Philosophy Research describes clearly who leaves and who stays. Whether leaving or staying is right is a question each person answers for themselves.
Think of a family photo from fifty years ago: three generations at a wedding, Eid or a bar mitzvah. Now picture the same family today. In Britain, it is quite likely that some of those grandchildren no longer believe what their grandparents did. Some may have quietly drifted. Some may have argued their way out. Some may have left and come back.
Leaving belief is one of the biggest changes in modern British life, and it happens inside families of every faith. It can bring relief, grief, freedom, guilt or all of them at once. Here is what the research shows, and the reasons people give for leaving and for staying. Then each faith speaks to those who go, and people who live without religion reply.
“There is no compulsion in religion. The right direction is henceforth distinct from error. And he who rejecteth false deities and believeth in Allah hath grasped a firm handhold which will never break. Allah is Hearer, Knower.”
Qur'an 2:256 · Pickthall (1930)
This verse, from the chapter al-Baqarah, follows the Throne Verse, one of the most loved passages in the Qur’an. Classical commentators gave different accounts of its scope, but it is widely quoted by Muslims today as a principle that faith cannot be forced. The Qur’an also says, to those who reject its message: “Unto you your religion, and unto me my religion.” (109:6, Pickthall).
What research shows
In the 2021 Census, 37.2 per cent of people in England and Wales said they had no religion, up from 25 per cent in 2011. The British Social Attitudes survey, which asks the question differently, found 49 per cent with no religion in 2024. Most of that change has come from people raised in a faith who no longer identify with it. Linda Woodhead, a sociologist of religion, found that 45 per cent of Britons raised as Christians now say they have no religion.
Belief is passed on unevenly. In a well-known 2005 study, David Voas and Alasdair Crockett found that British children with two religious parents had about a fifty-fifty chance of keeping the faith, those with one religious parent about a one-in-four chance, while children of non-religious parents almost always stayed non-religious.
This is not only a British story. In 2025 the Pew Research Center published surveys of 36 countries. In the United Kingdom, as in much of Western Europe, North America and Australia, Christianity has lost 20 percentage points or more of the adult population through people switching away. But very few people have left or joined Islam in most countries surveyed, and most people raised Jewish in Israel and the United States still identify as Jewish. In some countries, such as Singapore, more people have joined Christianity than left it.
Why do people leave? The Catholic sociologist Stephen Bullivant, in Nonverts (2022), found that many people do not dramatically lose their faith. They drift, as life, work and moving house loosen ties to a community. Others give reasons: in a 2016 Pew survey of American ‘nones’, about half said they simply stopped believing. Youssef Chouhoud’s study for Yaqeen Institute (2016) of people working with American Muslims found three main pathways to doubt: moral and social questions, philosophical and scientific questions, and, often weightiest of all, personal hurt within a community.
Leaving does not erase everything. A 2021 study led by Daryl Van Tongeren found that people who leave religion often keep some of its habits and values for years, which researchers call ‘religious residue’. In some countries, leaving a religion can bring legal penalties or danger; in the UK, the Human Rights Act protects everyone’s freedom to change their religion or belief.
The reasons, fairly
Not enough evidence. Many who leave say they looked for good reasons to believe and did not find them. Bertrand Russell, asked what he would say if he met God, is reported to have answered that God had not given enough evidence. For them, honesty means not claiming more than they know.
Moral objections. Some leave because of what they see as cruel or unfair: suffering in the world, teachings they cannot accept, or the idea of eternal punishment for honest doubters.
Hurt and hypocrisy. Researchers of every faith find that people often leave not because of an argument, but because of how they were treated: judgement, abuse, racism, or leaders who did not live as they preached.
Life moves on. Many simply drift. Faith stops being part of daily life, and one day they notice it has gone.
Meaning and hope. Many who stay say faith gives life a direction, a moral compass and a hope that does not end with death. Without it, they say, the questions do not go away.
Experience. Some speak of prayer, of answered need, or of a presence they cannot explain away. For them, faith is less a theory than a relationship.
Community and tradition. Faith connects people to parents, grandparents and neighbours, and to rituals that mark birth, marriage and death. Leaving can mean losing that.
Arguments that still persuade. Some come to faith through reasoning. C. S. Lewis was an atheist until his early thirties. The philosopher Antony Flew, for decades a leading atheist, said in 2004 that the evidence had led him to believe in a God, though not the God of any religion.
Where it stands
Philosophy. Research can describe who leaves and who stays, and why they say they do. It cannot tell anyone which path is true. That is a question each person must answer.
People of faith and non-religious people on this site can share one thing: respect. It is respect for the person who leaves with an honest conscience, and for the person who stays with an honest heart.
What each faith says
Judaism
“Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel; for thou hast striven with God and with men, and hast prevailed.”
Genesis 32:29 · JPS 1917
Jacob wrestles all night with a mysterious stranger, and in the morning is given a new name, Israel: “for thou hast striven with God and with men, and hast prevailed” (Genesis 32:29). The Jewish people are, in a sense, named after a struggle with God. Questioning is built into Jewish life, from the Passover table onwards.
In Jewish law, a Jew who stops believing remains a Jew; the Talmud says that even one who sins “is still Israel” (Sanhedrin 44a). A rabbinic teaching imagines God saying, “Would that they had forsaken Me, but kept My Torah”, because its light would bring them back (Jerusalem Talmud, Chagigah 1:7). Communities have not always lived up to this; Amsterdam’s Jews expelled the philosopher Spinoza in 1656. Today secular and religious Jews share synagogues, festivals and family tables.
Denominations hold this differently. Orthodox communities often run outreach for Jews who have drifted; Reform, Liberal and Masorti synagogues in Britain make a point of welcoming the doubting and the half-in alongside the devout. On Yom Kippur eve, the Kol Nidre service opens with a declaration that it is permitted to pray with sinners: everyone belongs in the room.
Christianity
“He arose and came to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was moved with compassion, and ran, fell on his neck, and kissed him.”
Luke 15:20 · WEB
The Gospels are honest about doubt. A desperate father tells Jesus that he believes, and asks for help with his unbelief (Mark 9:24). The apostle Thomas will not believe until he sees for himself (John 20:25). In the parable of the prodigal son, the father does not wait for an apology: he sees his son far off and runs to him.
Many Christians have known long darkness. Letters published after the death of Mother Teresa of Kolkata, in Come Be My Light (2007), revealed that she felt God’s absence for decades while she served the poor. Churches have sometimes shamed those who leave; many today try instead to listen. Stephen Bullivant writes as a Catholic who wants to understand nonverts on their own terms.
Islam
“Unto you your religion, and unto me my religion.”
Qur'an 109:6 · Pickthall (1930)
The Qur’an presents Abraham (peace be upon him) as a seeker who reasons from the setting stars to the God who does not set (6:76–79), and who asks to see how God gives life, “Abraham said: Yea, but (I ask) in order that my heart may be at ease.” (2:260, Pickthall). When some companions told the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ (peace be upon him) that thoughts came to them too terrible to speak, he replied, “That is clear faith” (Muslim 132). The great scholar al-Ghazali described two months in which he doubted everything, even reason itself.
Muslim community leaders increasingly speak about doubt openly. Youssef Chouhoud’s research urges imams and parents to listen, to treat hurt seriously, and to aim at winning people over rather than winning arguments. The Qur’an’s words remain the frame: “There is no compulsion in religion. The right direction is henceforth distinct from error. And he who rejecteth false deities and believeth in Allah hath grasped a firm handhold which will never break. Allah is Hearer, Knower.” (2:256, Pickthall), and “Unto you your religion, and unto me my religion.” (109:6, Pickthall).
Without religion
“Roughly speaking, the word humanist has come to mean someone who … makes their ethical decisions based on reason, empathy, and a concern for human beings and other sentient animals”
Humanists UK, ‘What is humanism?’ · original English
Most non-religious Britons were brought up in a religion, so leaving is a story many of them know well. For some it was a slow drift; for others a hard break with family and community. Faith to Faithless, Humanists UK’s programme for people leaving religion, was set up by two former Muslims and supports people from many backgrounds. The novelist Philip Pullman, a patron of Humanists UK, has described himself as a Church of England atheist who still loves the language of the Book of Common Prayer.
Many non-religious people never had a faith to leave. Some keep the parts they loved: the festivals, the music, the family table. Some later return. What they ask for is the respect this page asks for everyone: to be trusted as honest, not written off as lost.
Same and different
Each of the three faiths makes room for doubt inside scripture: Jacob’s wrestling, the father’s ‘help my unbelief’, Abraham’s questions. All three hope that those who leave will one day return, and all three have, at times, treated leavers harshly. They differ in how belonging works: in Judaism, identity does not depend on belief; in Christianity and Islam, faith itself is central to belonging. Humanists and other non-religious people often share the faiths’ concern for honesty and conscience, and ask that their own path be respected in the same way. Judaism is distinctive in one way here, Christianity and Islam in others: each faith, and each person who leaves, draws the lines of belonging differently.
A moment to reflect
- What is the difference between losing faith and choosing to leave it? Can it be both?
- If someone close to you left, or found, a faith, what would you most want them to know?
- Has the way people treated you ever mattered more to you than what they believed?
- What do people who leave and people who stay owe each other?
We end on a question
Whether you have left, stayed, returned or are still deciding, what would it look like to walk your own path honestly, and to let others walk theirs?
Watch
Why Do People Leave Their Childhood Religions? · ReligionForBreakfastPlays on “Does belief come naturally?” →A religious studies scholar sets out what research says about why people leave childhood religions.
Stephen Bullivant discusses his research on ‘nonverts’ who leave faith.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks on doubt as part of a life of faith.
A short Muslim reflection on why people leave faith and how communities can respond.
Alain de Botton, who is not religious, on what atheists might learn from religion.
Do it together
Invite people who have left a faith, stayed in one, or come to one, to share their story for five minutes each. The rule: listen, ask one question, and do not try to persuade. End by naming one thing you each respect in another’s path.
Read Genesis 32:23–33 together. Talk about why a people might choose to be named after a struggle with God, and whether struggle can be a kind of faith.
Visit a place of worship during Inter Faith Week, and attend a talk at a non-religious venue such as Conway Hall in London. Afterwards, compare what each community values and how it welcomes newcomers.
Passover seders often include relatives who no longer believe, and the Haggadah itself has room for four kinds of children, including one who asks hard questions. Read the passage of the four children together and talk about who in your own family is which.
Choral Evensong in an Anglican cathedral is one of the few services where many people go for the music without being asked what they believe. Go together, then share what drew you, or held you back.
Go deeper
- Around the world, many people are leaving their childhood religions (Pew Research Center, 2025) · article
- Religion, England and Wales: Census 2021 (ONS) · article
- Modern Pathways to Doubt in Islam, Youssef Chouhoud (Yaqeen Institute) · paper
- Genesis 32 (Sefaria) · scripture
- Qur'an 2:255–257 (Quran.com) · scripture
- Faith to Faithless (Humanists UK) · article
- Luke 15 (Bible Gateway, WEB) · scripture
Check yourself
Three quick questions. No score, nothing saved.
1. In the 2021 Census, what share of people in England and Wales said they had no religion?
2. Children with two religious parents have about what chance of keeping that faith?
3. Which teaching does the page quote from Qur'an 2:256?
Sources (10)
- Census 2021: 37.2% no religion, up from 25.2% in 2011: ONS, Religion, England and Wales: Census 2021
- BSA 2024: 49% no religion: NatCen, British Social Attitudes
- 45% of those raised Christian now have no religion: Woodhead, The rise of 'no religion' in Britain, Journal of the British Academy 4, 2016
- Transmission rates by parents' religiosity: Voas and Crockett, Sociology 39(1), 2005
- 36 countries; UK net Christian losses of 20 points or more; little switching in or out of Islam; high Jewish retention; Singapore: Pew Research Center, 26 Mar 2025
- About half of US nones raised religious cite lack of belief: Pew Research Center, 24 Aug 2016
- Pathways to doubt: moral/social, philosophical/scientific, personal trauma: Chouhoud, Yaqeen Institute, 2016 (updated 2024)
- Religious residue persists after leaving: Van Tongeren et al., J. Personality and Social Psychology, 2021
- Freedom to change religion or belief: Human Rights Act 1998, Schedule 1, Article 9
- Hadith: 'That is clear faith': Sahih Muslim 132, Sunnah.com
