lpetrich
Contributor
Asymmetry of Conversion - Leaving Christianity -- someone has explored this issue, and he has found that atheists who understand atheist arguments and use them rarely convert to some religion. I make those qualifiers to distinguish such people from people who were mostly indifferent to religion.
Atheist Deconversion is another page on that subject. Brian Holtz looked for people who converted for purely intellectual reasons, reasons not contaminated with reasons like these:
The most amusing reconvert that I know of was philosophy professor C.E.M. Joad. In his "Testament of Joad", he talked about how he sometimes would ride a train without a valid ticket. During World War II, he answered questions for BBC radio, becoming known for "It all depends on what you mean by...". But in 1946, he was caught doing some fare-beating, and the BBC fired him. He got religion, and he even wrote some Xian apologetics. Bertrand Russell reportedly debated him, and he reportedly looked silly in comparison.
Another interesting case is that of Annie Besant. She was a secularist activist for a while, but one day she got assigned to write about Helena Petrovna Blavatsky and her works. She was the author of a massive proto-New-Age woo-woo synthesis called Theosophy, and AB ended up converting to it and becoming a big-name Theosophist.
Atheist Deconversion is another page on that subject. Brian Holtz looked for people who converted for purely intellectual reasons, reasons not contaminated with reasons like these:
- example or pressure from parents, professors, or any authority figure;
- desire for fellowship with some religious person or social group;
- desire to rebel against parents, professors, or any authority figure;
- negative personal experience with anti-religious people or institutions;
- distaste for the historical or distant actions of anti-religious people or institutions;
- distaste for the evils that might be mitigated by belief in god(s);
- emotional dissatisfaction with the logical implications of atheism;
- personal injustice or victimhood;
- personal misfortune such as disability, injury, illness, or the misfortune of a loved one;
- personal failure or crisis related to substance abuse, gambling, guilty conscience, imprisonment, etc.;
- personal dissatisfaction with one's social, romantic, or vocational circumstances;
- desire to reform (or excuse) one's morality or behavior;
- desire for hope in divine reward.
The most amusing reconvert that I know of was philosophy professor C.E.M. Joad. In his "Testament of Joad", he talked about how he sometimes would ride a train without a valid ticket. During World War II, he answered questions for BBC radio, becoming known for "It all depends on what you mean by...". But in 1946, he was caught doing some fare-beating, and the BBC fired him. He got religion, and he even wrote some Xian apologetics. Bertrand Russell reportedly debated him, and he reportedly looked silly in comparison.
Another interesting case is that of Annie Besant. She was a secularist activist for a while, but one day she got assigned to write about Helena Petrovna Blavatsky and her works. She was the author of a massive proto-New-Age woo-woo synthesis called Theosophy, and AB ended up converting to it and becoming a big-name Theosophist.
