Has an atheist ever converted to a very devout, or conservative religious person?

Yes. C.S. Lewis is probably the most famous.

Absolutely – can’t think of anyone I know but it’s definitely possible.

I know of several, my ex and sister being two of them.

Can I just add OF COURSE, SMATERCHEW?

Thomas Merton and Robert Lax.

I would like to read some memoirs or autobiographies of these people, I asked this question because it seems highly improbable to me.

I knew two of those in Vietnam.

Before I found the Bahá’í Faith I was certainly agnostic and albeit reluctantly, beginning to consider myself an atheist.

My husband and I had a very good friend that was atheist, then became a devout follower after he was beaten by cops.

We lost contact with him after a visit he made when he brought us a bible. We had nothing against his decision, but I think he thought we were a bad influence and a reminder of his life before, so he quit contacting us.

@jonsblond You’d think that if God were looking out for him he wouldn’t have been beaten by the cops. I’m actually not being facetious here, as the reason my Orthodox Jewish grandfather gave for being an atheist was because of the Holocaust. His reasoning was that a God wouldn’t let that happen, and if there was a God, and that God allowed it to happen, he wanted nothing to do with him.

@Blackberry yes I have…

Ok, I try to stay out of the religion conversations because I really don’t know how I feel sometimes. But I just had this discussion with my Christian mother. Christians, of all people should know better than to blame god when bad things happen, According to Christian doctrine, God gave dominion over this world to the adversary long ago. The only purpose of evil is to destroy, it does not create. It perpetuates evil for no reason other than to be evil. So when smething bad happens to a good person, the one to blame is the adversary. Not God. God “allows”.
To say that only good things will happen to Christians because they are christians is a fallacy. Jesus said “Take up your cross and follow me.” He meant that is was going to be a tough row to hoe. The only promise of happiness is life eternal after this life is over. My mom was hassling my oldest daughter and saying that things were going wong for her because she wasn’t living her life the way my mom thinks she should be living it.
Wrong because my daughter actually does go to church. She posts scripture on facebook. Bu my mom assumes that she doesn’t.
And wrong because to say that god is punishing her for this or that “sin” or decision that is counter to the bible, and negates free will. If god is going to have a judgement, it will be after we’re all dead and being held to account, not during our lives while we’re still in the decision making process.

What a good question I found these wonderful lists. Maybe there are some people here you may find interesting.

http://www.rationalchristianity.net/testimonies/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_former_atheists_and_agnostics

Astrophysicist Dr. Hugh Ross

I would also add Mortimer Adler. If there was anyone to read, he would be it. Raised Jewish, he became an atheist, He was affiliated with the University of Chicago, where he founded the Great Books program. He wrote a series of books from an atheist’s perspective on religion. The best known is “How to Think About God: A Guide for a 20th Century Pagan.” It’s on Google Books if you want to skim it. He was baptized Episcopal faith, and just prior to his death, he converted to Catholicism.

With regards to Merton and Lax, they went to Columbia together and were friends with Robert Giroux and Jack Kerouac.

People are atheists for many different reasons. I don’t see why they would all be unable to become religious. A lot of times people are just spiteful towards religion and can be “converted” by being shown it isn’t what they thought it was. Their mistake becomes proof enough that it’s right to convert.

Kirk Cameron did this some years ago, but of course no one takes him seriously (no matter how seriously he takes himself/ his new faith).

Aside from the famous people already mentioned (Lewis, in particular, who was a very intelligent man) I know two personally who went through interesting religious changes during college.

One entered college as a very conservative Protestant, gradually slid into agnosticism and outright strong atheism, graduated, went to Iraq as a Marine, and then went to divinity school as a non-denominational, spiritual Christian.

The other entered college a somewhat liberal Catholic, became an atheist after a year or two, experimented with Protestantism and lesser known Christian sects, slipped into agnosticism, and graduated as a Catholic again.

Both were philosophy majors and both had 3.5+ GPAs.

I guess Francis Bacon was right when he said that a little philosophy makes one an atheist… a lot of philosophy makes one believe.

I have a friend who was agnostic/atheist, and did some soul searching in his Junior year of high school. By the middle of Senior year, he was converting to Islam. Now (3 years later) I would definitely consider him to be a very devout Muslim.

Andrew van der Bijl was one such atheist. Or maybe he was more technically an agnostic. Either way, it was quite a turnaround.

yeah, me, Atheism is an absurd over reaction to the hideous side of Religious Dogma, but is, in itself, in it’s complete and fanatical skepticism, teetering down a dangerous path toward it’s own kind of absolutism. Conservative, currently has connotations i dislike, were people to be conservative Christians in the Genuine sense of the word i would consider myself a conservative.

It seems, from most of the arguments I’ve seen regarding atheism, that mammal may be more accurate than I’d like to think. I don’t say that to indicate that atheists should be open to converting. It just seems that there’s a dogged, inflexible assertion that atheism is the absence of belief in god, or some other configuration. If confronted with the concept of a central belief to atheism, many refuse to contextualize themselves so. They argue instead that belief requires proof, and the onus is on the person advocating belief to demonstrate to them that it’s accurate.

Of course, this creates the unfortunate situation where such atheists posit themselves as a non-participant in the debate, but a judge of the arguments. Ironically, this leads me to believe that the hard-line atheists, who make no qualms about the fact that they don’t believe in god may be easier to convert (again, not that it should be a mission). Hard liners point to scientific proof that has arisen over time as objective evidence that there is no god. Arguing whether a fact proves one thing or another is a participatory argument, where your counterpoint will have to be proven valid or invalid…if the proof is decoupled from the idea that it proves there is no god, the hard liner is left arguing based on what they believe…and having to think about what they believe and why.

This may be silly…I don’t know of anyone who was born having religious beliefs. Isn’t it through either exposure to a religion or thinking it up on their own they they may convert to a different belief system?

@Pied_Pfeffer

Not silly but I’m a little unclear. Sure, nobody’s born with religious beliefs…but they often absorb them pretty quickly or are in a situation where they don’t. So, a lot (if not most) people end up identifying with some religion and shifting to atheism, which may be where the confusion is…it’s the adult atheists, then, the OTP is asking about…

I have no idea if that helps…

@iamthemob Yes, thank you.

@Pied_Pfeffer We are not born with the belief system, that is more of a fill in the blanks thing determied by to whom you are born, but the need to believe in something is hardwired into us. Scientists are calling it the “God Module”.
I’ve read some of Dr Vilayanur Ramachandran’s other work. Give him a read if you ever get a chance..

link., link, link, link

@Trillian You may have heard the phrase, “We all have a Jesus-shaped hole in our hearts.”

There is an old saying in the military. There are no atheists in a fox hole.

@SolomonSatellite Not all “old sayings” are true.
There is a monument in San Diego dedicated to those Atheists in Foxholes. And here is a story by one. There are plenty of them out there, you’ll find plenty of stories with a simple Google search.

I have yet to investigate a heart, but I have a feeling there’s no hole shaped specifically like Jesus in it, either.

@Sarcasm

Interesting – although the story is more convincing than the monument. There were people who claimed they were atheists in the foxholes sure…whether they didn’t say a prayer or two when the times were tough is up for debate…

…of course, again, we’re talking about hard-line atheists.

And there is a saying that anyone who fears death is an atheist at heart.

@LostInParadise what about someone who fear’s life?

@talljasperman They fabricate meaning for their life.

and I.ve heard if we do not present children with a religion they will make one up! Thus the metaphor of a god shaped hole in our heart.