The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God: Why New Atheism Grew Old and Secular Thinkers Are Considering Christianity Again, Justin Brierley starts off making what I think is an incredibly salient point in today’s world, a point I will elaborate on:
MANY “scientific” people today have seen themselves as at least agnostics, if not outright atheists. Yet a funny thing has happened on their journey from theist to atheist.
These people became no less religious or “devout” to Leftism or identity politics or atheism than they were as younger Christians. It’s what was observed a century ago by psychologists. I’m talking about Psychologist George Kelly’s “Slot Movement.”
In Slot Movement, there is really no fundamental change to one’s interpretation of the world: There is simply immediate movement between poles. I was vehemently all in before, and now I am vehemently all against. With the same intensity.
The intensity of psychic energy is totally unchanged. The fervor with which I once held position A is the very same fervor with which I hold position Z. And I didn’t stop to examine positions B,C, D, etc. I just “flipped” to the opposite of A. It was as if I were in a “slot” and just “clicked” from A to Z. No real change has happened at all!
Oh sure, I am now on the opposite side, but George Kelly would say that this is entirely superficial, that there has been no real personality change at all!
So in a therapy situation (especially Borderline Personality Disorder where other people tend to be ALL good or ALL bad), a completely opposite set of behaviors is very suspect. Most likely, it is no “real” cure that you are seeing at all. It is just slot movement.
So these erstwhile atheists (or Christians) did not really change in the slightest. They simply “clicked” from position A to position Z, with their personality structure completely unchanged.