Atheists converting to theism - incomprehensible!
Offline I’m requesting some inputs from strong atheists (like me) as to how/why some atheists can convert to theism (as Kirk Cameron claims and he probably lies like his partner). For myself, this reclamation is incomprehensible! I’m probably at a disadvantage because I was never religiously indoctrinated as a child. I’ve always been an atheist. My parents never owned a Bible, or at least I never saw one in our home.
The only reason I can come up with is: that people who claim to convert from atheism to Christianity, et al, weren’t really atheists – but agnostic. Something allowed their minds to turn to shit! Comments, please!
Miracles don't exist. "Miracle" is a word given to a preposterous event that a theist considers dogmatically advantageous. Def. - Ecclesiastical sensationalism.
- Login to post comments
It is possible that the person had a stroke or a labotomy.
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful. - Seneca
I don't see it as all that astounding. I, like you, have never been religiously indoctrinated, but if I ever experienced sufficient reason/evidence to come to the conclusion that it was reasonable to believe a 'god' existed then I would have no choice but to believe a 'god' existed. I do not choose what to and not to believe. My beliefs are simply the inevitable result of my understanding of reality.
For those like Cameron, I assume they became theists because they encountered evidence that led them to believe there was a 'god'. After listening to him I have to assume that what qualifies as sufficient evidence, from his perspective, is fairly weak, prbably due to the fact that the guy isn't all that bright. In other cases, like Anthony Flew, I just have to assume that he has allowed emotion to cloud his reason. Until I, perhaps, experience the same evidence he has and interpret it in the same way and then there is the possibility I would form a new belief. I can't see it as possible at the moment, but Ican never say never.
“Philosophers have argued for centuries about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, but materialists have always known it depends on whether they are jitterbugging or dancing cheek to cheek" -- Tom Robbins
I think it's more of an emotional thing than evidence or logic.
Suppose someone is an atheist and then discovers that they have cancer. In fear and desperation for survival they decide to pray for god to let them live. It wouldn't be logic or evidence but fear that converted them.
Emotion makes us do unreasonable stuff.
Frosty's coming back someday. Will you be ready?
Either that or they're not very nice people who realise that they can gain huge amounts of money and/or power from people less intelligent than they are.
"The World is my country, science my religion" - Christiaan Huygens
I doubt Kirk was every a atheist. He was probably at the most a agnostic, but I even doubt that. He probably refers to his years of not attending church as his atheist years, defining it with some lame ass not in his good graces excuse.
Kirk's "atheist" persona is probably more of a selling point than actual conversion. The same crap we got at college from the travelling preacher speaking in the free speech area, that claims he found god at a AC/DC concert. Can you imagine the weaked will theist hearing that Ray Comforts message is so powerful that it converted Kirk from atheism to retardation... I mean Way of the Bastard... Master.
Its just a carnival trick.
Man is the only animal in all of nature that cannot accept its own mortality.
I was religiously indoctrinated as a child, and now that I'm a strong atheist I just don't see how I could ever go back. Even if I was dying, I couldn't convert. As much as it would emotionally feel good to believe there is a magical all powerful being that was going to save me, I just know it isn't true, I can't ignore the facts. I have to agree with the others, I really don't think atheists who convert were ever true atheists to start with.
Someone who converts to atheism for emotional reasons may very well convert back once their emotions change.
Götter sind für Arten, die sich selbst verraten -- in den Glauben flüchten um sich hinzurichten. Menschen brauchen Götter um sich zu verletzen, um sich zu vernichten -- das sind wir.
I agree with you, but forgive me if I point out we are both guilty of the 'no true scottsman fallacy' with this reasoning.
I suck at signatures.
So, when I was about 7 years old, an older kid in the neighborhood told me that Santa Claus was fake, and that my parents were the ones that put the presents under the tree. I took him at his word, and operated under that premise for about a week, and thought about it. After a week, I decided this kid was wrong, and went back to believing in Santa. The reasons I went back to believing were as follows: 1) Being 7, I had no comprehension of how much things cost, and couldn't see how my parents could possibly afford all those presents for 3 kids. 2) There was evidence of Santa everywhere. All those stories, all those T.V. specials, no way Santa could be made up with all that evidence. On top of that, nobody could definitely show me that Santa DIDN'T exist, i.e. by showing me a picture of my parents wrapping presents. and 3) Where was the "What's in it for Me?" if Santa was fake? What was the point of being good all year? If I didn't keep believing, then there was no chance I would get presents then.
So, lay this line of reasoning over an atheist(hardly, I bet) who converts to theism, and I think you'll see a lot of similarities. I'm sure many regression-verts don't truly understand a lot of the science that refutes certain claims made by a religion. They also see all these books and temples and history and get overwhelmed by the propaganda. Especially since nobody can show them the smoking gun that definitively lays their theism to waste. And, most importantly, they can't handle life without the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. It's too much, and they perceive life as having nothing in it for them.
"The powerful have always created false images of the weak."
Although wrong in many of his prescriptive writings, Marx was dead on when he referred to religion as a narcotic [opiate, his words].
A good part of conscious life involves loss. One way or another we will separate from everything we care about. A loving superparent who will fix everything is one way of denying this existential truth.
Some people have the core and stamina to confront this. As I said in another forum, if I understood this you could see me signing books at Borders.
I can't really answer this without sounding like I'm commiting a no-true-scotsman. Maybe I am. But I think there are two types of Atheist, Those who question and get negative answers and those who haven't questioned and just dont believe, either through being raised that way or wanting to fit in with the intellectuals.
The first group would include most of the atheists here. We've seen all of the arguments that 'proove' god exists, thoroughly examined and refuted them many times over. I cannot see too many of us falling to the dark side because we have the cognitive defences in place.
The other group do not have these defences. They cannot recognise the faulty logic as easily and may not understand the reasons we don't allow personal experiences or appeals ot emotion to be used as evidence.
I would also suggest that the first group have a better grasp of science so there are less gaps where they might see God.
then again maybe the ex-atheists really did believe in God deep down and this is where christians get the idea we all do.
Oh, a lesson in not changing history from Mr. I'm-My-Own-Grandpa!
I think you've hit it on the head.
It isn't a question of being a "true atheist" so far as I can tell. It is really an environmental issue. We are indoctrinated into the system of believing that there is a purpose to life. Even for those of us that were not indoctrinated into a religion, we still get it from all sides. We get it from the people around us (school etc) and everything we see on TV and movies. The entertainment industry is thick with the promotion that for life to have any worth we have to have a purpose...a true calling.
Even in the absense of formal religion we are still very likely to want this imaginary father figure to give us worth. We are not bread to believe that we are merely a collection of molecules just like everything else and that when we die we just decompose and that's the end of it...hope you had fun. When we see this truth we are not likely to jump for joy and leap at the opportunity to leave our imaginary father figure behind. Quite the contrary.
What is closer to the truth is that we will ride this wave of "what if the father figure really is imaginary?" for the entirity of our existance. Periodically we will lean to one side of the fence more than the other and some people may refer to this drift toward non-belief as "when I was an atheist". And who knows, maybe there was a moment there when they really didn't believe in a god. This could be true all day and wouldn't change the fact that they probably still REALLY wanted to believe in a god. Then, as has been pointed out before, they have an emotional moment and hop right back on the fence.
Short version: we're bread to be theists so not being one is really an anomaly brought on by an aberrant environment.
I am the latter group of atheist, imo. (Science really does allude me)
I've seen family members who were raised the same way I was fully embrace a religious lifestyle when they got older (usually they married someone religious). Some of them are very devout. I've personally always been baffled by this, since it just seems so illogical to believe in god when you're not indoctrinated into it.
I have no idea why they decided to believe and I've never had a conversation with them about it, but it does happen.
If god takes life he's an indian giver
This is a pet peeve of mine: Theists claiming they were atheist and therefore implying that atheists can convert to theism.
In a nutshell, it's BULLSHIT.
Kirk Cameron was not really an atheist. He may have been confused; he may have had some agnostic-like moments of weakness where his life sucked and he temporarily abandoned his delusional theist rituals and beliefs, but that to me, is not the definition of an atheist.
This argument is analagous to suggesting that people go back to believing in Santa Claus. Have you ever heard of that? This is what we're talking about. Once you recognize that Santa Claus doesn't exist and the whole story about him delivering presents to all boys and girls on one night, riding a sleigh through the sky, is BS, that's the end of that. You don't wake up a few years later and change your mind. If this is what happened to Kirk Cameron and other theists who think they can get some "street cred" by implying they used to be atheists, they're not being completely honest.
When you truly become an atheist, that's what happens: You UNDERSTAND that believing in a fictional supernatural being for which there is no physical evidence, is not rational. Once you realize the myth of Santa Claus makes more sense as a ficticious folk tale, you can't honestly go back to thinking it's real unless you've had some sort of brain damage or mental retardation.
Granted, it's a lot easier to see why people continue to hold onto theist dogma when there are so many institutions and influences in society that promote it as being real. But the bottom line is that there still isn't any physical evidence. It makes you wonder if more people talked about how Santa was a real live person and flying sleighs do exist, whether people would continue to believe? It says less about what's real and true and more about the power of propaganda and peer-pressure.
Edit: By the way, this is a good example of how an interesting query like this will prompt an extra page on FreeThoughtPedia:
http://www.freethoughtpedia.com/wiki/Atheists_convert_to_theism
The only thing that could make me become a theist would be God manifesting himself in some physical form and proving his omnipotence by doing something that clearly violates the 3 laws of thermodynamics, the law of conservation of momentum, or some other fundamental law of physics.
Welcome to the forums, pettman.
When you get a chance, we'd love it if you'd hop over to the General Conversations, Introductions and Humor forum and introduce yourself.
Atheist Books, purchases on Amazon support the Rational Response Squad server.
About it being more of an emotional thing than evidence or logic:
I think the problem with pure rational reasoning is that there's no such thing. It is just a human concept. There is always emotion involved with a subject like this, a subject that directly touches our sense of self, however illusory that may be. We are driven by a wild mix of emotions and rationality and we are most of the time unable to see were one begins and the other ends. We are forever unable to have a clear image of ourselves as we are and we desperately want to believe that we are able to be purely rational about topics like these. But it is just wishful thinking. I'd like to say that my atheism is the result of pure rational thought. But it would be absurd to think so.
Even after more than 25 years of atheism I feel a furious anger directed against a vague god notion boiling deep inside me when I see images of the hellish suffering in this world. It's irrational I know, but irrationality is the largest part of the human psyche I believe.
So yes, of course a conversion from atheism to theism is more of an emotional thing. That is self evident. Faith is always about emotion, never about rationality or logic. It is pure emotion, it is need, it is hope, it is longing, it is fear, it is suffering, it is pain, it is sorrow... It is all these things. And far behind follows rationality. As an afterthought some people try to rationalize their irrational beliefs. But the majority of them will not even try that. They just want to feel safe in the arms of their imaginary god. It is a confusing and scary world out there. So, when people convert to a god you can be sure there is always an emotional need. Faith in itself is illogical, but there is a logical reason for its existence. It serves a purpose. it fulfills a need that is very often stronger than rationality and logic.
(english is not my native language so please excuse my errors)
Medievalguy: I agree with you and the others who say thay Kirk was never an atheist. Maybe he thought he was until he saw the $$$ at the end of the rainbow. Now he thinks by saying he's supposedly converted to theism that he'll have an ecclesiastical advantage - "Hey, look at me folks, I used to be an atheist."
Miracles don't exist. "Miracle" is a word given to a preposterous event that a theist considers dogmatically advantageous. Def. - Ecclesiastical sensationalism.
Hi Andreaz and nullusdeus,
Although neither of you are new to the forums, we'd like to get to know you a little better. When you get a chance, we'd love it if you'd hop over to the General Conversations, Introductions and Humor forum and introduce yourselves!
Atheist Books, purchases on Amazon support the Rational Response Squad server.
Hope is a powerful force, the hope of internal life, seeing loved ones/pets after death etc
The fact there isnt the slightest evidence doesnt stop people believing in it under distress
Luckily I know there are beer volcano's and stripper factories waiting for me
Well said, Andreaz.
And your English is just fine!
I like to be optimistic (not really, but for the sake of argument...) and think that most people want to believe there's something connecting the universe together, but the idea of a conscious god is simply preposterous.
As far as 'converting' is concerned, I don't think that any true atheist could ever really do it. More likely, it's somebody who WANTS to believe in some higher power but their options were severely limited and simply went with the easiest one.
Hmmm...sorry, this is one of those things where you think you know the argument really well but it's hard to put it into writing...
Bottom line is, I don't think atheists ever really convert unless there's some extinuating circumstances (eg. brain damage).
~Puck~
Randalllord: Probably both!
I agree, Kirk doesn't have the TV series income anymore, so he's leaning on the fact that there is a MULTITUDE of ignorant people out there!
[MOD EDIT - fixed quote]
Miracles don't exist. "Miracle" is a word given to a preposterous event that a theist considers dogmatically advantageous. Def. - Ecclesiastical sensationalism.
I actually believe that Kirk thinks he is doing well by lying. He believes that these little white lies are justified by jesuosafats for the better of the whole. It's sad that more personal injustice in religion has been done by people who believed they were helping whole. You have your Pat Roberts, Tammi Bakers, Ted Haggard, and host of more that believe their little indiscretions don't count against the whole of good they do..... The sad fact is that everything done in the name of Christianity is stained with alternative motives. No matter how mice the act, or put out the individual, they are doing these deeds to by entry into their heaven.
Man is the only animal in all of nature that cannot accept its own mortality.
Susan: Thanks, I'll do so! It's nice to see someone on the RRS that notices newcomers.
[MOD EDIT - added quote function]
Miracles don't exist. "Miracle" is a word given to a preposterous event that a theist considers dogmatically advantageous. Def. - Ecclesiastical sensationalism.
The atheists that visit here are of a different caliber than those atheists that convert to theism.
Former atheists like Kirk Cameron simply never seriously thought on the idea of god until they were confronted with serious believers. Having never thought on the possibility of a god or religion he was fresh meat for their ploys. Like a naked little child with no defenses.
You'll never see one of those types of atheists here. Since atheists are simply people that don't have a belief in a god and not someone who necessarily has ever really thought about the possibility of a god I have no reason to think that Kirk is lying when he states that he was once an atheist.
Likewise it's a very easy thing to believe in god when your entire family and community show unflinching belief and servitude to the idea. How can a litttle kid look up at his parents, uncles, aunts, grandparents, friends, etc., and not think that they know more than they do?
In both cases you are confronted by people claiming to have absolute certainty on an idea you have never considered. And in both cases it is presented as a comforting gift.
But man, is Kirk one stupid bastard or is it just me?
"I am an atheist, thank God." -Oriana Fallaci
No, it's definitly not you. The general consensus is that he genuinely dumb - DUH!
Miracles don't exist. "Miracle" is a word given to a preposterous event that a theist considers dogmatically advantageous. Def. - Ecclesiastical sensationalism.
Hi Susan, I finally got around to an intro: http://www.rationalresponders.com/forum/the_rational_response_squad_radio_show/general_conversation_introductions_and_humor/9969
Miracles don't exist. "Miracle" is a word given to a preposterous event that a theist considers dogmatically advantageous. Def. - Ecclesiastical sensationalism.
I've often pondered what it would take to convert me to theism. Basically some strong evidence for the existence of the diety in question would be required. Quite what that evidence would be I'm not sure but it would need to be something that could not be accounted for by halucination, dreaming or delusion. It would need to be something that was verifiable and testable. That is if I was acting rationally as try to do now.
On the otherhand I'm fully aware that sometimes I do not act rationally or think rationaly. I try to but sometimes emotions cloud ones reasoning. In times of grief or anger I may not act in a rational way. So would there be any situation that would so cloud my judgement so much that I would circumvent my rational thinking and accept theism on an irrational basis? Well one situation might be the death of my wife. Could I deal with this? I'm not sure how I would react. I just love her so much. I know that if she died before me the one thing I would want more than anything would be just the chance of seeing her again. Would that grief be so strong as to batter down my normal rational thinking? Would I give in to the comforting lie of theism. I'm not sure. I would like to think I would not, but the human mind is very good at self deception when it wants to be, a fact that all the theists we argue with show quite clearly. So perhaps severe emotional trauma would make me an irrational theist. I hope I never find out.
The marjority of my family is atheist. Religion and god are just a non-issue. However, I notice that as certain family members get older they start to get a little more spiritual and sort of 'consider' the concept of god, if that makes sense. I guess the fact that their death or the death of a spouse is only a matter of time scares them. I don't know.
If god takes life he's an indian giver
I am amazed by the number of people who have claimed, in this thread, that if an atheist becomes a theist he/she must never have been a true atheist. Certainly these people must be redefining atheist as something other than one who has no belief in any god or gods. Is there now a criteria one must meet to be a real atheist? Some borderline dogmatic certainty of their infallible correctness that qualifies them as a party member?
It is complete nonsense to attempt to make such a claim as one can not produce any evidence that those who have gone from lacking belief to believing in the existence of some deity never actually, officially, truly lacked a belief. It is unconscionably hypocritical to accuse theists of employing the No True Scotsman Fallacy, or not allowing them to redfine atheist to some faith born ideological platform, if you employ these tactics yourself in some ridiculous attempt at atheistic apologetics.
Aside form that, yes, Cameron is a complete doofwad.
“Philosophers have argued for centuries about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, but materialists have always known it depends on whether they are jitterbugging or dancing cheek to cheek" -- Tom Robbins
I'm also going to say that Kirk and Ray completely misunderstand atheism. Or, to satisfy the above post, we'll say intentional atheism. Just listen to their debate with RRS. They make all of the stupid logical fallacies that we expected them to make. Most importantly, they bring up the shit about atheists having no grounds for morality.
To me, that implies that their definition of an atheist boils down to "an immoral person". Kirk probably drank a beer once and fondled a woman's breasts at a college party, and now he thinks that means he was an atheist once because he was some kind of immoral fool without god's guidance.
You can never be sure exactly how deep the stupidity goes. Judging from what we've seen though, I think it's safe to say deep enough.
A place common to all will be maintained by none. A religion common to all is perhaps not much different.
Ooohhh....crap.
I just had a very disturbing thought.
If the entire world became atheist, and it persisted for a couple generations....then the entire world would be filled with people that had never thought on religion at all.
It would be a world of people with Kirk Cameron's innocent naivity.
All it would take was one person who realized the power and wealth available by spreading the lie of himself being a prophet...
How the hell do we protect ourselves from that? P.T. Barnum told us that a sucker was born every minute.
I think humanity is screwed.
"I am an atheist, thank God." -Oriana Fallaci
All theist were atheist at some point in their lives
Shhhh, this is all part of my plan for world domination.
Seriously though. Even if religion is gone and the world is populated by non-questioning atheists humanity will have such a better understanding of the natural world by then that it will be hard for religion to take root in their minds, The reason it's so hard to dig it out currently is because it gets planted before science (I think my metaphore fot muddled but I hope you get the idea). There may be a few crazy cults (Like scientology; they believe something that they know for a fact was made up by a drug-addicted con-artist. no ammount of knowlege will save some particularly weak minded individuals) but most people would remain unbelievers
The real danger is some other crazy ideology, eg. communism etc. taking root. Since a political idea is not one that can be tested against reality, only personal preferences. We are relatively save from falling to these now because we can recognise similar thought processes in these to those shown by fundamentalist nuts. We've trained ourselves to avoid that kind of thinking. without clearly-ridiculous religion to train ourselves on I think we'd have less defence against non-supernatural ideas.
I guess the only defence is introduce critical thinking into schools and have students analyze the failed ideologies of histroy, including religion after it finally dies.
Oh, a lesson in not changing history from Mr. I'm-My-Own-Grandpa!
Good post, Vessel.
So... are we goong to get any converted atheists in here to explain why they did so rather than a lot of atheists making baseless and unfounded hypotheses?
Freedom of religious belief is an inalienable right. Stuffing that belief down other people's throats is not.
I never claimed that those who convert never really lacked a belief (other than jokingly at the end of my post) just that those who convert seem to be atheists by default in the first place. They hadn't analyzed religion and why they dont believe.
The evidence is in the reasons they give for conversion. Kirk Cameron's explanation is that he stopped one day and asked "What if I'm wrong?" He invoked pascal's wager. A questioning atheist would very likely be aware of this argument and it's many flaws. This would not be reason enough to convert them.
Oh, a lesson in not changing history from Mr. I'm-My-Own-Grandpa!
For me, there's a two-pronged approach towards "believing". First I would demand physical evidence of God. So if that evidence was presented, I might acknowledge his existence, but then there's the second, more important level, of whether or not he's worthy of worshipping.
For that reason, even if Jesus did appear, I don't respect the doctrine that Christianity represents. It's hypocritical and inconsistent and I do not see any evidence that the Christian god is worthy of respect, much less worship.
Human history is littered with tyrants who wielded "god-like" powers over others. Superiority does not guarantee respect or obedience.