An article at The Gospel Coalition addresses the question posed in the title of this post. And I have to say, simply through what I’ve observed in folks I’ve known personally over the years, as well as on-line acquaintances, I think there’s compelling evidence to suggest that the answer – in many cases – is “yes”.

The only other observation I would add is that a mid-point destination on this route towards atheism is usually universalism – the “many paths to God” argument that rejects Jesus’ statement “I am the way, the truth, and the life – no one comes to the Father except through me”. The precursor to “no God” is generally the conjuring of some sort of custom-designed divine being – a conjuring of a god that may maintain a few sentimental ties to orthodox Christian belief, yet at the same time conveniently falls in line with our own “progressive” sensibilities. And then, at some point, when we subconsciously realize that this god is something we’ve constructed ourselves – a God that effectively answers to us rather than us answering to Him – it’s easy to eventually view God as a figment of the imagination.

Once someone – or, increasingly, a denomination – concludes that the bible is no longer authoritative, that personal feelings are now our ultimate source of authority, and that the bible is akin to a buffet line, where we can take extra helpings of the items we like and skip the items we don’t, a decisive shift has been made to following a made-up gospel of personal preferences. It is, for all practical purposes, a self-deification – “The Gospel of Me”. And at that point, an actual, external God becomes unnecessary baggage.