I’ve heard that before, someone saying that if an LDS member doesn’t have somewhere to go after they leave the church (such as Catholicism or another Christian denomination) that they tend to become atheists.
Us former mormons tend to turn into religious refugees. Our home and anchor in life are gone and we drift, looking for a place to belong.
I have read conversion stories, one where a mormon turned bapist turned catholic. I met a woman once who had embraced paganism and changed her name to reflect her new beliefs.
Actually, there are quite a few former mormons in our RCIA class. I think I am the only one who was an atheist. Everyone else is converting straight across.
Some mormon converts revert back to the religion they were before they joined mormonism. Some revert back to mormonism, in some of these cases they don’t believe in the religion at all, but they can’t take the loss of family and community and the anchorless drifting is too hard on their psychs.
Some go mormon fundamentalist, generally these people believe that Joseph Smith was a real prophet, restored the true church, the whole ball of wax. But they believe that sometime between Joe and now, the mormon church went wrong. So they look for another mormon religious group, not lds, or in some cases they just fire up their own religion. Joe did it, why can’t they?
There is a good book about a family who started their own religion, and instituted “blood atonement”. It is by Jon Krakauer, “Under the Banner of Heaven”. It is a true story, and creepy in what people can bring themselves to justify in the name of God.
LIke PaulDupre said, a lot of exmormons get so disillusioned and don’t trust any religious organization of any kind. Some go agnostic, atheist, and a lot of people just sort of take this and that out of a conglomeration of belief systems and aren’t any religion, but call themselves spiritual. Also, I know a lot of Universalist Unitarians who are former mormons. The UUs are an accepting community for these religious refugees who don’t trust religious doctrines and dogmas.