Yahoo Answers is shutting down on May 4th, 2021 (Eastern Time) and beginning April 20th, 2021 (Eastern Time) the Yahoo Answers website will be in read-only mode. There will be no changes to other Yahoo properties or services, or your Yahoo account. You can find more information about the Yahoo Answers shutdown and how to download your data on this help page.
Trending News
Atheists please answer...?
Atheists - I have come to the conclusion that trying to explain that God exists is much like trying to explain to a blind man that there is an observable world. You could not "prove" or provide evidence to a blind man that there is another sense, they would either have to believe it, or choose not to. Either way it doesn't change the fact that it exists. I know that God exists based on what I have "seen" in my life. Not a physical seeing where God shows up and we sit down and talk, but instead an absolute confidence based on God's revelation to me. The atheist is blind, and no amount of persuasive will change his / her mind until God reveals Himself to the atheist.
My question is - why did all of the people below, all of them former atheists, change their minds and believe in God, if there is no God? What would be the compelling reason to do such an insane thing if God did not exist?
Mortimer J. Adler - Philosopher who co-founded Great Books of the Western World. Agnostic convert to the Catholic Church.[3][4]
Steve Beren - Former member of the Socialist Workers Party (United States) who became a Protestant conservative politician.[5]
Anders Borg - Sweden's Minister for Finance.[6]
Paul Bourget - French author who became agnostic and positivist at 15, but returned to Catholicism at 35.[7]
Ferdinand Brunetière - Rationalist and freethinking writer who became a Catholic.[8][9]
Julie Burchill - British journalist and feminist.[10]
Kirk Cameron - an American actor best-known for his role as Mike Seaver on the television situation comedy, Growing Pains, as well as several other television and film appearances as a child actor. Today he is a Protestant Evangelical. Recently, he portrayed the lead roles in the Left Behind film series and in the 2008 drama film, Fireproof.[11]
Whittaker Chambers - Former Communist turned conservative writer.[12][13]
Francis Collins - Geneticist who was an atheist until age 27, but then converted to Christianity.[14]
Joy Davidman - Poet and wife of C. S. Lewis.[15]
Avery Dulles - A Jesuit priest, theologian, and cardinal in the Catholic Church. He was raised Presbyterian, but was an agnostic before his conversion to Catholic Christianity.[16][17]
Dawn Eden - Rock journalist of Jewish ethnicity who went from an agnostic to a Catholic writer, who was particularly concerned with the moral values of chastity.[18][19]
André Frossard - French journalist who was atheist, but converted to the Catholic Church in 1935.[20]
Eugene D. Genovese - Historian who went from Stalinist to conservative theist.[21]
Bo Giertz - Atheistic in youth he became a Lutheran bishop and writer.[22]
Simon Greenleaf - one of the principle founders of Harvard Law School, professor of law at Harvard University and president of the Massachusetts Bible Society. [23]
Tamsin Greig - British actress.[24]
Nicky Gumbel - Raised atheist and became an Anglican. He is known for his work with the Alpha course.[25]
Keir Hardie - Raised atheist and became a Christian Socialist.[26]
Anna Haycraft - Raised as a member of Britain's Comtist and atheistic "Church of Humanity", but became a conservative Catholic Christian in adulthood.[27]
Ammon Hennacy - Initially an atheist labor activist he became a religious pacifist in the Atlanta Penitentiary.[28]
Peter Hitchens - Journalist who went from Trotskyism to Traditionalist conservatism.[29][30]
Mary Karr - Memoirist and poet who switched from agnosticism to Catholicism in 1996.[31]
Ignace Lepp - French psychiatrist whose parents were freethinkers and who joined the Communist party at age fifteen. He broke with the party in 1937 and eventually became a Catholic priest.[32]
Félix Leseur - Doctor turned Catholic priest. His conversion, in part, came by efforts of his wife who was declared a Servant of God by the Catholic Church.[33]
C. S. Lewis - writer who became an atheist as a young man, later paradoxically describing himself as being "very angry with God for not existing". He later returned to Anglicanism and wrote many books about his faith.[34]
Arnold Lunn - A skier, mountaineer, and writer. As an agnostic he wrote Roman Converts, which took a critical view of Catholicism and the converts to it. He later converted to Catholicism due to debating with converts, and became an apologist for the faith, although he retained a few criticisms of the faith.[35]
Gabriel Marcel - A leading Christian existentialist. His upbringing was agnostic.[36]
Alister McGrath - Biochemist and Christian theologian. Founder of 'Scientific theology' and critic of Richard Dawkins in books like Dawkins' God: Genes, Memes, and the Meaning of Life and The Dawkins Delusion?.[37][38]
Claude McKay - Bisexual Jamaican poet who went from Communist atheist to a devout Catholic Christian.[39]
Czesław Miłosz - Poet who won the 1980 Nobel Prize in Literature.[40]
Nina Karin Monsen - a Norwegian moral philosopher and au
25 Answers
- 1 decade agoFavorite Answer
Most of these people realized that to be successful in the public, they would have to say that they believed in God, or else who would have taken them seriously?
- Justin HLv 71 decade ago
Your blind analogy is flawed. While the blind person can not see the world around them; they can smell it, touch it, taste it, and hear it. What's more, they can still use instruments to help them measure various things around them. Just because they can't see the chair sitting in their path, doesn't mean they can't feel it when the trip over it.
God is a completely different issue. Yes have beenpeople who had experience that lead them to believe in god, but that doesn't mean their experiences or their conversion are proof of god. Individual experiences and anecdotes usually can not be independently verified.
By the way, I'm not really impressed with your list. While there are a lot of names, it's still a small list. And your list is largely missing scientists. The reality is that about 97% of members of the National Academy of Sciences are atheists. That there are a few defectors does not prove anything.
- Muddy9069Lv 61 decade ago
"My question is - why did all of the people below, all of them former atheists, change their minds and believe in God, if there is no God? What would be the compelling reason to do such an insane thing if God did not exist?"
My suggestion is you ask the other 2/3rd of the world who are not Christian why they are not...
Or the millions of Christians who once believed, why they are Atheist, or Muslim or Buddhist now..
Changing your belief system doesn't prove one or the other right or wrong.. You have your evidence that convinces YOU god exists... I have MY evidence that convinces me he doesn't...
This gives NEITHER of us the right to pass laws or force our BELIEFS on other people.. Without consistent evidence... And before you start saying what about evolution and such... These are SCIENTIFIC Theories... And they are sound... so unless you have a better theory that has as much repeatable, testable and empirical evidence... it will continue to be taught in science class!!
- Pull My FingerLv 71 decade ago
Your intuition that there is a God does not make it so. In the same way, your blind man can believe that there is no observable world, but he is wrong - whether you can prove it to his satisfaction or not.
Anecdotal evidence and intuition may be convincing to you, but it is not convincing to others. Do you believe in Bigfoot because others claim to have seen it personally? How about aliens? Leprechauns?
Your list of converted atheists does nothing to convince me, as I'm sure a list of former Christians turned atheists would not convince you. It's not a popularity contest we're judging here. If it were, you'd win, no doubt. Unfortunately for you, this is about evidence and reason, so I'm afraid you are at a natural disadvantage.
- How do you think about the answers? You can sign in to vote the answer.
- Citizen JustinLv 71 decade ago
They all had their personal reasons for taking up belief in a god. However, there are just as many atheists who used to believe in a god and later rejected the idea. I'm one of them.
A blind person cannot see but they are still aware that they are blind. Just as a sighted person cannot see out of the back of their heads but still knows the world doesn't go away until he looks. Your 'blind man' analogy does not work, although perhaps it could be applied to yourself. As a former believer, I have some understanding of what makes a religious person tick. Have you ever attempted to understand non-believers?
- ?Lv 71 decade ago
Your analogy is flawed, in two ways. First, anything that exists in objective reality will leave evidence through its interactions with the physical universe. We are all "blind" to most of the electromagnetic spectrum, but we can still prove that it exists through means other than seeing it with our eyes.
Second, experience of a subjective qualium provides proof only of its existence, not of its nature. You may know that whatever you are choosing to call "God" exists, but there is no evidence at all that it is the result of any supernatural force or being.
As for the people you listed... you'll have to ask *them* about their motivations. I don't know any of them personally.
- 1 decade ago
That makes no impact whatsoever. Think about how many theists have changed their minds and decided not to believe in a supreme being. The thing about god is that there is no proof at all toward his existence. Even as a child, when I was being raised in a Catholic family, I couldn't "sense" god.
- Arthur AlwaysLv 61 decade ago
Guess what? Blind people do observe the world. Just not with their eyes.
They probably hate you for not using yours.
Why would a bunch of well-regarded dummies make me change my mind?
If everyone jumps into a volcano does that make it a good idea?
Even well-read people get fooled.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was fooled by simple parlor tricks and became a spiritualist because of it.
Hey! Kinda like you, maybe???
- ?Lv 71 decade ago
Fail. It's simply an argument from authority and populism.
Present some reliable evidence for any god, and get back to us.
BTW, the Invisible Pink Unicorn (bless her holy hooves) revealed her existence to me. But I doubt if you'd take my word on it. Why should I believe you?
There's no reliable evidence for Jesus, Yahweh, Allah, Zeus, Thor, or any of the thousands of other gods that people have worshipped. There's also extensive evidence that they are all just myths. Science has shown that there's no need for gods to explain the traditional reasons for a god -- origin of the universe, origin of life, origin of species, origin of humans, origin of morality. Science also shows us the psychological reasons that people believe in god(s).
If a god like Yahweh or Allah existed there would be explicit evidence. No such evidence exists, therefore these gods do not exist.
Why should anybody believe anything from the Bible? It was written by primitive men who believed that the Earth was flat and covered by a large solid dome called the firmament.
Why would anybody worship the god Yahweh of the Bible? He lies, cheats, and kills with impunity. But, he loves us!
His mythical son Jesus is a little better, but he wants to torture people forever. The story of Jesus' crucifixion is a horrible story of human sacrifice. Christians even celebrate it by ceremoniously drinking his blood and eating his body. This is ritual vampirism and cannibalism.
- Beat It UprightLv 41 decade ago
Sorry, but I need evidence before I believe in something.
You can argue that these people converted due to "personal experience" but what about people who have claimed to have personal experiences with ghosts, aliens, leprechauns, and every other god other than the Christian god?
Regardless, it doesn't matter to me that these people are theists. I'm still an atheist.
