Any X-Atheists Here?

[starlight101]

Might I ask what sort of questions you asked? I do notice many atheist have an unpleasent experience, usually do reflect to experences in a Christian school.
So basically you realized why you desired to reject religion?

Yeah, I guess I did! The questions were pretty basic like, I dunno, “how do we know what the bible says is true?” or “how can God hear EVERYONE’S prayers at once and answer them?” which were usually met with “IT JUST IS” or “HE JUST CAN, OK?”

Usually while trolling around on YouTube I expose this in anti-theists and they retract or cuss me out. What made you realize it?

I think it first dawned on me when I read the God Delusion and thought “this is all about Christianity being intolerant, but this guy is more intolerant than all of them put together!”

Why was this absent in your non-religious life? Do you think if Christians had set bad examples you’d retract again? How did you discover this hope in religion despite formally thinking religion was retarded?

I think in my non-religious life I didn’t have any support (going through bereavement was particulaly hard) and I needed somebody or something to help me, something reliable and ever-present. I wasn’t in particular need of support but I think we all need something to help us in life. I think had I not had that great example from my friend of how religion can make you a better person I may well have stayed an atheist. I guess I discovered the hope by talking to reliigous people about suffering- they felt hopeful and they put all their trust in God, which I admired.

 

[Bob_Crowley]

How did you end up desiring to convert? How do you convert an atheist?

I was an atheist for some years. I did some Sunday School, but as my parents never went to church, I dropped out as soon as I could. I wasn’t very interested in the church from my middle teen years, and was an outright atheist for a few years after that. But following the worst years of my life, I started getting this sort of spiritual pressure to go to a certain church. I went and in due course became Christian.

It was the same sort of spiritual pressure that pushed me from being Protestant to going Catholic.

Nobody can convert an atheist, unless they themselves are looking. At the moment trying to convert Richard Dawkins for example would be a complete waste of time. If however his life fell apart in a prolonged series of misfortunes, he might then start to question whether atheism was all it was cracked up to be. That’s when God is more likely to get through to him.

I wasn’t converted by anyone, but I had been impressed by some Christian people, both Protestant and Catholic. However it was a combination of the frustration I was going through and the spiritual pressure that did the trick. Somebody may have been praying as well, but if so, no-one has ever come forward and said so.

Every atheist is different. Some atheists are very successful, and they would be the hardest to convert. They don’t need God.

So about all you can do is pray, set a good example, and if you must debate, do it to the best of your ability. The rest is up to God, but He won’t force anybody into the kingdom.

 

[MrZetterlund]

Thank you, starlight101. You’ve been very helpful.

What I can infer from yours and Bob Crowley’s posts is that an atheist turns to God when they see that God is needed.

Very helpful thank you. If anyone has anything else to offer, please jump in!

 

[Lycorth]

Nobody can convert an atheist, unless they themselves are looking.

Amen. I recall what it was like to be hard-hearted. I even had a dream during my apostasy about being back in my home church and when I woke up it left a profound feeling in me - the first serious push I had felt to come back to the Church. However, I fought it and after a day or so, the feeling was gone; my hard heart shut out God and kept salvation at bay.

It took almost a year after that to receive my next push to come back to the Church, and that time it took, as I was much more open to giving the Church another chance. God wants us all to come to Heaven but we have to meet Him halfway, first. God does not do for us what we are capable of doing ourselves, and we are all capable of opening our hearts to Him and converting to the Catholic faith. We have to meet Him halfway or we shoot ourselves in the feet - or in the soul.