Atheists or Agnostics turning to Christianity.

[Alyeska]

After reading the following I had a question pop to mind.

About the Author:
As a former atheist, Marilyn Adamson found it difficult to refute the continuously answered prayers and quality of life of a close friend. In challenging the beliefs of her friend, Marilyn was amazed to learn the wealth of objective evidence pointing to the existence of God. After about a year of persistent questioning, she responded to God's offer to come into her life and has found faith in Him to be constantly substantiated and greatly rewarding.

Just what are the typical grounds in which an Atheist or Agnostic decides to turn to Christianity? A couple of my Christian friends love to try and tell me stories about Atheists who seek out to disprove God and in the end become Christians, or Atheists and what not who are surounded by miracles and decide to turn to Christianity. Anyone else run into these stories before? Just how thruthful are these stories. How common does this happen? What grounds do they occur by? And just how serious where these supposed Atheists? I suspect these stories are largely similar to the story of Darwin's deathbed conversion, complete and total bullshit.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Just like any other faith or lack thereof, there are conversions out of it. It is no different than converting a Muslim. it is a two way conversion de-conversion street

[Alyeska]

Thing is I keep hearing stories of "educated" Atheists turning to religion (and its always Christianity). And as I said before I suspect these stories are total bullshit. When you get down to it they make no fucking sense. I also wonder how often other people run into these same claims.

[SPOOFE]

I have one super-diehard Christian friend. He found Jesus while doing fat lines of coke. I don't put much credence to Found Godders.

I've found that the reason many clueless Christians have such "happy" lives is because of one simple rule: Ignorance is bliss. It's the same reason young children always seem so happy... because they don't have any responsibility.

That's the allure of religion... it basically shifts all your responsibility, worry, and care onto the shoulders of a magical sky pixie, with promises of reward that will never have to be delivered.

[Nephtys]

If they're telling you stories of miraculous conversions and sudden epiphanies... it's class A bullshit, no doubt about it. They're pushing that to market stuff to you. It's about as reliable as any other form of anectotal evidence, but with it's objective clear and visible. Too many Christians in the US seem to think that Atheists are actively opposed to them or some other garbage, rather than just apathetic but moved to opposition by politics.

Take a look at that 'About the Author'. Objective Evicence pointing towards the existance of God. Found it difficult to refute answered prayers and quality of life. It sounds like someone was down and out, and was generally having a crappy time by her own actions, and then happened to convert and assigns all of the thanks to religion instead of other factors. It's just the same born-again nonsense we see every day.

[Nephtys]

I have one super-diehard Christian friend. He found Jesus while doing fat lines of coke. I don't put much credence to Found Godders.

I've found that the reason many clueless Christians have such "happy" lives is because of one simple rule: Ignorance is bliss. It's the same reason young children always seem so happy... because they don't have any responsibility.

That's the allure of religion... it basically shifts all your responsibility, worry, and care onto the shoulders of a magical sky pixie, with promises of reward that will never have to be delivered.

Right. You can be like me, afraid of death and waiting patiently for life extension/reliable cryonic freezing... or you can let His Most Awesome Bearded Guy handle it for you. In this Author's case, she probably broke down and figured.. 'oh well. God'll take care of me. Wheee! No more caring!'

[SPOOFE]

I don't doubt that there have been some very intelligent people that converted to Christianity. After all, intelligent people can be insecure, too. I just don't think that it proves anything.

[Lagmonster]

Just what are the typical grounds in which an Atheist or Agnostic decides to turn to Christianity?

Fear. Pretty much always fear. If you can't handle it, omnipotent sky people can. If there's another reason to get religion, I don't know what it is.

A couple of my Christian friends love to try and tell me stories about Atheists who seek out to disprove God and in the end become Christians, or Atheists and what not who are surounded by miracles and decide to turn to Christianity. Anyone else run into these stories before?

Speciality of mine, although Snopes has at least one or two in their religion section, like the tall tales about the professor and the chalk, etc.. These stories are as common as mud, and they have the same origins as any cautionary tall tale or cultural lesson, except they are more modern - and hence less fanciful in content - than the ones we heard as kids (like Hansel and Gretel, or any other such fairy tale). In any event, each generation and culture spins its own folklore and own stories to impress people with the 'truth' of that culture's rules and expectations of behaviour - remember the 50s-70s when kids started getting their own cars, and suddenly a huge horde of 'boogeyman murders teens making out in automobile on lonely road, leaves hook on door handle, etc., so you better not have teenage sex or you'll die' stories that cropped up in response?

[BringerOfLight]

Hey, I'll convert to Christianity if you give me a million dollars. Even $500,000 for that matter.

[Guardsman Bass]

I'd venture many of these stories are true, but that they hardly converted out of the "objective evidence." First thing that encourages such re-conversions is if the atheist (educated or not) was raised in some form of christianity. But other than that, part of religion's power is that it gets past your rational mental-defenses if you are unprepared to meet it- and even then, if you were raised in the religion, it still hits hard. The motive underlying most of these conversions was probably emotional.

[Guardsman Bass]

It's definitely more subtle than "Sky pixie will take care of us, no fear!" It's more like having a parent taking care of you, knowing that no matter what troubles you have, it all has a meaning, and will turn out right if you are good. That's pretty obvious. It can be hard to break out of the above molded feelings; at least, it was for me.

[Edi]

I think also that the example in the OP probably deals with someone who actually has no science education worth anything, so they could be convinced by the smoke and mirrors bullshit evangelizing Christians like to spout about "evidence for God". I can see that kind of thing happening easily enough. The lack of deep understanding of the scientific method can't be stressed enough. My brother and some of my friends who are not in hard science fields regularly throw a standard appeal to ignorance of the "But we really can't know for 100% certain, therefore a god/higher power/whatever could exist" variety at me and it's no fucking use trying to talk to them about it. My brother isn't even religious, but he just refuses to acknowledge that he does not understand what he is talking about when this issue comes up. His gf, who is in a hard science field (geology) is much better company in that kind of discussion, because she understands the method without needing it explained from the ground up.

Then there is the point about what you were taught as a kid.

I'm in the hapy position of having realized myself that I was being lied to while still a kid, very early on the path to religious education, so I automatically rejected everything they told me after that and just considered it more or less fairy tales.

That said, I do not begrudge others their faith if it makes them happier and if it improves their quality of life. As long as they don't try to push it on me, that is.

Edi

[CommanderRazor]

To me it seems that it has much to do with the fact that some atheists/agnostics may eventually have the thought of "IS there really anything out there judging?" and they finally succumb to the 'realization' that 'There MUST be.' I've seen it happen. It's like giving up on being atheistic. Reason and skepticism is more difficult to maintain than blind faith and tradition. The simple act of believing in a deity revokes atheist status, but it is so easy to do so compared to actively not believing.

well, that's my opinion anyways.

[Chmee]

"It was the experience of mystery -- even if mixed with fear -- that engendered religion."
- Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

Still works for me.

[Sir Sirius]

I talked to one ex-atheist in RL, or at least she claimed to have been atheists before founding. However after a bit of questioning it began to seem as if she had simply been non-practicing christians. She even said that she had always agknowledged gods existence, but that she had not had faith in him prior to founding jesus in her late twenties. She also talked about attempting to disprove god or deny the historical truth in the bible. What kind of an athiest beliefs that there is a god?

Should you ever run in to an ex-atheist inquire them about their beliefs, or lack there of, before their conversion, I'd bet that they don't even quite know what an atheist is. Not that there aren't genuine atheist to theist conversion, but I'm thinking that few were, how should I put this, informed atheist (i.e. ones that had a well reasoned position on the matter, rather then just lacked faith by happenstance or general disinterest in the topic [so called apatheists]).

[Darth Wong]

After reading the following I had a question pop to mind.

About the Author:
As a former atheist, Marilyn Adamson found it difficult to refute the continuously answered prayers and quality of life of a close friend. In challenging the beliefs of her friend, Marilyn was amazed to learn the wealth of objective evidence pointing to the existence of God. After about a year of persistent questioning, she responded to God's offer to come into her life and has found faith in Him to be constantly substantiated and greatly rewarding.

Just what are the typical grounds in which an Atheist or Agnostic decides to turn to Christianity? A couple of my Christian friends love to try and tell me stories about Atheists who seek out to disprove God and in the end become Christians, or Atheists and what not who are surounded by miracles and decide to turn to Christianity. Anyone else run into these stories before? Just how thruthful are these stories. How common does this happen? What grounds do they occur by? And just how serious where these supposed Atheists? I suspect these stories are largely similar to the story of Darwin's deathbed conversion, complete and total bullshit.

Replace "atheists" with "lapsed Christians" and these stories will be accurate. Every time you run into one of these people who says he was "once an atheist" and then found Jesus, it always turns out that he was raised Christian. Usually, people like this still believe in God but are angry at him for some reason, and just need to be reminded that he loves them. That's why they tend to come at atheists with these stupid "why do you hate God" and "don't you understand that he loves you" lines. Those lines actually work on lapsed Christians, and these people honestly don't understand that an atheist is not the same thing.

Reverting to childhood indoctrination is nothing to get excited about.

[Alyeska]

Here is something to consider. Many Christians believe being an Atheist means you lack morality and are capable of doing bad things. I wouldn't be surprised if some people use that as their definition of being Atheist and say they became Christian when they regained their morality.

[Alyeska]

After reading the following I had a question pop to mind.

About the Author:
As a former atheist, Marilyn Adamson found it difficult to refute the continuously answered prayers and quality of life of a close friend. In challenging the beliefs of her friend, Marilyn was amazed to learn the wealth of objective evidence pointing to the existence of God. After about a year of persistent questioning, she responded to God's offer to come into her life and has found faith in Him to be constantly substantiated and greatly rewarding.

Just what are the typical grounds in which an Atheist or Agnostic decides to turn to Christianity? A couple of my Christian friends love to try and tell me stories about Atheists who seek out to disprove God and in the end become Christians, or Atheists and what not who are surounded by miracles and decide to turn to Christianity. Anyone else run into these stories before? Just how thruthful are these stories. How common does this happen? What grounds do they occur by? And just how serious where these supposed Atheists? I suspect these stories are largely similar to the story of Darwin's deathbed conversion, complete and total bullshit.

Replace "atheists" with "lapsed Christians" and these stories will be accurate. Every time you run into one of these people who says he was "once an atheist" and then found Jesus, it always turns out that he was raised Christian. Usually, people like this still believe in God but are angry at him for some reason, and just need to be reminded that he loves them. That's why they tend to come at atheists with these stupid "why do you hate God" and "don't you understand that he loves you" lines. Those lines actually work on lapsed Christians, and these people honestly don't understand that an atheist is not the same thing.

Reverting to childhood indoctrination is nothing to get excited about.

I have a friend who probably fits that. Durring high-school he was best described as an Atheist due to apathy. Fell away from religious beliefs learned from child hood, but never reall was an atheist out of logical reasoning. Then when he got into the airforce (enlisted, so he didn't go through the academy) he found Christ and became a born again fundamentalist. It was sad to watch him slide like that. He even became a YEC.

[Frank Hipper]

Replace "atheists" with "lapsed Christians" and these stories will be accurate.

Godamnit, you dick, I hate it when you post what I'm thinking before I get a chance to post it.

C.S. Lewis is the classic example of this; he turned "atheist" because he got mad at God for the horrors he witnessed in WWI, and later had a re-conversion when the wind blew right, literally.

[Darth Wong]

Godamnit, you dick, I hate it when you post what I'm thinking before I get a chance to post it.

We are obviously of like mind. Except for that whole "getting turned on by guys" thing you've got going, of course. I've gotta break with you on that one.

[Civil War Man]

Here is something to consider. Many Christians believe being an Atheist means you lack morality and are capable of doing bad things. I wouldn't be surprised if some people use that as their definition of being Atheist and say they became Christian when they regained their morality.

I can see why they would see it, considering that their morality centers around "don't be bad or God will kick you in the <insert highly sensitive part of your anatomy here>". As a result, they never learn ethical reasons for not being evil, leaving them with a bad situation where no threat of punishment = no reason to be good.

[Guardsman Bass]

The people around you obviously have a strong influence, and I specifically know of a friend who is now a hard-core Mormon, who probably converted because he's been surrounded by devout Mormon friends for years, spent summer camps with the above, and even gone with them to church a few times. In fact, I was invited over to a Mormon friend's house for a kind of "sunday dinner" experience, and they had two Missionaries working in Salt Lake City over for dinner. The missionaries told us that their conversion rate when the Conversion discussions are given in the presence of devout Mormon friends is something like 80%. Just goes to show.

[mr friendly guy]

I had a friend who turned Christian. He told me he was a buddhist in high school, although I suspected he was more likely agnostic.

He converted after meeting a Christian girlfriend. He was fairly smart in terms of grades, including things which do require some logical thinking eg maths and science. However otherwise his logic is not very good, (in fact a lot of people like him who got good grades in maths and science fail to even understand the concept of burden of proof).

I suspect you become a Christian to become part of the group, so you don't feel left out. To give you some examples of how they work, Christian meetings ask you to give a talk about your experiences with Jesus. They will then try to get friends to attend to give "moral support".

Ironically one of these meetings confirmed to me that I am an atheist - after I sat a speech where a girl talked how she wasn't happy, didn't feel complete, yada yada yada, until *surprise*, she found Jesus (actually, she never lost him, just didn't "welcome him into her heart"). While she was telling how unhappy she was, I couldn't help myself, but the names of antidepressants kept on coming into my mind along with the thought "take some antidepressants".

Another tactic was during a quiz night. Now I like quiz nights and find them fun. It was open to all people, to raise money for their church. You do find that a lot of the questions centre on the Bible, so unless you are someone like Mike, you might actually need to research their religion more. Another thing about the quiz night was the speaker asked people to put their hands up who were Christians. Almost everyone did. He then asked non -Christians to put their hands up. I found this to be intimidating given the situation. The speaker covered himself by saying "just joking" after a few seconds, but seriously.

[HemlockGrey]

Mr. Friendly Guy's probably on to something with the whole "community" thing. I know several Christian who weren't really interested in that whole God thing, ditched the church and then went back because most of their social circle was deeply involved in church activities.

In fact, on the military bases here, the church is one of the centers of social life. Even the idiot wannabe ghetto junkie kids who smoke, do coke, make shitty rap music and get knocked up "believe in Jesus" because almost all of their friends and family members are involved in church activities.

[Xon]

Peer pressure will convert many reasonable people into fucking retards.