I am not a believer myself. I read this because I often discuss with Christians their reasons for believing and I am curious why some believers abandon their faith commitment.

The author does an admirable job of discussing the issue and gives specific real life examples and vignettes. She is very fair to unbelievers and acknowledges the strength of their arguments.

The book struggles to be descriptive in keeping with its stated goal, but occassionally slips into apologetics which she claims is not her purpose. Given that, I am not sure who the target audience is. She does not offer much hope to a believer who is struggling with their faith. Ultimately, she seems to say that since life is ultimately a big mystery and since we have to believe in something( an opinion I adamantly disagree with ), it may as well be the god of Christianity.
In the end, she thinks postmodernism has weakened the authority of science and 'Intelligent Design' has weakened the credibility of evolution. This, she implies, has opened up breathing room for modern Christians who can now feel a modicum of intellectual respectability as believers.

The book, however, was written before the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District and the thorough discrediting of I.D.. But she should have been familiar with the avalanche of scholarly work refuting I.D..

She never discusses postmodernism and why it supposedly undermines the authority of science. She just claims that it does. As an unbeliever, I would have liked to have read a discussion about why science is not the only way to acquire knowledge. A claim she calls 'scientism'. What other ways are there? How do these other ways establish what they claim to know? Certainty and doubt are psychological states and not truth conditions, so what are these other ways of knowing? Believing something does not make it true. Feeling certain about something doesn't make it true. At least that's what I disappointedly discovered about Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy growing up.

I find this a weak point in her otherwise fine book. The author is not very well read in science or philosophy and relies heavily on secondary sources which are mostly secondary sources authored by conservative Christians.

There was one reason for unbelief, however, which she did not discuss. This is the claim that belief itself is unethical. It is not only my opinion but many others that believing something without sufficient warrant is unethical. If the act of faith itself is a virtue and not behavior, this allows the justification of just about any behavior in the name of faith. In the democracy of faith, all behaviors jusified in the name of faith become equivalent. The most beneficial acts of charity and the most heinous crimes become morally equivalent. Critical rationalism has shown a way out of the dilemma of thinking that everything is ideology that we all have to believe something.

The book is about why some Christians 'walk away' from their faith. She claims she wasn't writing a work or polemics or apologetics, but as a believer, she couldn't leave it at that, but had to interject some apologetics into the mix which is where is fell flat for me. Even though she says she trusts the claims of deconverts and unbelievers that they are living happy, fulfilling lives, she slips in remarks undermining her claim.

On a more human level, I must say that I felt sorrow for the people who lost their faith. It's the same sadness you feel when you see your child realize there is no Santa Claus. As Giacomo Leopardi once wrote, a child's first loss of innocence occurs when he realizes that all living things die. This perhaps is their second. ( )