Atheists: A Psychological Profile

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Findings regarding those who come from religious homes and then give up religion show that they have had more distant relations with their parents (Hunsberger 1980, 1983; Hunsberger and Brown 1984).

Attachment theory (Kirkpatrick 2005) assumes that interpersonal styles in adults, the ways of dealing with attachment, separation, and loss in close personal relationships, stem directly from the mental models of oneself and others that were developed during infancy and childhood. Attachment styles can be characterized as secure, avoidant, or anxious/ambivalent. Secure adults find it relatively easy to get close to others. Avoidant adults are somewhat uncomfortable being close to others. Anxious/ambivalent adults find that others are reluctant to get as close as they would like. Kirkpatrick (20055) reports that in a study of 400 adults in the United States, those having an avoidant attachment style were most likely to identify themselves as either atheist or agnostic.

Does losing a parent early in life lead on to atheism? Vetter and Green (1932-33) surveyed 350 members of the American Association for the Advancement of Atheism, 325 of whom were men. Among those who became atheists before age twenty, half lost one or both parents before that age. A large number in the group reported unhappy childhood and adolescence experiences. (The twenty-five women reported “traumatic experiences” with male ministers. We can only wonder about those today. Vitz (1999) presents biographical information from the lives of more than fifty prominent atheists and theists as evidence for his theory that atheism is a reaction to losing one’s father.

The problem with this early deprivation hypothesis is that we find that losses and problems in early life may lead to serious pathology, but also to religious conversion and great personal achievements (cf. Eisenstadt 1989); Beit-Hallahmi 2005a). This discussion demonstrates that apostates are in some ways similar to religious converts.

B. Beit-Hallahmi, “Atheists: A Psychological Profile,” M. Martin, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Atheism (2007), 302-303.

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