Taunton's are deeply problematic findings. Because what this kind of analysis does, whether intentionally or not, is peremptorily dismiss these atheists' valid objections and present snippets from the interviews in such a way as to insult the sincerity of their nonbelief and foreclose other possible explanations for their apostasy; namely, that Christianity may be losing its grip over increasing numbers of young Americans not because its preachers and pastors are doing a shoddy job of delivering their message or listening to their flock, but because the young Americans find the religion itself to be inherently implausible or morally objectionable.

Taunton introduces the reader to a number of members of the Secular Student Alliance and the Freethought Society. He interviews them, hoping to hear about their "journey to unbelief" and create "a composite sketch of American college-aged atheists" -- something that I am not sure it is possible to do in any accurate and nuanced way. (And as an atheist, I would argue that, if anything, it is the journey to belief that needs to be studied.)

The atheists Taunton speaks to declare straightaway that the problem is, simply, that they don't believe: "With few exceptions," he acknowledges early on, "students would begin by telling us that they had become atheists for exclusively rational reasons." But Taunton doesn't take them at their word. Instead, he treats them as subjects for psychoanalysis. He presents "Phil" as holding views "typical" of young New Atheists. Phil is "smart, likeable," and depicted as a lost young fellow, for whom things have "come apart" -- this is how Taunton refers to quitting religion -- and one who misses his "youth pastor." (Again, the only New Atheists from whom we hear are former Christians -- a fact that must necessarily skew the conclusions, even if it's not one Taunton can do much about within the confines of this particular study.) "Stephanie" appears, and laments that "The connection between Jesus and a person's life was not clear." A young man named Ben simply "got bored with church" and chucked it all. "Meredith" took comfort in the absence of a god, because her father had died and she didn't want to see him again, presumably in the hereafter. "Rebecca" prayed and got no answer. More generally, "vague references to videos they had watched on YouTube or website forums" figured in their de-conversion, as did, says Taunton, a search for "authenticity" -- surely what secularists would call an empirically verifiable conception of life, death, and the cosmos. But according to Taunton, his "idealist" students "settled for a nonbelief, that, though less grand in its promises, felt more genuine and attainable."

He does not seem to understand that this is a deeply patronizing way of recounting the free decisions of these students to leave the church because -- again, as a number of atheists apparently told him outright -- they just don't believe its teachings. It would be one thing if the students themselves had declared they'd "settled," or said that they felt atheism to be "less grand." But no quote from the students suggests the point Taunton is making. Taunton's analysis amounts not to an objective assessment of their words, but pseudo-diagnosis presented in a way that skirts what they were really trying to tell him.