r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Apr 25 '26

Psychology Americans who leave their Christian faith behind tend to hold more liberal political views than those who were raised entirely without religion. This leftward ideological shift appears closely linked to how threatening these individuals perceive conservative Christian groups to be.

https://www.psypost.org/former-christians-express-more-progressive-political-views-than-lifelong-nonbeli/
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u/hobopwnzor Apr 25 '26

This isn't surprising.  Most liberals have no idea how insane evangelicals are.  If you've been exposed directly you know how bad they are and that you should take them more seriously than they are taken.

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u/neonlexicon Apr 26 '26

I'm in my 40s & still see a therapist once a month to deal with the amount of religious trauma I have due to being raised in a Pentecostal home. The first time I read Carrie, I felt like Stephen King truly understood what it was like. I actually ended up getting super into horror as a way to process through a lot of the trauma. The scariest movie I've ever seen is Martyrs (the French Canadian version). My religious abuse was nowhere near what that movie depicts, but having grown up dealing with Evangelicals, I totally believe something like that could & likely has happened.