Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I signed up on here so I could comment in this thread.
I am a person you are looking for. My mother is an atheist, and my dad a non-practicing Christian. God was never mentioned in my house as a child, and only time I encountered "God" was when I went to my grandparents or any of my aunts and uncles. As a result, I thought of God as Santa Claus and was taught by my mother that I was correct in that assumption. I never gave any thought to the matter until I was a sophomore in high school.
When I was a sophomore, I started getting into politics and found that I lay on the liberal side of the political spectrum. I was also increasingly antagonized by the absurdity of religious thought. I truly understood what it meant to be an atheist and embraced it with open arms.
A series of events towards the end of my high school career caused me to change in my thoughts and actions towards religion, and develop a deeper understanding of it, eventually leading to my conversion to Catholicism. One was my grandmother's death, which was a true wakeup call. She was devoutly religious and I saw that in her life.
Two, and more important to me, was when I started to reject moral relativism, or the idea that morality is based on shades of gray rather than black or white. I will agree that certain things do have a level of grayness to them, but there is a clear right and wrong in this world and I believe liberalism tries to hide this. I was not happy with my own liberalism and the selfish way in which I viewed the world.
So my senior year in high school, I didn't become a Christian, but I pondered the thought a lot and what it meant to believe in a God. And I viewed God as a possible solution to moral relativism.
So when I did eventually go to college, I did eventually decide to convert to Catholicism. Best decision I ever made in my life, and has helped me wonders. I did it all on my own as well. My parents really don't care either.
My Dad was an atheist before he met my Mom. He was raised in some kind of "Freewill Baptist" environment, but his Dad would leave church once the music ended and my Dad was never baptized in that faith.
The main "celebrity" example that came about while I started going online was John C. Wright. Wright was certainly atheist when I started reading his stories and is quite Catholic now. He discusses it in the comments section of the following.
SF Signal: Review - Orphans Of Chaos, by John C. Wright (http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2005/10/review---orphans-of-chaos-by-john-c-wright/ - broken link)
I can think of a few others, but I mentioned him as his conversion is a bit unusual in that it happened after he turned 40. Most religious conversions, of any kind, occur when a person is under 35.
Thank you for sharing, Thomas. You are one of my favorite Christians.
I am familiar with the SF stories by Wright, but I didn't know anything about his personal story.
His comments were very interesting, and he reminded me of MysticPhd. This is the kind of story I wanted to hear, about his journey. I found it interesting that he had always been looking for answers that made sense to him, and after a brush with death, he found it in Christianity.
Why do some people keep looking until they find something? I was a teenager when I realized that the big questions just didn't have definitive answers, and it seemed to me a waste of time to look for them.
You sure aren't likely to find something if you aren't looking for it.
I agree, conversion is much more likely when you are young.
I signed up on here so I could comment in this thread.
I am a person you are looking for. My mother is an atheist, and my dad a non-practicing Christian. God was never mentioned in my house as a child, and only time I encountered "God" was when I went to my grandparents or any of my aunts and uncles. As a result, I thought of God as Santa Claus and was taught by my mother that I was correct in that assumption. I never gave any thought to the matter until I was a sophomore in high school.
When I was a sophomore, I started getting into politics and found that I lay on the liberal side of the political spectrum. I was also increasingly antagonized by the absurdity of religious thought. I truly understood what it meant to be an atheist and embraced it with open arms.
A series of events towards the end of my high school career caused me to change in my thoughts and actions towards religion, and develop a deeper understanding of it, eventually leading to my conversion to Catholicism. One was my grandmother's death, which was a true wakeup call. She was devoutly religious and I saw that in her life.
Two, and more important to me, was when I started to reject moral relativism, or the idea that morality is based on shades of gray rather than black or white. I will agree that certain things do have a level of grayness to them, but there is a clear right and wrong in this world and I believe liberalism tries to hide this. I was not happy with my own liberalism and the selfish way in which I viewed the world.
So my senior year in high school, I didn't become a Christian, but I pondered the thought a lot and what it meant to believe in a God. And I viewed God as a possible solution to moral relativism.
So when I did eventually go to college, I did eventually decide to convert to Catholicism. Best decision I ever made in my life, and has helped me wonders. I did it all on my own as well. My parents really don't care either.
Thank you for sharing your story, and welcome to the forum.
What is your definition of liberalism?
What was selfish about they way you viewed the world? How was your selfishness related to your atheism, as opposed to being selfish just because you were young?
How old were you when you found God?
Were you uncomfortable with moral relativism because of the inherent unfairness of it?
Please believe that I am not trolling.
I would like to know if there are any Christians here who used to be atheists. I don't mean people who used to hate God, or people who grew up with religion, left for a while and then came back, or people who were agnostic.
I mean people who were raised in a secular household, truly had no belief in God, and then later in adulthood became a Christian. I have never met such a person. I have heard some Christians proclaim that they used to be atheists, and on further discussion I find they had not been an atheist, and really didn't understand what one was.
I would like to know if it is possible for person born and raised an atheist, such as myself, to find Jesus.
Could I suggest a certain blog for you to read? It's written by a former atheist named Jennifer.
If you look down her left sidebar, you'll see links to her conversion story. She's a very thoughtful, articulate person (as you seem also to be) and you may find interesting reading there.
Thank you for sharing, Thomas. You are one of my favorite Christians.
I am familiar with the SF stories by Wright, but I didn't know anything about his personal story.
His comments were very interesting, and he reminded me of MysticPhd. This is the kind of story I wanted to hear, about his journey. I found it interesting that he had always been looking for answers that made sense to him, and after a brush with death, he found it in Christianity.
Why do some people keep looking until they find something? I was a teenager when I realized that the big questions just didn't have definitive answers, and it seemed to me a waste of time to look for them.
You sure aren't likely to find something if you aren't looking for it.
I agree, conversion is much more likely when you are young.
I think for me if there are no answers, or no possibility of finding them, then things feel rather unsatisfactory and incomplete or even scary. Also in the times I really considered atheism I just found it too lonely and "flat" to get into.
By "flat" I mean in atheism all I can ever know or experience is what my senses allow in a period of life that at maximum lasts 122 years. I need more than that. I could maybe intellectually accept "well there isn't any more than that", but I found the idea emotionally unappealing and unsatisfying.
Yet curiously I would say there are things in atheism I find appealing or at least I see appeal to them in a way. To me atheism means there's less disappointment. If some scientific theory is wrong you don't personally lose anything unless proving it was your life's work. If the head of the Atheist Alliance is a slimy hypocritical creep it really doesn't matter because being atheist isn't about any specific group. There's also no worry about Hell, the Devil, or simple concern of disappointing God. You are in a way unattached and free. (Those who term becoming an atheist "a liberation" I don't think are precisely wrong)
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
