I reckon the stages that people have described of being brought up with a negative religion, moving into atheism then finding a positive version of a spiritual belief is like the levels of consciousness described in David Hawkins' Power vs Force book. I've listed them here:
Level Log
Enlightenment 700-1,000
Peace 600
Joy 540
Love 500
Reason 400
Acceptance 350
Willingness 310
Neutrality 250
Courage 200
Pride 175
Anger 150
Desire 125
Fear 100
Grief 75
Apathy 50
Guilt 30
Shame 20
The thing is, the people who make up the hierarchy of these religions that you've escaped from have issues (don't we all?
), but instead of owning them and processing them, they've projected them onto the religion and created dramas for everyone else to follow.
So many religions linger around the levels of guilt(30), shame(20), and with luck may move up to fear(100) then anger(150). To move upward through the levels of consciousness you need to have courage (200) which is where you turn around, and cause a positive feedback loop. You can become atheist, and have enough courage to say so.
With the openness you develop from that you can become neutral, see 2 sides of the coin for what they are, then develop willingness and accept other's point of view. You are limited by reason(400), because reason keeps you looking for evidence before you can love and accept things.
Our sceptics may be limited at reason, or may continue to linger at the much lower levels of pride or anger. I've seen many people who are able to project their anger into all their beliefs. We are at different levels for differetn things, so we could "average at 200" but show love for one thing, and fear for another.
Once we are able to move beyond reason we can embrace love, joy and ultimately peace! Ahhh..
i found this list resonated really well for me, I've been able to track how people move through the levels as their level of PD grows.
Just a thought
Joy to you
Hazel