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Deprogramming is a controversial tactic that seeks to dissuade someone from "strongly held convictions" [1] such as religious beliefs. Deprogramming purports to assist a person who holds a particular belief system—of a kind considered harmful by those initiating the deprogramming—to change those beliefs and sever connections to the group associated with them.
Rambo [3] provides a model for conversion that classifies it as a highly complex process that is hard to define. He views it as a process of religious change that is affected by an interaction of numerous events, experiences, ideologies, people, institutions, and how these different experiences interact and accumulate over time.
Rick Alan Ross (b. 1952) is an American deprogrammer, cult specialist, and founder and executive director of the nonprofit Cult Education Institute. [1] He frequently appears in the news and other media discussing groups some consider cults.
According to Meredith McGuire (2002), in a book about the social context in religion, if the religious affiliation was a big part of a leaver's social life and identity, then leaving can be a wrenching experience, and the way in which one leaves a religious group is another factor that may aggravate problems. McGuire writes that if the response ...
The Guardian ' s Andrew Brown describes it as giving "a very forceful and lucid account of the reasons why we need to study religious behaviour as a human phenomenon". [2]In Scientific American, George Johnson describes the book's main draw as being "a sharp synthesis of a library of evolutionary, anthropological and psychological research on the origin and spread of religion".
Religion helps people to find fellowship and some modicum of control over their lives, and is thus a defense against feelings of powerlessness and loneliness. "To some people return to religion is the answer, not as an act of faith but in order to escape an intolerable doubt; they make this decision not out of devotion but in search of security."
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Religion for Atheists: A non-believer's guide to the uses of religion is a book by Alain de Botton published in 2012. It argues that while supernatural claims made by religion are false, some aspects of religion are still useful and can be applied in secular life and society.