Deliberate and confirmed adulterers abandon everything to do with the church and religion because the love of marriage and the love of adultery are opposites (425), and the love of marriage acts as one with the church and religion (130 and throughout Part I). Hence the love of adultery, being its opposite, acts as one with what is against the church.

The reason why these adulterers abandon everything to do with the church and its religion is that the love of marriage and the love of adultery are opposites, in the same way that the marriage of good and truth is the opposite of the pairing of evil and falsity (427, 428); and the marriage of good and truth is the church, and the pairing of evil and falsity is the anti-church.

The reason why these adulterers abandon everything to do with the church and religion is that the love of marriage and the love of adultery are opposites, as heaven is the opposite of hell (429), and in heaven there is love for everything to do with the church, but in hell there is hatred against everything to do with the church.

[2] Another reason why such acts of adultery cause everything to do with the church and religion to be abandoned is that their pleasures start from the flesh, and are fleshly even in spirit (440, 441); and the flesh is against the spirit, that is, against the spirituality of the church. This too is why the pleasures of scortatory love are called the pleasures of folly.

If you want proofs, be so good as to approach those whom you know to be adulterers of this kind, and ask them in private what they think about God, the church and everlasting life, and you will have your proofs. The real reason is that, just as conjugial love opens the inner levels of the mind, and raises it above the sensory level of the body so as to experience the light and heat of heaven, so in reverse the love of adultery shuts off the inner levels of the mind and thrusts it down as regards the will into the body , until it wallows in all the lusts of its flesh. The deeper it is thrust down, the more is detracted from it and the more it is distanced from heaven.