It would be very interesting, but probably impossible in practical terms, to take groups of people with various ideas on a given topic -- for instance, global warming or Biblical miracles -- and put each of them for an extended time among a group of others (say, in a dorm at a camp for a month) who either confirm or mock the particular belief they hold, and then see if any ideas change.
If ideas do change, I wonder if it would make any difference whether the subject found the mockers to be ignorant or informed on the topic.
Would the type of belief make a difference? What about the strength of the belief? What about the desire of the subject to fit in with the group?
I recently saw a study which found that group opinion does sway others, unless the belief is very firmly held, in which case the dissenter comes to believe even more firmly in his original belief. There's a kind of Cassandra effect, in which the lone dissenter concludes that "the world's gone crazy" and therefore he has to become a beacon for the truth in the darkness.
I've also seen studies in which subjects are put into groups who all argue in favor of an obviously false proposal, and in many cases the subjects convince themselves that the group is right. I wonder what would happen if they tweaked those studies so that some of the groups use (pseudo)logical arguments while others use biting humor, sarcasm, and mockery of the opposing viewpoint.
I'd be interested in studies like that.
I looked around for some regarding religion in particular. I found this:
http://pewforum.org/Faith-in-Flux.aspx
It has some surprising things, like: "Americans change religious affiliation early and often. In total, about half of American adults [44%] have changed religious affiliation at least once during their lives. Most people who change their religion leave their childhood faith before age 24, and many of those who change religion do so more than once." Also, "among the 56% of the population that currently belongs to the same religion as the one in which they were raised, one-in-six (16%) say there was a time in their life when they had a different faith than they have now."
That obviously still leaves a large correlation between the faith of child and parent, but there's much more conversion than I would have guessed.
I've not finished reading it, but the summary doesn't really give enough detail on reasons for conversion. 'People stopped believing' is a little vague. Maybe a lot of people can't give precise reasons. I suppose that could be understandable if the process took a long time and they weren't pre-occupied with the loss of faith. "The faith of most people who have changed religions was on the wane in the year or two prior to leaving their childhood religion. [...] among both former Protestants and former Catholics who are now unaffiliated, more than seven-in-ten say they just gradually drifted away from their childhood religion."
Pew Study said:
Two-thirds of former Catholics who have become unaffiliated and half of former Protestants who have become unaffiliated say they left their childhood faith because they stopped believing in its teachings, [from later: "nearly six-in-ten former Catholics who are now unaffiliated say they left Catholicism due to dissatisfaction with Catholic teachings on abortion and homosexuality, about half cite concerns about Catholic teachings on birth control and roughly four-in-ten name unhappiness with Catholicism's treatment of women"] and roughly four-in-ten say they became unaffiliated because they do not believe in God or the teachings of most religions. Additionally, many people who left a religion to become unaffiliated say they did so in part because they think of religious people as hypocritical or judgmental, because religious organizations focus too much on rules or because religious leaders are too focused on power and money. Far fewer say they became unaffiliated because they believe that modern science proves that religion is just superstition.
[...] Fewer than three-in-ten former Catholics, however, say the clergy sexual abuse scandal factored into their decision to leave Catholicism.
[...] In contrast with other groups, those who switch from one Protestant denominational family to another (e.g., were raised Baptist and are now Methodist) tend to be more likely to do so in response to changed circumstances in their lives. Nearly four-in-ten people who have changed religious affiliation within Protestantism say they left their childhood faith, in part, because they relocated to a new community, and nearly as many say they left their former faith because they married someone from a different religious background.
[...] Former Catholics who are now unaffiliated are much less likely than lifelong Catholics to have attended Mass regularly or to have had very strong faith as teenagers.
[...] Former Protestants who are now unaffiliated are less likely to have regularly attended worship services as a child and even less likely to have attended regularly as a teenager. They also are much less likely to report having attended Sunday school or having had very strong religious faith as a child or a teenager.
[...] the most common reason for leaving Catholicism cited by former Catholics who have become Protestant is that their spiritual needs were not being met (71%)
So we have:
--Stopped believing (in God or other teachings)
--didn't like co-religionists (And 'fewer than 3/10' regarding the child-abuse preists might be misleading because the table says 3%)
--Moved to a new community and joined (local, presumably) faith
--changed to faith of spouse
--less involvement in faith as children
--religious needs not met by original faith
Science wasn't a factor. Which surprises me, because Dawkins site includes quite a few references to things like evolution. But I suppose it's natural that such people would congregate there. So I shouldn't be surprised that source seems to be filled with self-selected contributors.
Pew Study said:
The survey finds that religious change begins early in life. Most of those who decided to leave their childhood faith say they did so before reaching age 24, and a large majority say they joined their current religion before reaching age 36. Very few report changing religions after reaching age 50.
Regarding those who started unaffiliated:
PewStudy said:
At the same time that the ranks of the unaffiliated have grown, the Landscape Survey also revealed that the unaffiliated have one of the lowest retention rates of any of the major religious groups, with most people who were raised unaffiliated now belonging to one religion or another. Those who leave the ranks of the unaffiliated cite several reasons for joining a faith, such as the attraction of religious services and styles of worship (74%), having been spiritually unfulfilled while unaffiliated (51%) or feeling called by God (55%).
