Over the next few weeks, I’ll be posting clergy contributors’ answers to questions I asked them about their experiences with religious doubt. After all, “doubt” is in the title of the blog and without it, there would be very few non-believers. Just about everyone who was once taught a religion would still believe it, if they hadn’t had doubts along the way, right?

But before posting their answers, please think with me a little about the nature of religious doubt. When learning the beliefs of their religion, people are usually taught that it’s very important to hold on those beliefs — that in fact there are dire consequences to losing their faith. Religious leaders will say that although having occasional doubts is OK, and perhaps even to be expected, the only acceptable resolution to those doubts is a return to faith.

Why is that?

I’ve heard people say that doubting made their faith stronger.

How does that happen?

I ask, because doubting religion, and investigating those doubts, had the opposite effect on me and all the clergy I’ve interviewed over the past few years. Faith went away.

For me, changing my mind based on doubts was easy — I was not very religious and my livelihood was not derived from organized religion. In contrast, the clergy I interviewed about their changed beliefs suffered greatly because of their doubts. Following their doubts could turn their whole lives upside down. Still, I have yet to meet clergy who ultimately regretted following their doubts to non-belief. In fact, though they may fight their doubts and rationalize or compartmentalize them for years, once they finally accept their change of mind, they feel free and relieved.

They say things like this:

[All excerpted from Caught in the Pulpit: Leaving Belief Behind by Daniel C. Dennett and Linda LaScola]

I gained new understandings, new horizons, the freedom to say, “Nothing is off-limits”—that if I find it helpful to read Harris, or Dawkins, or Borg, and so on, that there’s something exciting about the journey in that. I gained a sense of personal integrity, but it’s tough—tough to maintain that, just kind of staying the course. I’ve gained some humility, I think, realizing how big this is, so much bigger than me, so much bigger than the tradition I’ve been a part of.

And this:

I gained my sanity. I feel I gained more integrity. I’ve gained a sense that there is no one organizing principle, and that’s kind of a loss, because I’d like to think that I’ve gained some certainty in my life where I am now, some stability. I think I have stability.

And this:

I’ve gained this radical independence to think for myself, to make my own choices. The world is fascinating and beautiful and wonderful in itself. I’ve gained an appreciation for the natural order, for us as a species. In fact, it makes me feel more connected to people and want to do more good for people. I have more compassion for people, and also…more contempt for…forces that would try to enslave people’s bodies or their gender or their mind. There’s a sense of a greater clarity of right and wrong, and being accountable and responsible not only to the natural world but to my fellow humans and the animal world. Trying to be more responsible about that, and more appreciative. It almost feels like I’ve been out in the sun and I walk into a room and I can’t see. And then all of a sudden my eyes adjust to the light and reality, and I feel like the blinders are off.

Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? There are certainly painful moments along the way, but the reality of following one’s doubts to disbelief instead of taking a U-turn back to faith is not definitely the dead-end it’s made out to be.

So why do you suppose doubt that leads to investigation that leads to disbelief has such a bad reputation? Why has the only acceptable response to religious doubt been a return to faith?