Amazing Conversions: Why Some Turn to Faith & Others Abandon Religion

This groundbreaking study, based on a survey of over four thousand students at two Canadian universities, uncovers fascinating new data on sudden shifts toward religious and nonreligious belief. Amazing Conversions explores, for the first time, the reasons why converts join and apostates go. Social psychologists Bob Altemeyer and Bruce Hunsberger winnow out a small number of "Amazing Apostates" and "Amazing Believers, " the former being those who, despite a strong religious upbringing, abandon their faith, while the latter embrace religion, usually fundamentalist Christianity, after having been raised in homes that were indifferent to religion or overtly antireligious. This book solves "the mystery of the amazing converts" by presenting their stories in their own words. As you read their explanations of what happened to them, you will notice the themes that reappear in one life after another. And you may find the ultimate explanations of these amazing cases as surprising as the cases themselves.