I wonder if some people are temperamentally "programmed" to completely change their convictions at one point in their lives, whatever those convictions happen to be. Such a change would be fueled by an inner pulsion, to be rationalized only afterwards with more or less convincing explanations.
Every worldview holds a paradox at its core, gnawing at it like the proverbial worm in the apple. Every movement has its share of irksome members and vociferous blowhards. When a prospective apostate of the type I have hypothesized arrives at a particular stage in life (say, full maturity) his disillusion gland stars pumping chagrinine into his bloodstream. He becomes hypersensitive. What yesterday seemed like slight cracks in his intellectual edifice now become gaping holes that threaten to tear it down. The other tenants go from friendly neighbors to obnoxious bores, or worse. He begins to consider moving house. He finally does and, just before he arrives to his new mental home, the disillusion gland stops secreting and withers, not to work ever again. What a sturdy, solid house, unlike the old one! How friendly the neighbours! And yet, had he started there, he would have travelled the other way.
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