a question for ex-atheists?

Question

were you really atheists at one time, or would you consider yourself more of agnostic believers. in other words, would you say you definitely did not believe in any higher power or did you suspect some higher being must exist. what convinced you that there is a god. i doubt it was science. every scientific argument i've heard for the existence of god is usually the twisting of science to make it sound like there is a god. so was it just a life changing event, like you survived and accident where you were later told you shouldn't even be alive right now.

jinenglish, never underestimate the power of indoctrination on children...

Answer 1

No such thing as an ex-Atheist. You can't go back into the matrix!

Answer 2

It is impossible to say whether my college-era atheism was real or just a stage of thought. However, I moved away from it anyway. No life-changing event caused this, only continual evaluation and also the desire to try some different philosophical systems and re-open my mind, which I felt had become closed in a 'certainty' that there was no God or spiritual presences in the universe. I am not, even now, convinced there is a God in the conventional sense, but I do believe there are forces beyond our current understanding that may be attributed to God or magick or what have you. My current position is that, if there is a "God," then this entity is not supernatural, not outside nature but part of the universe and in Deist fashion, may BE the universe. I don't settle there, though, because I wouldn't call the universe God, since most understandings of God put him outside of what is commonly referred to as "creation," and what I might call the universe.

I have noticed that there are nearly as many interpretations of what God is as there are those who believe. This alone would incline me to think that God is a psychological creation, like the mirror-world we create when reality is filtered through a sentient brain. That does not mean, as Dumbledore says to Harry, that it is not real. All thoughts have a reality, but this reality does not necessarily translate well between minds.

Answer 3

I was an atheist for 25 years. Once the grace of God touched me, I became agnostic, which was a BIG step for me at the time.

Lee Strobel's Case for Christ was what started to turn my thinking around (a couple readings of it). He's a former atheist that applied a standard of reasonable doubt to the existence of God, and spoke with many scholars in the areas of their expertise where there were/are questions that truly bother people.

It was actually harder to announce that I believed in God than it was to announce I was an atheist. My family is overall non-theist, and primarily atheistic. When I was young, there was some lip service to religion and God, but not much.

I tend to resent those who proclaim in all of their wisdom that former atheists really were never atheist.

Answer 4

I really was an atheist. I thought all religious people, especially Christians, were compete idiots. How could they believe in such fairytales? I've always had an interest in the supernatural and metaphysical, however, and I enjoyed learning about what other people believed and why. I certainly didn't jump from atheism to Christianity, instead I started doing heavy research into many different beliefs and religions, as well as paranormal and occult subjects. As I studied the different perceptions people have towards the nature of the divine and experimented with the supernatural, I slowly lost my faith in atheism. It became obvious to me that there was more to this existance then what was readily perceivable by most people. It took me years to find Christ and I went through many spiritual twists and turns before coming to my current beliefs and convictions, but I now think that it was a process that I had to go through and that I was being guided through it all, as God patiently waited for me to finish my explorations and come back to Him.

Answer 5

Perhaps I shouldn't be answering this question since I am answering this for my husband, who is a former atheist, but since we have talked pretty extensively about his story, I feel fairly qualified.

My husband was definitely an atheist. Not an agnostic. He was not raised in church (not sure he *ever* went before he became a Christian) and no one in his immediate family is a Christian. (It is possible that his grandfather is a Christian but he never met him until a few years ago and no one else that we know of in his extended family is, either.) He wasn't convinced by science. People had witnessed to him before but that didn't do it.

He just had a job working for a guy who was a Christian --- a guy who did not witness to him --- and he was convicted deeply of his sin one day. He seriously walked into the guy's office and asked him how to become a Christian. The guy was floored since, again, he had not witnessed to my husband. Nothing had happened on the 'outside' ---- no accident, no religious vision, nada. His heart was just changed in an instant and he was broken by genuine repentance. (The Greek word for Christian repentance means 'the turning of the mind' --- in other words, change your mind, change your direction) and he became a Christian that day.

All I can really say is that my husband had a similar experience to mine in one respect. He was *given* faith. One day he didn't have it, the next he did. He wasn't looking for it.

Again, I realize this is not my own story --- but it is my husband's and we're pretty close. ;)

P.S. My husband is a total science nerd. He's also, at least according to the type of standard they use for Mensa, etc, a genius. But he wasn't convinced by science and he didn't have a near death experience or anything. His heart was just changed.

Answer 6

I definitely did not believe that God existed. I thought belief in God was a nice idea but simply impossible. I was, in fact, raised atheist and taught to mock religion by my parents.

What convinced me there is a God is God Himself. I was given a rare but beautiful experience that made it very, very clear to me that God exists and He wanted to have interaction with me. It was not an accident, it was not any form of miraculous survival (although I had at least two of those years earlier). It was the complete answer to a prayer I wasn't even aware I was praying and then a sudden realization that there was somebody else in the room with me.

It was not unlike going to a party not expecting to meet anybody in particular, but then seeing somebody across the room that you just HAVE to meet, and then hitting it off with that person immediately. Your life is unexpectedly and completely changed for good.

Now that I understand that God is real, I do look at science differently. I see evidence of God in the order of things -- order cannot possibly come from chaos. It never does. I'm sure you've heard the arguments -- how many times will tornadoes have to ravage through a junkyard before the end result is a car that is put together perfectly and actually works? How many times can you put flour, sugar, water and cherries in a microwave oven and turn it on high until it explodes to get a cherry pie? Yet throughout our world and universe, we have patterns and patterns within patterns and all sorts of other things that do not appear to be accidental.

Have you ever asked yourself what you would consider proof that God exists?

Answer 7

I did not believe God of Abraham existed and I always knew there was no other gods, but I did not succumb to fundamental atheism ever...like I see here...the atheist who come day in and day out to "evangelize " about atheism.

I thought that it is enough of eveidence because I did not FEEL His presence. I did not think it was possible.

No, it was not science. Even now the science would not impress me one way or another in this matter. There are just things that science cannot tell.

Everything happened over time. That hapened like that also when Jesus found His lost sheep.

Answer 8

Why is the Bible contradictary to science in so many ways? Why do miracles contridict mans laws of nature?

We are but humanity, limited by our senses. To "look" and "see" are two diffrent from each other. We may look for something, search and never see it, but that does not mean its not there.


"I perceive in the common train of my thoughts a natural and uninterrupted sequence, each implying the next, or, if interruption occurs, it is occasioned by a new object being presented to my senses. But a steep, and sudden, and by these means unaccountable transition is that from a comparatively narrow and partial, what is called common-sense view of things, to an infinitely expanded and liberating one, from seeing things as men describe them, to seeing them as men cannot describe them. This implies a sense which is not common, but rare in the wisest man’s experience; which is sensible or sentient of more than common." --- Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862), U.S. philosopher, author, naturalist.

Answer 9

in the journey that they imagine it's going to lead them to satisfied, I wont supply up them. what form of individual could I be tio deprive others of what they imagine is wonderful? and that i really couldnt supply one rattling about celebrities in any context. Tim: "a reality that, at the same time as taken in context, could actual recommend something different from, or the option of what's written actually; using words expressing something except their literal objective, noticeably as a form of humor." it quite is how irony works. Your jab doesnt even come close. Its not ironic to positioned words in someones mouth then say they dont comprehend the words you purely imagined them declaring.

Answer 10

An atheist is an atheist until believers can prove their god's existence. This is necessary as atheists want no part of believing in any imaginary god.

Answer 11

straight up! atheist!
I used to think that ppl who prayed,
were Really, Touched in the head.
I always believed man made God,
not that God made man.
Period.
UNTIL....
I heard on the public radio that God has a personal name.
And that when the Bible was translated in 1603 or 04
the men doing the translating took it out.
Thought we 'commoners' were not 'good enough'
to know His Sacred & Most Holy name.
I thought that was Just Wrong!!!
if God put something in there,
He wanted us to know it.
So, I started Looking!
Searching for this God
that goes by the name of Jehovah.
BAM!!!
The Christian Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses:
A return to 1st century Christianity,
before the apostasy came.
Praise Jah you People!!