Why should any Atheist consider becoming a Christian?

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People are atheist for different reasons.

Some need hard, physical, scientific evidence of God or the supernatural.

Some have concluded that God would have to be evil considering all the evil in the world.

Some were driven away from religion by the practitioners or by getting “burn out”.

Some are a mixture of these and other factors.

Each of the examples above would require a different answer as to why they, as an individual, should become Christian.
 
If an atheist asked me this (and I knew they were being “real” and not trolling), I would give them my “elevator testimony”:

Although I can’t explain it all, in my life, the more faithful I am to prayer and Bible reading, the more I’m able to peaceful, and the more generous and compassionate to others.

Then we could take it from there.
 
I consider being a Christian most days because it would bring the positive benefits of believing I would live forever and see all my loved ones again.

But to become one I would need those some actual evidence for 1) the existence a god or gods 2) the existence the Christian God in all three persons and the existence of no other 3) the idea that the Christian God and his intent can be known and 4) that he and his will are known through scripture and Church tradition. I see no evidence for any of those steps. It fascinates me the others believe they do. That’s why I am here, to learn why. IncidentallyI try hard only to ‘conclude’ things and not to ‘believe’ them. So I ‘conclude’ on the basis of evidence that I accept that my dog is a descendant of wolves. I do not ‘believe’ this. I would be perfectly happy to change my conclusion at the drop of a peer-reviewed paper. Equally, similar proof of the points above would lead me to conclude it was appropriate to be a Christian if my aim was a happy eternal life. I would not mourn my lost non-belief for an instant.
 
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Thank you for your honest insight Five. Our local priest said the Christian folk preaching in the street and shouting out aloud are causing more damage than good.
 
I don’t mind street preachers except when they tell people accompanied by children that they are going to hell. I once watched an older preacher coaching a very nervous younger one and admired the skill of the older one and the courage the younger.
 
The recent issues regarding child abuse has caused so much damage within the church.

I know a couple of friends who are firm believers in God have now taken a step back from church.
 
I would say to those who have left…“I rejoice that the apostles did not leave when Judas betrayed the Lord!”

We need to stay and pray.
 
Understand that leaving the Church is not the same as becoming an atheist. While many do leave their churches due to concluding there is no God, I think most of those leaving are just fed up with organized religion and would rather stick to their conscience or just “believe” what they always believed without any organization directing them.

For any atheist to become Christian, there’s a few hurdles. First and foremost they would have to accept that there is a supernatural layer to reality…then they’d have to accept that a God concept makes sense within this supernatural layer…then they’d have to accept that the Christian concept of God is the correct understanding of God.

As you can see, it’s a process. Some have traversed the processes quickly and some get stuck half way there. Most never get to step one.
 
Pattylt said:
For any atheist to become Christian, there’s a few hurdles. First and foremost they would have to accept that there is a supernatural layer to reality…then they’d have to accept that a God concept makes sense within this supernatural layer…then they’d have to accept that the Christian concept of God is the correct understanding of God.
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Thank you. And since a lot of is were some sort of Christian before, there’d need to be a good reason to go back down a variant of that path.

A handful of conversion stories center around the “problem” of meaning or some other major struggle. But without a problem why search for a solution?
 
It’s a lot of rules and stuff.
I know it is the truth but being Catholic doesn’t always make me happy in fact it makes me feel imprisoned many times in regards to lust and sometimes I feel like I am actually defying what my body wants by trying to follow the teaching of the Church.
But there is nowhere else to go.
Yet I could see that a reason why someone who isn’t Catholic wouldn’t want to get involved with always feeling like a sinner and never good enough.
 
Prodigal1984 said:
It’s a lot of rules and stuff.
I know it is the truth but being Catholic doesn’t always make me happy in fact it makes me feel imprisoned many times in regards to lust and sometimes I feel like I am actually defying what my body wants by trying to follow the teaching of the Church.
But there is nowhere else to go.
Yet I could see that a reason why someone who isn’t Catholic wouldn’t want to get involved with always feeling like a sinner and never good enough.
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I’m a former Atheist.
If God is real I’m not going to deny that fact to make myself feel happy and do what I want to do.

I think Saint Augustine said something like our hearts are restless until they rest in You.

You may have thoughts of giving in to your lust and maybe thinking you’ll be happier if you do that, but you’d be hurting yourself if you did. Be aware that the devil might have put the thoughts in your heart if not from your own flesh.

It’s good you are aware of such thoughts. Please consider talking to a priest about it and praying to the saints about it such as Saint Francis of Assisi and Saint Augustine. 🙂
 
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Because it’s true. There is no other reason. I think atheists set up intellectual obstacles for themselves, the more elaborate or confounding the more intelligent they are, when it really starts and ends as a matter of the will. We either want God, the personal source and sustenance of our existence, our consciousness and our well-being, or we do not. That’s a simple principle that we work hard to overcomplicate during our lives.

When someone has not set up such intellectual obstacles to the simple existence of God, it’s a matter of faith whether they accept the gospel or not, and that is a gift. Considering it is part of the search for truth, but receiving it is a grace.
 
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FiveLinden said:
Equally, similar proof of the points above would lead me to conclude it was appropriate to be a Christian if my aim was a happy eternal life. I would not mourn my lost non-belief for an instant.
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I think my faith is rooted in the other end of the existence spectrum. That is profoundly articulated by the first two questions of the old Penny Catechism.

1. Who made you? God made me.

2. Why did God make you? God made me to know Him, love Him, and serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him for ever in the next.

My primary need is to know what my life and purpose mean so I can live well purposefully while I’m alive.
 
Thank you. But of I was no conclude that the ‘universe is the result of intelligent planning’ it would not prove to me that the planning was done by a god, still less the Christian God. All it would tell me is that the universe was planned by an intelligence. Conceivably that intelligence could be one of a trillion gods, or the creation of creation of a creation of one of the trillion gods, or a creature that evolved from an unintelligent life form and became non-material as a result of processes we do not know about. It would also be explainable by the idea that the universe was indeed created by an intelligence, and that the intelligence did so earlier this morning, building in apparent ‘evidence’ of the great age of the universe which, despite appearances, is less than a day old.
 
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