When someone leaves behind religious faith, some of his former coreligionists may be tempted to accuse him/her of never been a "true believer" because the true believer doesn't question, let alone leave the familiarly and socially inculcated dogma since childhood. Loss of belief can be seen by those around the new atheist as a betrayal of the community of believers and self-condemnation ("You are dooming yourself to Hell!"). Questioning your own faith is a process that requires the same curiosity and commom sense that you apply to other facets of life, but above all it requires a great courage because by asking certain questions you run the risk of getting unpleasant answers that can shake one of the cornerstones of the personality of the believer. You must decide whether to cling to your belief or go where the truth leads you.
The opposite case is also shocking to us non-believers. Abandoning reason and embracing a religious faith inevitably makes us doubt the mental health of the new believer, because turning your back to reason seems to us inconceivable without losing your mind. We mistakenly assume that the atheist is so because the search for truth led him/her to acquire the knowledge necessary to cut through the ridiculous beliefs of the particular denomination to which he was exposed in its infancy. The virus of religious superstition can only be fought with the medicine of reason, though it is essential that the patient wants to take that medicine. However, it may happen that one who claims to be atheist -and certainly is if he/she does not pray to any god- has not reached his position about religion by conviction but by lack of indoctrination. He/she wasn't taught to believe, but neither was taught to question the irrational, and therefore he/she is not vaccinated against religion. In the absence of a broader and more precise terminology, we can say that he/she was not a "true atheist." Similarly, we can say that they are not true atheists those who temporarily abandon the practice of the rituals of their confession, perhaps because they have been touched by a tragic event, like a near death or serious illness or accident, which consequences they can not accept, and this produced in them a feeling of resentment towards the divinity that they consider is not attending their pleas. After the anger, they return to the flock because their atheism was not founded on reason.
The opposite case is also shocking to us non-believers. Abandoning reason and embracing a religious faith inevitably makes us doubt the mental health of the new believer, because turning your back to reason seems to us inconceivable without losing your mind. We mistakenly assume that the atheist is so because the search for truth led him/her to acquire the knowledge necessary to cut through the ridiculous beliefs of the particular denomination to which he was exposed in its infancy. The virus of religious superstition can only be fought with the medicine of reason, though it is essential that the patient wants to take that medicine. However, it may happen that one who claims to be atheist -and certainly is if he/she does not pray to any god- has not reached his position about religion by conviction but by lack of indoctrination. He/she wasn't taught to believe, but neither was taught to question the irrational, and therefore he/she is not vaccinated against religion. In the absence of a broader and more precise terminology, we can say that he/she was not a "true atheist." Similarly, we can say that they are not true atheists those who temporarily abandon the practice of the rituals of their confession, perhaps because they have been touched by a tragic event, like a near death or serious illness or accident, which consequences they can not accept, and this produced in them a feeling of resentment towards the divinity that they consider is not attending their pleas. After the anger, they return to the flock because their atheism was not founded on reason.
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