|  Wondering About the Meaning of Some Words
I am wondering about the use of the word 'deconvert' in some threads. I interprete that it is used for someone, who has changed from a religious person to become an atheist.
To my understanding, a convert is a person changing from one belief into another belief, it comes from the latin word 'conversio'. Someone, who has been brought up into her/his first religion, is no convert. I found 'conversio' in my latin dictionary, but no 'deconversio'. 'Deconversio' would literally mean to go back from a second religion to a first, undoing a previous conversion.
Someone leaving a first religion behind in favour of none could maybe called 'devert', which is not mispelled divert, but comes from 'devertor', or 'avert' from 'aversio'.
Also I dislike the word 'infidel'. Fidelis in latin means being faithfull and reliable, this is by consent to an object, it is a positive trait of high ethical value. If one promises a certain behaviour to a person, it is an ethical obligation to be fidel and stick to it. Fidelitas can only be established by consent. Without consent at any given moment, there cannot be fidelity or infidelity.
Therefore someone, who has been made a christian at an age much too young to be able to consent can never be infidel, because she/he has never accepted the obligation by own free choice to be fidel to any god of any religion. Also there needs to be something to be fidel to. Nobody can be fidel or infidel to a god, that does not exist by any evidence.
Infidelity also has the second meaning of cheating on a significant other in a monogamous relationship. I consider it as problematic to use the same word, which can mean an emotional atrocity, and use it also for such a elevated intellectual state as is freedom from religion. The two meanings could interfere, by associating the disgust for cheating with atheism, or the acceptance of atheism reducing the repugnance towards cheating.
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