by VorJack
I had a friend in high school – let’s call him Jacob – who was a stone-cold biology geek. He was the kind of person who would always have a bottle of flynap in his bag.
We teased him unmercifully, of course. But there was a real tinge of jealousy there. Jacob seemed to know where he was going, had a plan for his life and confidence in his abilities to see it through. The rest of us, flailing away, couldn’t help but envy his competence. While the rest of use were struggling with college applications, he already had scholarships lined up.
We all knew that he’d go far. In fact, we expected him to do some real good in the world, since his interest was in genetics and agriculture.
After my freshman year in college, a group of us met up with Jacob again. We were shocked to find that he’d found Religion.
Well, actually, he’d found the Girl, who had introduced him to the Church, which had given him the Religion. The Girl went the way of most freshman romances, but he kept the Church and the Religion.
Now, we’d gone to a Catholic high school, so we were all religious to some degree. Had Jacob just gotten really zealous in his Catholic faith, or jumped ship for a mainline Protestant faith, we wouldn’t have batted an eye. But the Church was a storefront affair with a Charismatic service. The sermon was from a traveling evangelist, and his message was trite and ended with “give me money.” The preacher had a half dozen people with him in front, all playing instruments.
(Incidentally, believers, just because Jesus has inspired you to play music in his honor doesn’t mean that he’s given you the talent to do so. Please, please, put the mandolin down.)
I could just see Jacob throwing away his future to become just one more Charismatic preacher in a little storefront church. Jacob had started believing in the apocalypse and prophecy and the literal word of scripture. We tried to talk to him about it, but, well, college sophomores are not know for their subtle methods of persuasion. Things got ranty, on both sides. We lost touch after that.
How do you talk to someone who seems in danger of slipping into religious fervor? How do you throw them a lifeline?
You can’t that is the problem. Many people who found religion don’t want to listen to people who say that they are wasting their life. They think the exact opposite. They think you are waisting your life by not believing in god. They would also believe that the fact that you, their friend, trying to dissuade him from religion is the persecution that christians would get near the end times. The only way they can change their belief is by themselves. It might take something like a traumatic experience for them to slowly realize that there is no god. But don’t listen to my ranting. I think Daniel might be better at answering this.
I really can’t believe this. Most of us are horrible at persuasion. I mean, few enough people are good at logic and debate, but persuasion requires these and also subtlety, empathy, and a really good ability to know how the other person will react to something you say before you say it.
Not that I have the answers for how to do this.. I just believe it could be done.
It might sound ironic for an atheist to do, but you might as well encourage him to hop back on the Catholic train. If he really wants mysticism and religious ecstasy, have him talk to an Orthodox cleric or monk (religious hymns from both these traditions have an unparalleled way of messing with the head, bordering on the transcendental). Or sit down with him and watch the “What the bleep do we know?” films (I’ve found them quite inspiring and uplifting. They might awaken his interest in science again.)
Those are a lot more preferable options to what you’re describing. But trying to talk him out of religion at this point would rather endanger him getting entrenched in religion even more.
Ugh, no, not that stupid film.
There’s NO science in it what-so-ever, and it was actually put out by a cult who believes their leader channels an ancient spirit (she makes a few appearances in the movie)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_the_Bleep_Do_We_Know!%3F#Academic_reaction
LOL… I know. I loved the bit about the “I love you”-water. The first half of the movie is relatively safe.But we’re talking about a person ready to fall in the chasm of fundamentalism.Anything’s better than that, which is why I also offered midway alternatives. Trying argumentation based on reason right now is an exercise in futility, IMHO.
I’m with CoffeeJedi on the film, but the advice itself isn’t bad, re:getting him back into contact with less extreme avenues of faith. The problem here is the smarter a person is, the harder it generally is to convince them that they are making a mistake about what they believe; using a related religious tradition is less of a leap than the atheist-perspective critique.
Go over the scientific method and state how it is inconsistent with religious dogma. Not to mention a lot of biology disproves most of the claims about the nature of god.
When my cousin got born again into Jeeeeeebus, I did my best to talk to him rationally about it and find the roots of his need for religious faith. When he started signing off his emails with Ben Stein quotes about the evil lies of Charles Darwin and the wonderful truth of ID, I pretty much gave in and wrote him off as a waste of skin. By the way, he teaches high school Information Technology at a religious academy school in the UK.
Just guessing, but maybe he found that catholic church was not a way to anywhere. Of course the logical conclusion would have been that religions in general are a failure, instead he tried again. Maybe you have to accept that he is going to waste some years til he realizes his priest is a fraud too.
But… what if he is happier now?
You are assuming that he is really believing this?
It might be a clever marketing trick to become rich faster: Become a Religious CEO, attract followers, get money from them and let then do the work.
Hey, I want to do that! Except for the religious part.
There is no guarantee that you can help Jacob since ultimately he will have to decide for himself. But if you do still have any contact with him, I think there is a possible chance you can throw him a lifeline. One of the keys of deprogramming is to force someone to confront the inherent logical problems of whatever cult they have been indoctrinated into. I suspect it is usually ineffective to directly mention these flaws as it will inspire your mark to get defensive and stop listening. But you can introduce a train of thought which if Jacob follows it through on his own will lead him to see the contrast between two conflicting beliefs.
In this particular case I think the key is your friend’s interest in Biology. You mentioned he was a “stone-cold biology geek” in high school. This suggests he probably still maintains some interest in the field even with his newfound Jesus colored glasses. I would bet that there are in fact quite a few things that Jacob accepts as fact which are incompatible with the christian explanation of Biology.
When you are picked on a lot in school and other social places, going to a church is refreshing since no one picks on you, especially when your an adult, at least not to your face. It makes religion very appealing.
He has to come back on his own. Hopefully a bit of Dawkins’ books will bring him back.
The best answer is to keep someone like that from turning in the first place. In this case he turned for a girl. Quite possibly the first one willing to give him a chance. It’s amazing what a guy will do for a woman after a years of rejection and pity.
Athiest women of the world, do a geek a favor and give him an honest chance. You may mean the difference between a successful scientific career and the dark world of primitive superstition.
In my own case, I don’t really think there is anything anyone could have said or done to have turned me away from the path of folly on which I set my feet. I often do wonder if there had been an internet at the time whether I might have been able to fact check some of the material that had been so convincing to me, but I’m afraid that for every foot of truth the internet builds up for a seeker to climb on top of there is an equal and opposite hole of lies for him to fall back in to.
I had a very dramatic “conversion” experience– I’d become something of a well-known, big man in the dorm, developing legendary status as a partier and womanizer one day (you know, the whole “I had it all, but it didn’t fill up the empty place inside me” schtick), total Jesus Freak the next. Though the process had actually been going on inside me for some years, once I reached that point of cognitive dissonance there was no turning back. My roommate at the time (poor guy), a Catholic kid who went to church but that was about it, told me later that once when this dramatic conversion of mine came up in conversation shortly after it occurred another guy we knew from a different floor in the same building– who had actually been my roommate earlier the previous summer during a week-long orientation period that incoming freshmen were encouraged to attend– said “If anything like that ever starts to happen to me will somebody please punch my ass out?”
I don’t know if that would have worked for me or not, but maybe somebody should have tried. I doubt anything would have worked, really. And just as with you and your buddy, I proceeded to lose all of my childhood friends and party buddies due to my incessant preaching– somehow I knew they were all going to get saved just like me and we were all going to still be friends, only now serving the Lord together.
And so the only thing I could suggest that you do, which I guess I wish some of my buddies would have done, would be instead of writing him off cold, to tell him that you’ll still be there for him if and when he ever finds out he no longer believes it and wants to come back. Tell him if he does to be sure to look you up, and mean it if you say it. That’s a big committment, I know. A lot can happen say, in five years which is how much time I lost out of my life. I was able to start completely over, and find all new friends, but it would have been nice to have been able to jump back into my old circle of homies when it was all over. Unfortunately, too much water had passed under the bridge I guess, and I suppose the bridge had been burned too, and we’d all moved on, so it just never worked out.
A mind is a terrible thing to lose.
She has long beautiful hair, big tits…and she LOVES ME! …Her name is;…”Jesus” (sigh..shiver).
That is just disturbing.
Eweweweweweeeeeeeeeeeew.
“Wanna run my fingers through your hair and over your pale skin
On the fringe, shit, Jesus Christ man, you sure wanna nail him”
I don’t talk, I run away as fast as I can !
My best friend since sixth grade and I stopped talking for roughly six years because, when she confessed that I didn’t like her then boyfriend, or the fact that she was suddenly marrying someone she didn’t love because he convinced her that a body condom was “made of the same stuff and just as effective” (I love her for her naivety), that perhaps my feelings for her were “less than wholesome” and that I “needed to seek therapy”. She fought them on this until I protested again that they were suddenly packing up and moving away from her everything she ever knew when she suddenly confronted me with that. There was nothing I could have said to her at the time to convince her that the church she had joined was a mess. It didn’t matter how much we debated or argued. She was gone.
Six years later, we started speaking again, and have since agreed to disagree where religion is concerned. We’ve butted heads a few times over views on everything from dating (we both have teenagers) to tithe, but it always comes back to us stopping before it becomes a screaming math. Thank goodness we’re both old enough now to be able to do that.
Because of her, I studied theology in college, and comparative religion became a big deal. I wanted to know what made it all click. She admitted to me later that it was the religion classes she took in college that made her step back and rethink some of the literal views she had been pushed to believe as well. She’s a lot more open minded than she used to be, thankfully.
However, I must make a point to stay that she doesn’t mention me to her church friends, and she has told me flat out that I am her “secret sister”. Go figure.
I’ve tried having conversations with my Grandparents and other members of my family who are religious. They’ve all asked me several times why I don’t go to church if I studied religion for so long, and I tell them “That IS the reason I don’t go to church.” They can’t understand it.
I think it’s a matter of people with a Christian mentality wanting so badly to believe in something, that they completely refuse to hear anything other than what like minded people say. They have to wake up on their own before anyone can get a foot in the door.
In my experience, when a person has a radical life change like that, it is almost always a symptom of something else. Arguing that the weird charismatic cult they’ve sold all their possessions to join is wrong won’t fix anything. Whatever emotional event they had that triggered that change is the real issue.
Bingo.
Yup. My sister in law and brother got all coo-coo for religion after having two second-trimester miscarriages.
My cousin and his wife were intelligent, educated atheists (raised Catholic, though) before bearing a child with significant and life-threatening congenital abnormalities. They found religion again, the child died before his 3rd birthday, and the parents are now extremely fundamentalist thumping Catholics. I wish I could have an intelligent, thoughtful conversation about their journey from benign religion to atheism then to religious fervor, but there’s no way they would participate in a respectful conversation now without proselytizing.
I guess it’s true that people are atheists for rational reasons, and become religious for emotional reasons. And people are emotional creatures so I guess that makes sense to some degree. What I don’t get is how someone can know that something is patently FALSE (ie religion), and then abandon that knowledge when things get tough. For me, no matter how bad things are, I can’t make myself believe something that ridiculous. Even if I wanted to.
It sounds like he’s clicked into that cult mentality, which I despair of ever understanding. Like lurker said, most of us are rotten at persuading, so when this happens, you can’t help but wonder, how did they ever get convinced of such….(struggle for words strong enough o display one’s frustration)….idiocy?
In the years I was maybe 9-12, my uncle & his family disappeared. They started following some religious nutburger & GAVE HIM THEIR HOUSE. Is there a way to do double all caps? Yes, GAVE HIM THEIR HOUSE. Wait. I have another appropriate use for caps: W.T.F.?!?!
And they were living within a 10 minute drive of all his other 4 brothers AND his parents. He wasn’t isolated & desperate, in other words.
I think there is, in some people, some kind of strong urge to give over themselves. I suspect the chemical result in the brain is related to being in love or sexuality, & is felt as an ecstatic experience. So there are chemical rewards in the body that keep them going. And I have not one useful thing to say to bring someone back to center. If they WANT to give thier brain away, then THAT’S what they want. And whatever you have to offer…they don’t want that. And since what they DO want is right there, handed to them by a charismatic leader, well….how can one compete?
My sister is a Baptist who takes the word of god literally, me an atheist who thinks it’s ridiculous. She’s back from college after finishing her freshman year and we’ve discussed religion a lot. I’ve brought forth my best arguments and gotten the O_O face from her at the end of each argument. She’s been asking for links to movies like Religulous by Bill Maher and asked to read my copy of The God Delusion. I think there needs to be a nice mixture of blunt but polite to change someone’s mind.
put them in the trunk of your car and drive to vegas. works every time.
There is no way to change his mind. People have to travel their journeys and find their own way. My sister was in business with a partner, and they were about to mingle lots of investment money. On the cusp of the big dive, her partner announced that she was dropping out of society and joining a convent. Srsly!!!! Sounds like a sitcom but it actually happened. I guess I can understand – sometimes I want to droip out of life too. Life is challenging. Way easier to spend my life praying and reading, being financially supported by someone else.
Have you tried something like the Socratic method? I imagine he would be a lot more receptive to (polite, carefully constructed) questions than to harsh criticism.
Yeah, but Socrates was such a jerk.
He speaks well of you…
But that’s because Elemenope is such a lovely human being.
The problem is that religious people almost ALWAYS get defensive and angry when questioned. Religion does not allow for questioning or doubt, and if you create that in your mind you will just piss them off. It won’t make them think – it only makes them think you are of the devil or something.
We are essentially all creatures of habit. If some one is in danger of falling for religious fervour, what can be done? Hand them another religion, a copy of “Mein Kampf”, a copy of “Hustler” magazine, …..what? Often those who fall into fervour are looking for answers to life’s problems and usually don’t have much self love or respect. Guilt is a major factor in finding a religion that will release them of culpability. Just look at christianity today….sin and salvation. There’s nothing any one can do….except calling for Mr Spock to probe into their minds to see if anything is there!
Arguing/debating with those types ends up making them cling to their new found faith even more. You can not debate with these types and worse yet they try to convert you in the process or get fellow followers as there is strength in numbers.
Let it go and hope the friend/family member wises up in the future.
Echoing bits of what others said, as far as I can tell it doesn’t work. (I’m sorry. I wish you asked out of genuine hope that there was a way, and posters came up with several good ideas. Instead of agreeing that it can’t be done, that is.)
I remember countering with some real , truthful statements out of the nasty pain, guilt, self-doubt, and torture to a reasoning mind that I went through in the few years I believed christianity. I was hoping to strike a responsive – and unavoidable and painful – chord in the xian I was talking to; I would have enjoyed making her cry. But it fell like, well, like seeds on infertile ground. She seemed to think I was making a cry for help to her, and to have the notion that she could “help” me and “restore my faith”.
Cheeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrriiist. Talk about crossed-up communication lines. It went over like a cow trying to pole vault.
I don’t feel that it’s my place to try to deprogram anyone who has fallen into the clutches of religion- but on the other hand, I’m not shy about expressing my skepticism at someone’s religion when they start waxing lyrical about it. Conversion has happened only a couple of times to friends or acquaintance of mine. One old and very close high school friend who was instrumental in supporting me when I came out as gay later became a Jew for Jesus and disappeared off the face of the earth- and now, ten years later, not even her own family knows where she is or what she is doing. I never even had the chance to discuss it with her because she completely shunned anyone from her former life. A couple of other friends have converted from being agnostics or vague theists into denominational Christians or Jews, but they’re low-key and the topic really never comes up. My atheist and agnostic friends have almost all been that way since at least high school, and none of them that I know of has tried to talk anyone else out of their religion.
I am surrounded by hardcore Christians, or formerly hardcore Christians: my parents, my college-aged sisters, even my fiancé. We all live together in the same house (yay economic crisis). We manage not to piss each other off very much, and we have these conversations on a semi-regular basis… every couple of months, usually. Here’s how we do it. (I think a few of them are starting to lean my way, but who knows how delusional I am.)
For starters, it’s not like there’s some magic recipe or switch that can get them to think what you want or seriously consider whether or not their beliefs are right or make sense. They are actually hoping the same thing about you: if they just say the right thing or strike the right chord, you will realize your whole life is meaningless without Jesus and choose to bathe in his glory…or whatever. You are both trying to do the same thing, and the other person is in the exact same frame of mind as you are, even though you have opposite beliefs.
I’ve found this approach works best, keeping in mind that you are trying to “throw them a lifeline” and that this is likely someone you know and care about and have a relationship with, and you want to CONTINUE having a relationship with, not just some random guy off the street screaming about hell and consequences while holding a JESUS IS LOVE sign. (This happens at my university at least once a semester.)
Before you say anything, remember two things:
— The decision to critically examine your beliefs, the drive to do the research necessary to do so, and the choice to change them comes from within, as many deconverts here have testified. No one could have FORCED you to change your mind when that was what you believed, in your heart, to be right. You have to be in the right frame of mind, and while what others say may nudge you on your way, you have to make that journey and those decisions yourself. It’s not “lead a horse to water”…it’s more like you set down a map to water, and say, “Here’s a map, if you feel like looking at it.” They have to choose to acknowledge the map, go pick it up, figure out what it says, decide how reliable it is, walk TO the water, and decide whether or not they want to drink.
— Deconversion takes YEARS, usually, from the time you first begin to experience doubts to shamelessly declaring you’re an atheist/agnostic. Those of you who claim it took months or weeks, remember that I am counting the time between experiencing doubts and acknowledging doubts, and between acknowledging doubts and deciding just to “see what the opposition has to say.” Those two things take quite a bit of time, and then you have to go through the actual process of wrestling with these possible truths. EVERYONE has doubts (see below) but if you’re in denial you can’t address them because you pretend they don’t exist. Don’t expect this to be quick. Fortunately, if you have a relationship already and plan on continuing one, it taking years can be fine.
When you are having these conversations, then, make sure you:
1) Be respectful. It is not unreasonable for them to believe what they do … belief is biologically wired into most of us (see this UF post) and it must be deliberately overcome. They also probably grew up in an environment that fostered belief (and of course, churches themselves do this), and which plays on those logical errors that our brains like and naturally produce, and which we also are vulnerable to (bandwagon, “everybody believes!”; slippery slope, “Without belief, there would be chaos!”; etc.) They are only human.
2) Demand respect. If you are giving it, you can and should require they are respectful of what you believe. They know you, so you can really play this one well. Ask them if they think you are an unreasonable or evil person, or if they really think you don’t believe because you want to be able to sin, etc. Deconverts can use this especially well, if they contrast this with previous fervor. “You remember what I was like before, I believed wholeheartedly and was really involved, just like you are now. Do you really think I would change from that without a good reason? Do you really think I didn’t think this through and consider all the possibilities?” Use their knowledge of you and the kind of person you are to destroy stereotypes their church has told them about atheists. This will lay the groundwork for them to acknowledge that the church isn’t always right.
3) Allow them to try and convert you. My dad regularly asks me to watch Christian propaganda movies with him or read similar books (like The Case for Christ). I never say I won’t look at it, because that would allow them to legitimately complain that you won’t even consider what they have to say. (I usually do require that we do so in a convenient time for both of us, like a “date,” so we can both mentally prepare, that we work slowly so we both can get everything we want to say out, and that we build arguing time into it, which is better for everyone involved.)
4) Demand that you be allowed to try and convince them. If they are allowed to try and convert you, you can try to convert them. It’s only fair. They should know this before any converting of any kind tries to take place, but you need to be upfront and say, “If I am going to sit down and allow you to try and convince me, I am going to try and convince you. I am going to challenge your beliefs and it will probably be very uncomfortable for you, and it will probably work with the doubts you already have. If you aren’t willing to do that, you need to stop preaching to me right now. If I am going to examine what I believe and why, you have to too.”
5) Be honest with them. Tell them about the process you went through, about the doubts you have about your atheism, about how sometimes it feels like it WOULD be easier to believe or to follow someone. Tell them that you can’t be dishonest with yourself and you can’t do what you think is wrong even though it isn’t easy. Tell them about your explanations for the spiritual experiences they and other people have had.
6) Demand they be honest with you. Make them acknowledge they have doubts, but don’t make them feel bad about it. Get them to acknowledge that it’s not reasonable for you to believe based off of other people’s experiences. Ask them about the different denominations…if they know the difference, do they really think that only this denomination with X number of believers will go to heaven? If they don’t know, ask them, how do they know their sect is the right one, and not this other one which also believes in Jesus but also XYZ? Demand that they be intellectually honest with themselves, too. Don’t let them refuse to think about something or not explain something or make universal declarations. Make them explain why.
7) Get them to acknowledge the little things. “Everyone has doubts” is a crucial one, but you have to emphasize that doubting isn’t something to be ashamed of. Emphasize that doubts don’t make them not a Christian. If their church acts like it does, that will mean you are a safe haven for them to express their fears. “Other religions do X too” is another crucial one. Every experience they’ve had has been duplicated in another religion that they believe is false, so why does this experience count and theirs doesn’t? “Even if you disagree with it, my disbelief makes sense” is a good one too. Get them to admit that while THEY know the white light they saw was an angel, they can understand why you’re skeptical about it. They know in their hearts what this experience was, but yeah it is unreasonable of them to expect you to convert based on someone else’s experience that you have no way of knowing whether it was true or wishful thinking.
8) Be generous, not manipulative. Don’t make them feel bad about anything they believe. Don’t make them feel stupid no matter how ridiculous you think they are being. Making them feel guilty or stupid automatically shuts them down. Don’t call them a liar (unless they say something like, “no, I have no doubts,” in which case you respond with “I seriously doubt that is true; Mother Theresa and St. Augustine had doubts. If you’re not going to be honest we can’t have this conversation.) Don’t call them crazy or imply that any of their experiences are the result of something being wrong with them psychologically or that they are abnormal, though it’s ok to say that their spiritual experience is the result of something that every human does or is the result of outside factors (allergic reaction to a drug or food, for example). If they confess something secret to you or something that they would be ashamed to admit to their pastor or congregation, don’t use it against them. If you point out hypocrisies, do it in a nonjudgmental tone and don’t make them feel bad about not following X rule, but don’t hesitate to remind them that this, according to their own beliefs, is a very serious problem and ask them how they intend to reconcile it, or why they don’t think about it or why those rules don’t apply to them. (Premarital sex is a good one since 95 percent of Americans have sex before they’re married, though emphasize that this doesn’t necessarily mean they’re a teenager or not engaged, etc.) Make them trust you by being worthy of that trust. Return the favor if you can.
9) Use the church’s phrases and propaganda when you are explaining. It is something recognizable, and that they already “know” is true, so they can’t deny it. Knowing that it can lead them in another direction or that it led you in another direction will make them think and explain with more detail than just these pithy phrases. “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free” is a good one. Be careful, because the part of the Bible that says “Satan can use the words of the Lord against you” can come back and bite you in the ass here.
10) Emphasize similarities, not differences. Go for similar experiences you have, especially those that go against church teachings. Again, premarital sex is a good one, because most people do it. Make them acknowledge that they are more like you than different than you — statistically, they are just as likely to have premarital sex, have a baby “out of wedlock” get divorced, etc. They probably wear polyester fibers and eat pig and shellfish, just like you, which means you’re both breaking X rule.
11) Don’t be pushy. Back off if they get upset, allow them to change the subject if they want to. They shouldn’t feel threatened by you or they’ll shut down and stop talking to you about anything, much less this. It’s hard to do since what you believe is fundamentally opposed to what they believe.
12) Don’t let them push you around. If they say something hurtful or judgmental, don’t return in kind, just say, “This is offensive to me and not what I signed up for, so I’m ending this discussion. Come back when you can be respectful.”
Beginning tip: A good starting tactic is separation of church and state, and why there can’t be an official religion, why it’s wrong to make religious rules into laws that everyone has to follow, and why having a nonreligious public and governmental life actually benefits them…namely, because there’s no guarantee that THEIR religion or rules are the ones that would be implemented. Getting them to acknowledge that their rules should not be imposed unwilling on someone else is a good first step.
Before I read your full post, this same thought popped into my head. When someone who grows up in a family and/or community of devout religious believers, and you find your way to atheism, everyone around you will try to likewise throw you a lifeline. I have read more than a few posts especially on the forums to the effect of how unbearable one’s religious family is around the holidays or whenever you are around them, maybe you are still young and living with them, for example.
They think you are going to hell, they really want to save you back into the faith. They harass you and judge you, say things like you are immoral now, satan has a grip on your life. Of all the stupid backwards things religion does, at least in their way, they fear for you and don’t want bad things to happen to you. They want to be able to have conversations with you that they used to have, to feel that you belong with them and are not a total stranger to them. They really think you are lost to the wrong side.
Luckily, this was not the case in my family, and hasn’t really happened to anyone I know. The situation described in the article makes it seem very cult-like. Imagine taking your faith for granted and being alarmed that someone in your family has become an atheist. I think I have always had a problem with the ideas of faith in the supernatural, they have always seemed unbelievable to me on the face of things, and trouble understanding grown adults who don’t question it. I don’t know if throwing someone who has fallen into the trap rather than out of it a “lifeline” is possible or even necessary. I would consider all the friends I don’t have anymore for one reason or another, and use that as a guide; I just don’t have anything in common anymore with such a person, and let them go be with their new friends. When you spend time apart from someone who used to be close, especially when the close group disbands to separate colleges, you’re all going to come back a little different, having discovered and fed on whatever you went looking for and grabbed your interest, as you grow independently and feel out what the next stage of your life is going to be. You may still be great friends, or you may find you have less and less in common. That’s not unusual. I remember when I got to college a long time ago, it wasn’t unusual for people who seemed to be one way become completely different people in a short period of time just by finding a group or clique who accepted them, dressing and talking different — although not necessarily religious, it has the same effect of making someone unrecognizable and parroting the interests of the group. When you are new on campus and someone wants to be your friend at all, it’s not unusual to follow that person into whatever groups they belong to, especially if you are shy and not very confident.