Let "theist" mean a person who believes in the existence of a personal deity. Let "atheist" mean a person who is not a theist. Everybody, at any given time, is either a theist or an atheist. But of course people can change. Theists can become atheists and atheists can become theists. There are three logical possibilities:
- Lifelong theist.
- Lifelong atheist.
- Sometime theist, sometime atheist.
Everybody is in exactly one of these categories and nobody is in more than one. In other words, the categories are exhaustive and exclusive.
The third category can be subdivided as follows:
- People who were theists before they were atheists but not atheists before they were theists.
- People who were atheists before they were theists but not theists before they were atheists.
- Other people (this category includes people who go from theist to atheist to theist, as well as people who go from atheist to theist to atheist).
The first category consists of those who go from theism to atheism and never return. The second category consists of those who go from atheism to theism and never return. The third category consists of those who return at least once. Everybody who is the third category of the first list is in one of the three categories of the second list, and nobody who is in the third category of the first list is in more than one of the categories of the second list.
It follows that everybody is in either (1) the first category of the first list, (2) the second category of the first list, (3) the first category of the second list, (4) the second category of the second list, or (5) the third category of the second list. Let me use myself as an example. I'm in either the second category of the first list or the second category of the second list or the third category of the second list. Why is it undetermined? Because I'm not dead! As long as I'm alive, it's possible for me to convert from atheism to theism, and perhaps, once I get there, from theism to atheism.
Here is my question to you. Among the people you have known in your life, personally, what is the ratio between the first category of the second list and the second category of the second list? I'll get it started. For me, the ratio is 100:1.
