a limbic satisfaction.
This is actually where I spend the majority of my time in studying spirituality in society; how it works in our body, why it works, and how it faults and why.
Essentially; it fails because a cookie-cutter system that runs the way traditional Christianity functions does not work very well for a growing number of people.
That is to say:
An order of conduction of one to three times a week congregational interactions involving, mostly, cognitive engagement (rather than limbic) through a wide variety of "lessons" and "preaching" is not personal or emotional for every individual.
This format's proanisotropics are somewhat sterile; involving mass singing, sermons, non-personal prayer, a lack of any form of meditation (respite of the mind and stress specifically), and spends most of its time focusing on reaffirmation and conviction affirmation.
Meanwhile, by contrast in the above example demographic mixing Christianity with Buddhism; all of what Christianity lacks in form, Buddhism offers in surplus.
The individual received personalized training for regulating their limbic system and can easily find an emotional connection in doing so.
In a way, what we are looking at is very similar to what Bruce Lee was addressing when he was addressing how traditional forms of martial arts training were inept at addressing maximizing efficient economy of body movement to the individual.
His assertion was that a mass format cannot gain the maximum leverage for the individual through macrolevel prescriptions and interactions, and that a specific attention to the individual was needed to analyze the best system for each individual that works with their strengths and weaknesses.
Now, he was discussing physical body efficiency and not spiritual limbic efficiency, but the very basic concept of macrolevel spiritual interfaces compared against subjective microlevel spiritual interfaces is of the same fashion of consideration.
We tailor everything else to suit our needs, yet religion still stands as a construct that most often attempts to not tailor to individuals, but instead request individuals to tailor to it, and assume (like Uncle Sam) that one size fits all.
So...that would be my advice to these folks; don't look for a cognitive subject to battle (lines of reason).
Look at experiential interactions and see what kind of feelings the people are having when engaged in their spiritual activities, and inquire what they are looking for (they won't be able to answer accurately, but the answers tell you useful information anyway; via psychology).
This is why the cognitive content they are getting from these folks are "vague" and varied; because it's not a cognitive issue.
It's like people eating food and knowing something just doesn't taste right, but not sure what, and then trying a bunch of different combinations looking for what that taste is without knowing the name for it.
Except here; rather than something easily tangible like taste; we're working with a very transitive and transient construct of reverential emotion.
