Prominent atheist converts to Catholicism

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I grew up Catholic and after that had a long and complicated journey which led from Protestantism to agnosticism to atheism. Who knows whose prayer God heard to set me back on the path to Catholicism.

What the atheism did for me though was to wipe the slate clear (remove the baggage of erroneous belief of my past). I was strongly drawn back to mother Church, starting with the rosary and a casual sort of pilgrimage to European holy sites… and the rest is history.

We should daily pray for the reconversion of former Catholics back to the Church. You won’t find out in this life about the souls you may have saved by your prayers.
 
roveau said:
I grew up Catholic and after that had a long and complicated journey which led from Protestantism to agnosticism to atheism. Who knows whose prayer God heard to set me back on the path to Catholicism.

What the atheism did for me though was to wipe the slate clear (remove the baggage of erroneous belief of my past). I was strongly drawn back to mother Church, starting with the rosary and a casual sort of pilgrimage to European holy sites… and the rest is history.

We should daily pray for the reconversion of former Catholics back to the Church. You won’t find out in this life about the souls you may have saved by your prayers.
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Wonderful testimony.🙂 Im praying really hard for my bro-in-law to get back to the Church. He’s just angry with anything Catholic:blush:

MJ
 
notself said:
The OP answered and I accept his answer as his reason. If he wanted to share the story for any other reason, then why post it on the Non-Catholic Religions Forum? After all people switch between religions all the time just as people switch from belief to non belief and from non belief to belief all the time. Thank goodness we aren’t punished in any way for the switch as happens in some parts of the world.

I didn’t mean to start a fire storm by asking what his point was.
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I wonder why are you on this site if you call yourself atheist. Wouldn’t this be a site you would want to avoud or is it because you are trying to find the truth and you happened to have the thuth with you all your life. As you said you where born and raised catholic so what is holding you back from accepting the one true GOD.
 
roveau said:
I grew up Catholic and after that had a long and complicated journey which led from Protestantism to agnosticism to atheism. Who knows whose prayer God heard to set me back on the path to Catholicism.

What the atheism did for me though was to wipe the slate clear (remove the baggage of erroneous belief of my past). I was strongly drawn back to mother Church, starting with the rosary and a casual sort of pilgrimage to European holy sites… and the rest is history.

We should daily pray for the reconversion of former Catholics back to the Church. You won’t find out in this life about the souls you may have saved by your prayers.
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I followed a very similar path to yours; I grew up Protestant and was very devout, when I entered my undergraduate studies I became an agnostic, began researching Catholicism junior year and by my first year of graduate school had entered into the Church.

I don’t think I could ever have said that I was an atheist though; I firmly believed in the existence of God but I believed that we could know nothing about him.
 
SgtSchultz said:
I like the handle she used for herself back before her conversion of mind: “A geeky atheist picks fights with her Catholic boyfriend”. It makes me wonder – did her boyfriend have anything to do with her change of heart?
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she and her catholic bf,split long before she converted.but,he was the one that introduced her to the faith.
 
Contra_Mundum said:
She hasn’t converted yet, she is in RCIA.
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Not officially, no. But in her mind and heart, I’d say that she’s at least “converted to Christianity”. Given her public profile, the fact that she’s made an announcement seems to have sealed her commitment.
 
notself said:
I was raised and educated Catholic and believed for a spell. I am an atheist. What’s your point?
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I guess in your case it would be that when one person throws grace away God gives it to someone else.

👍
 
I don’t understand why she got so much media coverage lol. I mean, it’s not like some highly public, or high tiered atheist philosopher converted: she was just some atheist blogger. Can you imagine what the news would look like if they gave comparable attention to every blogger who (de)converts? 😛
 
Perplexity said:
I don’t understand why she got so much media coverage lol. I mean, it’s not like some highly public, or high tiered atheist philosopher converted: she was just some atheist blogger. Can you imagine what the news would look like if they gave comparable attention to every blogger who (de)converts? 😛
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Oh, I agree. Do you know what makes even less sense though? Why people like the Cardassians get any media coverage at all. It sickens me that I even know who they are and that they exist! This is why commercial “news” media outlets, especially the 24 hour kind, disgust me to no end. If they wanted to they could actually report real news of importance from around the world. Instead we get garbage.
 
Perplexity said:
I don’t understand why she got so much media coverage lol. I mean, it’s not like some highly public, or high tiered atheist philosopher converted: she was just some atheist blogger. Can you imagine what the news would look like if they gave comparable attention to every blogger who (de)converts? 😛
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Why, indeed? It’s almost as if Someone wanted the word spread. :hmmm:
 
notself said:
I was raised and educated Catholic and believed for a spell. I am an atheist. What’s your point?
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Likewise. In fact, I was as committed a believer as could be, until the many-faceted reality of the world impressed itself upon me…

It would be interesting to see the results of any thoroughgoing statistical study (if such could be achieved!) of people who have, A - converted from unbelief to any theistic** faith, B - been raised in a particular theistic faith and discarded it, and C - gone from belief to unbelief and then back to belief.

Maybe the Templeton Foundation would fund it… 😉

**please note - pantheism is merely the most appropriate label for my body of beliefs and attitudes - I do not hold any conviction that such a thing as a personal, supernatural god exists.
 
SgtSchultz said:
Oh, I agree. Do you know what makes even less sense though? Why people like the Cardassians get any media coverage at all. It sickens me that I even know who they are and that they exist! This is why commercial “news” media outlets, especially the 24 hour kind, disgust me to no end. If they wanted to they could actually report real news of importance from around the world. Instead we get garbage.
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Oh, I couldn’t sympathise with you more on this point! I work as a teletext captioner providing media access for Deaf and hearing-impaired viewers, and the calibre of most commercial television makes me feel like my brain is liquefying to mush and dribbling out my ears…
 
Sair said:
Likewise. In fact, I was as committed a believer as could be, until the many-faceted reality of the world impressed itself upon me…

It would be interesting to see the results of any thoroughgoing statistical study (if such could be achieved!) of people who have, A - converted from unbelief to any theistic** faith, B - been raised in a particular theistic faith and discarded it, and C - gone from belief to unbelief and then back to belief.

Maybe the Templeton Foundation would fund it… 😉

**please note - pantheism is merely the most appropriate label for my body of beliefs and attitudes - I do not hold any conviction that such a thing as a personal, supernatural god exists.
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There was such a survey done in 1208 by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life called, “U.S. Religious Landscape Survey”. Here are some snips:
More than one-quarter of American adults (28%) have left the faith in which they were raised in favor of another religion - or no religion at all. If change in affiliation from one type of Protestantism to another is included, 44% of adults have either switched religious affiliation, moved from being unaffiliated with any religion to being affiliated with a particular faith, or dropped any connection to a specific religious tradition altogether…
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While those Americans who are unaffiliated with any particular religion have seen the greatest growth in numbers as a result of changes in affiliation, Catholicism has experienced the greatest net losses as a result of affiliation changes. While nearly one-in-three Americans (31%) were raised in the Catholic faith, today fewer than one-in-four (24%) describe themselves as Catholic. These losses would have been even more pronounced were it not for the offsetting impact of immigration…
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Like the other major groups, people who are unaffiliated with any particular religion (16.1%) also exhibit remarkable internal diversity. Although one-quarter of this group consists of those who describe themselves as either atheist or agnostic (1.6% and 2.4% of the adult population overall, respectively), the majority of the unaffiliated population (12.1% of the adult population overall) is made up of people who simply describe their religion as “nothing in particular.” This group, in turn, is fairly evenly divided between the “secular unaffiliated,” that is, those who say that religion is not important in their lives (6.3% of the adult population), and the “religious unaffiliated,” that is, those who say that religion is either somewhat important or very important in their lives (5.8% of the overall adult population),…
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The survey finds that constant movement characterizes the American religious marketplace, as every major religious group is simultaneously gaining and losing adherents. Those that are growing as a result of religious change are simply gaining new members at a faster rate than they are losing members. Conversely, those that are declining in number because of religious change simply are not attracting enough new members to offset the number of adherents who are leaving those particular faiths…
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Another example of the dynamism of the American religious scene is the experience of the Catholic Church. Other surveys - such as the General Social Surveys, conducted by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago since 1972 - find that the Catholic share of the U.S. adult population has held fairly steady in recent decades at around 25%. What this apparent stability obscures, however, is the large number of people who have left the Catholic Church. Approximately one-third of the survey respondents who say they were raised Catholic no longer describe themselves as Catholic. This means that roughly 10% of all Americans are former Catholics. These losses, however, have been partly offset by the number of people who have changed their affiliation to Catholicism (2.6% of the adult population) but more importantly by the disproportionately high number of Catholics among immigrants to the U.S. The result is that the overall percentage of the population that identifies as Catholic has remained fairly stable…
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Here is the link to the entire survey which I think is fascinating. religions.pewforum.org/
Here is the link that is the source of the snips above. religions.pewforum.org/reports

Here is a link to a quiz on Religion. Taking the quiz will not affect the Religious Knowledge Survey results. The most surprising result that I found was only 59% of white Catholics and only 47% of non white Catholics correctly answered the question about the Church’s teaching about bread and wine of communion. :eek:
features.pewforum.org/quiz/us-religious-knowledge/index.php
 
notself said:
Here is a link to a quiz on Religion. Taking the quiz will not affect the Religious Knowledge Survey results. The most surprising result that I found was only 59% of white Catholics and only 47% of non white Catholics correctly answered the question about the Church’s teaching about bread and wine of communion. :eek:
features.pewforum.org/quiz/us-religious-knowledge/index.php
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Just tried it. Got 15 out of 15. But I get the feeling that those regularly participating in this forum may score higher than the general population.
 
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