List of former atheists
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Not to be confused with List of atheists.
This is a list of notable persons who formerly accepted atheism, then abandoned it for a different philosophical orientation. The rate of occurrence of people abandoning atheism is to some extent uncertain. In one study of the United States 0.3% of Americans were listed as people who were former atheists. The same study indicated that 1.4% of Americans from non-atheist homes adopted atheism and that in total 1.6% of Americans described themselves as atheists.[1]
Contents |
[edit] Converts to Christianity
- Steve Beren - Former member of the Socialist Workers Party (United States) who became a Christian conservative politician.[2]
- Anders Borg - Sweden's Minister for Finance.[3]
- Francis Collins - Geneticist who was an atheist until age 27, but then converted to Christianity.[4]
- Joy Davidman - Poet and wife of C. S. Lewis.[5]
- André Frossard - French journalist who was atheist, but converted to Catholicism in 1935.[6]
- Nicky Gumbel - Raised atheist and became an Evangelical Anglican. He is known for his work with the Alpha course.[7]
- Keir Hardie - Raised atheist and became a Christian socialist.[8]
- Anna Haycraft - Raised as a member of Britain's Comtist and atheistic "Church of Humanity", but became a conservative Catholic in adulthood.[9]
- 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.[10]
- Félix Leseur - Doctor turned priest. His conversion, in part, came by efforts of his wife who was declared a Servant of God by the Catholic Church.[11]
- C. S. Lewis - writer who became an atheist as a young man but returned to Christianity and wrote many books about his faith.[12]
- 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?.[13][14]
- Lacey Mosley - Vocalist and lyricist for Alternative metal band Flyleaf.[15]
- William J. Murray - Son of Madalyn Murray O'Hair who became a Born again preacher.[16]
- Marvin Olasky - Former Marxist turned Christian conservative, he edits the Christian World (magazine).[17][18]
- Enoch Powell - Conservative Party (UK) member who converted to Anglicanism.[19]
- George R. Price - Geneticist who became an Evangelical Christian and wrote about the New Testament. Later he moderated his evangelistic tendencies and switched from religious writing to working with the homeless.[20][21]
- Gerald Priestland - News correspondent who discusses having once been the "school atheist" in Something Understood: An Autobiography. He became a Quaker after an emotional breakdown.[22]
- Dame Cicely Saunders - Templeton Prize and Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize winning nurse known for palliative care. She converted to Christianity as a young woman.[23]
- Edith Stein - Phenomenologist philosopher who converted to Catholicism and became a Discalced Carmelite nun; declared a saint by John Paul II.[24]
- Peter Steele - Lead singer of Type O Negative.[25]
- Stewart Traill - Founder of the Church of Bible Understanding.[26]
- Fay Weldon - British novelist and feminist.[27]
- John C. Wright - Science fiction author.[28] and is now a Catholic.[29]
See also: List of notable people who converted to Christianity from agnosticism or atheism
[edit] Converts to Islam
- Jeffrey Lang - Mathematician who adopted atheism at 18, but is now Muslim.[30]
- Martin Lings - British Sufi scholar who was raised Protestant, but adopted atheism sometime before converting to Islam.[31]
- Malcolm X - Expressed a strong hostility to religion and God while in prison. Later converted while there.[32]
[edit] Converts to Judaism
- Will Herberg - A posthumous collection of his writing is From Marxism to Judaism[33]
- Hilary Putnam - Philosopher raised in a Jewish-atheist home.[34]
- Mary Doria Russell - An author who'd been baptized Catholic before being atheist for 20 years.[35]
[edit] Converts to Hinduism
- John Dobson - Atheist who joined the Hindu Vedanta Society.[36]
[edit] Other ex-atheists
- Gabrielle Carey - Australian author of Puberty Blues who was raised atheist but converted to Catholicism and then explored other theologies.[37][38]
- Antony Flew - Became a non-religious deist.[39]
- Moses Hess - Socialist philosopher and Left Hegelian who first influenced Karl Marx in his criticism of religion, but who later tried to combine the pantheism of Baruch Spinoza with Hegelianism.[40]
- J. Neil Schulman - Libertarian science fiction writer who states he met, or experienced, God and that this ended his atheism. The first such experience would have occurred when he was 35. That stated he remains skeptical of "the church" and does not belong to any religion.[41]
- Dave Sim - Comics writer and anti-feminist. He converted to, or created, his own mixture of Abrahamic religions.[42][43]
- Ted Turner - has stated that he is no longer an atheist or an agnostic and prays for sick friends because he considers it harmless to do so. At the same time he has not embraced any specific religion.[44]
[edit] Notes
- ^ Changes in American religious affiliation - Pew
- ^ Seattle Times "In 1975, he threw off his atheism and became a Christian."
- ^ Wall Street Journal
- ^ Sunday Times "Collins was an atheist until the age of 27, when as a young doctor he was impressed by the strength that faith gave to some of his most critical patients."
- ^ San Francisco Chronicle: At 8, she read H. G. Wells' "The Outline of History" and pronounced herself an atheist.
- ^ Time Magazine obituary
- ^ The Telegraph
- ^ Spartacus Schoolnet
- ^ Telegraph "She reacted strongly against her parents' beliefs and became a Catholic at 19, because she 'no longer found it possible to disbelieve in God.'" (pg 2)
- ^ Time Magazine from July 19, 1963 "Lepp has the credentials to explain the mind of the atheist: he was one himself for 27 years."
- ^ Catholic Net
- ^ PBS special"His pre-university tour of duty in World War I only solidified his atheism,"
- ^ Beliefnet article by McGrath Quote "When I was growing up in Belfast, Northern Ireland, during the 1960s, I came to the view that God was an infantile illusion, suitable for the elderly, the intellectually feeble, and the fraudulently religious"
- ^ North County Times
- ^ Interview for Christianity Today: I was so outspoken about not believing in God. I had real problems with Christians.]
- ^ Austin Chronicle
- ^ Marxism and Me by Marvin Olasky: My communism was based on atheism, and when I could no longer be an atheist, I resigned from the party.
- ^ Creators Syndicate Profile
- ^ The Guardian's obituary of Powell
- ^ University of Bielefeld
- ^ Chronicle of Higher Education article obituary(Copied by Gametheory.net) has the following "Because George was a fire-spitting atheist and Julia a devout Christian, their relationship was contentious from the beginning. After eight years, the marriage ended in acrimony." "On June 7th [1970] I gave in and admitted that God existed," he explained to friends.
- ^ Antiqbook
- ^ Article from the University of Wollongong
- ^ University of Chicago "made a spiritual journey from atheism to agnosticism before eventually converting to Catholicism"
- ^ Decibel Magazine
- ^ Larson's Book of World Religions and Alternative Spirituality By Bob Larson, pg 109
- ^ The Guardian Quote: Even though she was raised an atheist, in the past three or four years she has been going to church. In her eighth decade, she has even submitted to being baptised.
- ^ Advocates for self-government (A Libertarian site) says of him "A lifelong 'vehement, argumentative, proselytizing atheist,' Wright suffered a heart attack in 2003 and soon afterwards had a 'supernatural' religious experience that made him, he wrote, 'aware of a spiritual dimension of reality of which I had hitherto been unaware... I was altered down to the root of my being.' Wright became a Christian
- ^ John C. Wright's livejournal "After three years of prayer, thought, and debate, and an honest attempt to follow where the spirit leads me, I am joining the Roman Catholic Church this Easter."
- ^ His book "Struggling to Surrender
- ^ New York Times obituary
- ^ Mass Moments
- ^ Journal of Law and Religion Described his Jewish family as "passionate atheists" and he was active in Marxist groups until the 1930s.
- ^ "Finding My Religion" Boston Globe (July 30, 2006)
- ^ Amazon.com interview: Amazon interviewer: What brought you to Judaism after 20 years of being an atheist?
- Russell: I became a mom...I became aware of the fact that my ethics and my morality were rooted in religion, and yet I could not bring myself to go back to Christianity.
- ^ Interview at Space.com Quote: "So I became an atheist, a belligerent atheist. If anybody started a conversation about the subject, I was a belligerent atheist."
- ^ ABC Australia.
- ^ The Australian
- ^ BBC Interview Quote: "What I was converted to was the existence of an Aristotelian God, and Aristotle's God had no interest in human affairs at all."
- ^ Moses Hess: The Holy History of Mankind and other writings
- ^ Interview with Schulman: "After a thorough analysis of my previous life's experiences, and later experiences that lent validation, I concluded that the reality was that what had happened to me were really encounters with God -- therefore proving God's existence to me."
- ^ Village Voice
- ^ Sun Comics
- ^ Associated Press
