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shminux comments on The ethics of breaking belief - Less Wrong Discussion
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I think you (and most commenters) are treating this hypothetical believer in a rather disrespectful and patronizing fashion. I would think the ethical thing to do is to engage in a meta-discussion with such a person and see whether there are certain subjects that are off limits, how they feel about your differing views on God, how they would feel about losing their faith, etc. They might ask you similar questions about what might make you become a believer. You might find yourself incorrect about what might make them lose their belief.
It's certainly possible to remain in a religious community without one's faith intact -- I think it happens to a large percentage of people in any religious group. Consider all the European Catholics who are essentially atheists.
I venture to guess that it is nearly impossible for a devout person to even imagine how they would feel if they no longer needed God to guide them in everything, so there is only so much you can achieve from this meta-discussion. It is probably worse than learning that you live in the matrix. I mean, they think they can imagine it, but the actual experience once it happens will be nothing like what they would have imagined before deconversion.
I think atheists sometimes have a one-dimensional extreme view of believers. I never was a believer really (though I tried to be a Quaker for a while). I am a Unitarian-Universalist for social reasons (one joking definition of UUs is "atheists with children" -- and I'd encourage atheists to consider if it might meet their needs).
Believers know very well that there have been no unambiguous miracles lately, that really horrible things happen in the world despite a presumably benevolent God, and that the evidence for God is indirect. I think very few lie on their deathbeds with unalloyed peace and calm with the absolute conviction that they're going to heaven.
They are also well aware that different factions even within Christianity reach different conclusions about what God wants them to do.
There's a reason that religious communities are always dealing with doubters and speak of the need for having faith (despite a dearth of evidence), and understand that faith gets weaker and stronger. I think most have thought about losing their faith and what it would mean.
I don't have any statistics to quote, but I bet the majority of believers have views that are nuanced at least to this degree.