Religious conversions

James R

Just this guy, you know?
Staff member
This thread was prompted by the similar thread we're having on "deconversion". I could have titled this thread "Are there any believers here who were once atheists?" to match the similar thread on the reverse situation, but that would be too unoriginal, so...

I'm interested in hearing the "conversion" stories from people who have either adopted a religious belief or who have converted from one religion to another. That is, if you were once a non-believer, then you got religion, I want to know what did it for you. Or, if you were raised Christian, but later converted to Islam, or Buddhism or Scientology, again I want to know what prompted your conversion.

Equally, if you were once a wishy-washy, not-really-believer-but-going-through-the-motions type, then you became a real, genuine, hard-core believer, I want to know what made you change.

I'm not interested (in this thread, anyway) in your story of how you were raised a Jehovah's witness by your parents, then you were baptised into the Jehovah's witnesses when you came of age, or those kinds of stories. That's what is expected. I want to hear the unexpected.

So, religious people, tell me why you became religious, or why you switched beliefs.
 
This thread was prompted by the similar thread we're having on "deconversion". I could have titled this thread "Are there any believers here who were once atheists?" to match the similar thread on the reverse situation, but that would be too unoriginal, so...

I'm interested in hearing the "conversion" stories from people who have either adopted a religious belief or who have converted from one religion to another. That is, if you were once a non-believer, then you got religion, I want to know what did it for you. Or, if you were raised Christian, but later converted to Islam, or Buddhism or Scientology, again I want to know what prompted your conversion.



Equally, if you were once a wishy-washy, not-really-believer-but-going-through-the-motions type, then you became a real, genuine, hard-core believer, I want to know what made you change.

I'm not interested (in this thread, anyway) in your story of how you were raised a Jehovah's witness by your parents, then you were baptised into the Jehovah's witnesses when you came of age, or those kinds of stories. That's what is expected. I want to hear the unexpected.

So, religious people, tell me why you became religious, or why you switched beliefs.

I was religious . Discussion on the forum with science oriented people and atheists , it reinforced my views and strengthen my faith . Science is impartial, it is the individual that is choosing the tool ( science ) for his own conviction , Science is a process to study nature in were we live and we are continually searching to understand our surroundings and how we are formed and what we are and how our organism function . As on the present we do not have the answers . As for me chemically we definitively know not much , the current hypothesis are just a joke . As fat the universe we have models , they are not consistent and they change with new information.
So since I do not know about me and the world , I prefer my spiritual journey
 
I was never raised around religion, unlike a lot of atheists I meet. My parents were atheists themselves, so I was just never around religion in the first place. I learned about it later, and it weirded me out that people still believed in deity in the 20th century. Though Judaism was fascinating, if only for the cultural differences.
So, I was pretty much atheistic most of my life, and in my Middle School years was actually quite militant about it. Then I mellowed out in High School as I learned more about other belief systems and religions that weren't Abrahamic, since most of my critiques had been pointed against Abrahamism.

I'd always had an interest in ancient mythology and during High School I found out that people today were practising the revival of polytheism, which I thought was pretty nifty. I researched it a shit-ton and began to consider myself Pagan sometime during the summer between Junior and Senior year. I sat around in a general Neopaganism for a while before dedicating myself as a Wiccan. I still wasn't really theistic during that time, though; I still thought of the gods as Jungian archetypes and thought-forms. It wasn't until College that I began having mystical experiences and seriously became polytheistic.
It never really felt like a "conversion" to me. It was more gradual than that. It just kinda felt like "coming home", if anything. I was returning to the myths and gods that I had been so interested in all my life. I felt like I had just found something that fit me and I could be comfortable in. And, eventually, it was something I felt could transform me spiritually.
 
arauca said:
I was religious . Discussion on the forum with science oriented people and atheists , it reinforced my views and strengthen my faith
Why! What did it for you?
arauca said:
Science is impartial, it is the individual that is choosing the tool ( science ) for his own conviction , Science is a process to study nature in were we live and we are continually searching to understand our surroundings and how we are formed and what we are and how our organism function . As on the present we do not have the answers . As for me chemically we definitively know not much , the current hypothesis are just a joke . As fat the universe we have models , they are not consistent and they change with new information.
That is just a rant about you not liking science it doesn't answer the questions posed. What did it for you? Particularly
arauca said:
So since I do not know about me and the world , I prefer my spiritual journey.
So you're religious because it's cosy. What did it for you? What convinced you that theism was correct?


Here are the questions James posed again.
1, I want to know what did it for you.
2, I want to know what prompted your conversion.
3, I want to know what made you change.

Hapsberg said:
I was never raised around religion, unlike a lot of atheists I meet. My parents were atheists themselves, so I was just never around religion in the first place. I learned about it later, and it weirded me out that people still believed in deity in the 20th century. Though Judaism was fascinating, if only for the cultural differences.
So, I was pretty much atheistic most of my life, and in my Middle School years was actually quite militant about it. Then I mellowed out in High School as I learned more about other belief systems and religions that weren't Abrahamic, since most of my critiques had been pointed against Abrahamism.

I'd always had an interest in ancient mythology and during High School I found out that people today were practising the revival of polytheism, which I thought was pretty nifty. I researched it a shit-ton and began to consider myself Pagan sometime during the summer between Junior and Senior year. I sat around in a general Neopaganism for a while before dedicating myself as a Wiccan. I still wasn't really theistic during that time, though; I still thought of the gods as Jungian archetypes and thought-forms. It wasn't until College that I began having mystical experiences and seriously became polytheistic.
It never really felt like a "conversion" to me. It was more gradual than that. It just kinda felt like "coming home", if anything. I was returning to the myths and gods that I had been so interested in all my life. I felt like I had just found something that fit me and I could be comfortable in. And, eventually, it was something I felt could transform me spiritually.
So you're saying there was not just one thing that caused the change, you just wanted to be accepted.

What made you change? What did it for you? What convinced you that theism was correct?
 
Why! What did it for you? That is just a rant about you not liking science it doesn't answer the questions posed. What did it for you? Particularly
So you're religious because it's cosy. What did it for you? What convinced you that theism was correct?


Here are the questions James posed again.
1, I want to know what did it for you.
2, I want to know what prompted your conversion.
3, I want to know what made you change.

So you're saying there was not just one thing that caused the change, you just wanted to be accepted.

What made you change? What did it for you? What convinced you that theism was correct?
Go through BCS thread from the start again and listen to the music and the YouTubes I think you will get the answers you need.
 
Why! What did it for you? That is just a rant about you not liking science it doesn't answer the questions posed. What did it for you? Particularly
So you're religious because it's cosy. What did it for you? What convinced you that theism was correct?


Here are the questions James posed again.
1, I want to know what did it for you.
2, I want to know what prompted your conversion.
3, I want to know what made you change.

So you're saying there was not just one thing that caused the change, you just wanted to be accepted.

What made you change? What did it for you? What convinced you that theism was correct?

You must be Australian also . Your thinking is upside down.

1 ) The experience in prophesy since 1943 , what was Prophesied through my mother it materialized not one time but many situations . My mother was not an educated person , but she looked for the presence of Gods holly spirit.

2) there was no conversion of mine , but reinforcement of the entity God .

3) No change but solidifying by looking into science

Is that what you want ?

Now what bases do you have to be an atheist ? Us your turn to answer your question
 
You must be Australian also . Your thinking is upside down.

1 ) The experience in prophesy since 1943 , what was Prophesied through my mother it materialized not one time but many situations . My mother was not an educated person , but she looked for the presence of Gods holly spirit.

....
I'll have you know it is the Northern Hemisphere which is upside down! (There is more mass on the Northern Hemisphere so it would naturally sink in the warped spacetime around the Sun.)

I wanted you to write about your Mother's prophecy before. Can you share the entire statement please?
 
I was returning to the myths and gods that I had been so interested in all my life.
Did you come to the conclusion that these "gods" are real personalities, or do you see them as allegories for the forces of nature?
 
arauca said:
1 ) The experience in prophesy since 1943 , what was Prophesied through my mother it materialized not one time but many situations . My mother was not an educated person , but she looked for the presence of Gods holly spirit.
James also stated "I'm not interested in your story of how you were raised an X (input religious affiliation here) by your parents, then you were baptised into the same faith when you came of age, or those kinds of stories. That's what is expected. I want to hear the unexpected." So that reply is irrelevant. The reason your religious is because of your parents.

arauca said:
2) there was no conversion of mine , but reinforcement of the entity God .
Yes for your parents, but that is not relevant to the original questions asked. James did not want to know that.

arauca said:
3) No change but solidifying by looking into science
Ok yet you still haven't answered the question. What exactly convinced you from science that god was correct?

arauca said:
Is that what you want ?
Nearly yet you still haven't answered James' questions. and What convinced you that theism was correct?

arauca said:
Now what bases do you have to be an atheist ? Us your turn to answer your question
This was written in 2008 by a member of another site it say it all.
* There is not one iota of unequivocal evidence that any God exists.
* God cannot explain all that exists because God itself cannot be explained. This claim just gratuitously swaps one mystery for another.
* Religions do not explain any mechanism or process whereby God created everything. It is effectively an appeal to magic.
* Religious faith is generally indistinguishable from gullibility. Trust and faith, as human concepts, are normally based on experience and reason. Religious faith is necessarily based on belief in unproven and unknowable things.
* A god or anything that exists outside the realm of natural reality is necessarily unknowable, unintelligible and incoherent. It is therefore irrational to believe in something that is supernatural.
* Religious scripture:
o is man-made
o contains many translation and interpretation errors
o is often self-contradictory
o often contradicts known facts
o promotes conversion by violence
o calls for punishment and death to unbelievers
o contains virtually no specific and unequivocal predictions
o contains only vague predictions beyond its own time
o contains many failed prophecies, predictions and unfulfilled promises of God
* Scripture contains too much that is vague, metaphorical and symbolic to be instructions from a divine being to humans. A perfect being would be expected to be able to communicate much better than that.
* In order to render most of scripture useful, it must necessarily be interpreted. This makes it easily twisted to support nefarious purposes.
* The problems with scriptures outweigh any good messages they may contain. If read at all, they should be considered opinion and philosophy and taken with a grain of salt.
* Morals are based on human sympathy and empathy, not on divine guidance. Establishing moral codes based on theism is unnecessary, riddled with contradictions, and fraught with danger.
* Religion is divisive in that it pits groups of otherwise indistinguishable people against one another. There are already more than enough differences for humans to fight over. And religion is the most intransigent of such divisions because many people feel it is a divine duty to revile those who believe differently than they do even if they don't see the reason in it.
* Religions are generally intractable when it comes to substantive compromise with other religions or belief systems.
* All suggested ways to perceive God rely on internal mechanisms that are subject to personal desires, suggestion, and mistakes. On the question of communicating with God, religion insidiously asks us all to deceive ourselves.
* People are animals. We are only special due to our more developed brain. (We share 98% of our DNA with chimpanzees)
* Abrahamic religions teach that the earth is only about 6000 to 10000 years old. All claims of a young earth are refuted by volumes of clear and mutually corroborating evidence in multiple scientific disciplines as well as a host of mutually confirming dating techniques that are not subjective or rationalized.
* Every culture that has existed has had God myths and other superstitions. This is often used as an argument for the existence of God. Rather than indicating that there is a true God, this indicates that people are simply attracted to the idea.
* Goodness, truth, wisdom and all other purported attributes of God are human concepts. When applied to a presumed entity so completely different in kind as to be supernatural, they are meaningless. The idea of God is thus incoherent.
* Infinity is a concept humans cannot comprehend except in a limited mathematical sense. If God is infinite, this also renders him unintelligible.
* Belief in an afterlife is insidious and detrimental to social responsibility and mental health. It demeans actual life and frequently leads to the notion that killing someone is, at least conceivably, doing them a favour.
* Organized religion wastes untold amounts of money and resources that could be used to care for people, promote real knowledge, and advance the human race.
* Theism puts God above people thereby making people subservient, unimportant and expendable.
* Religion relies on guilt, fear and outlandish promises to gain obedience.
* Theism generally precludes any possibility of testing God or questioning his existence substantively. It is something like the wizard of Oz saying, "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain."
* The methods used in proselytizing for religion bear an unmistakable resemblance to the methods of confidence men. But the scriptures consider this the great commission of mankind.
* There are many good rational and logical arguments against theism but not one argument in favour of it that doesn't rely on a fallacy or assumption.
* There are so many Gods put forth by thousands of religions that no one could ever be certain of picking the correct one, assuming that one exists.
* Prayer is totally subjective and cannot be shown to have any more efficacy than pure chance.
* There is no discernible difference between believing in God and having an imaginary friend.
* People generally rely on facts and evidence in every human endeavour except religion.
* Unequivocal miracles do not occur.
* God supposedly speaks directly to the human spirit. This must be, at least partly, the same concept as mind. People who receive messages in their minds are invariably delusional.
* There is no positive correlation between belief in God and being a moral person.
* Populations that are predominantly theistic are almost invariably poor and undereducated. The converse is almost invariably true of populations that are predominantly atheistic.
* Populations that are predominantly theistic almost invariably have higher general crime rates, higher violent crime rates, higher murder rates, higher infant mortality rates, more disease and starvation as well as inadequate healthcare. The converse is almost invariably true of populations that are predominantly atheistic.
* Belief in religion has spawned uncounted cults that draw people in by appealing to the concept of faith without proof and the promise of prophets to come. Some examples are: Jim Jones and the People's Temple, David Koresh and the Branch Davidians, Marshal Applewhite and Heaven's Gate. These groups had religious followers who were convinced to brutalize, mutilate and kill themselves and their children on the basis of this kind of blind faith.
* Religion has an extremely violent history that includes such things as crusades, inquisitions, witch hunts, genocide, terrorism and holy war. Untold millions have died in the name of religious icons and for religious beliefs.
* Religions have a long history of misogyny.
* Religion can be and has been used to support the concept of slavery.
* Religious dogma is practically immune to the incorporation of new facts. The best it can do is strained reinterpretation.
* The argument that God cannot be proven not to exist is irrelevant when one considers that to do so requires that the concept of a supernatural God be intelligible and coherent, which it is not.
* There is a well known argument commonly called "The Problem of Evil". It basically says that if an omnipotent and omni-benevolent God exists, unnecessary or gratuitous evil would not exist in the world. Thus if God sees this type of evil and does nothing he is either not omni-benevolent because he doesn't care or not omnipotent because he is unable to stop it. There are many counter-arguments that have been used. However the only one that really could defeat the Problem of Evil is if one says that we cannot apply human standards to decide what is or is not gratuitous evil. This may well be true, but that argument renders God unintelligible and meaningless to humans. Either way, the concept of God seems to be highly doubtful.
* Theists claim that God has given humans free will. However, this free will is anything but free. The choices are forced on pain of death and eternal suffering. It is equivalent to having a slave and saying something like: "I grant you your freedom to leave at any time. But if you do, I will torture you mercilessly and kill you as slowly as possible."
With many thanks to Mr Friday.
 
wicked people not in the book of life said:
* There is not one iota of unequivocal evidence that any God exists.
* God cannot explain all that exists because God itself cannot be explained. This claim just gratuitously swaps one mystery for another.
* Religions do not explain any mechanism or process whereby God created everything. It is effectively an appeal to magic.
* Religious faith is generally indistinguishable from gullibility. Trust and faith, as human concepts, are normally based on experience and reason. Religious faith is necessarily based on belief in unproven and unknowable things.
* A god or anything that exists outside the realm of natural reality is necessarily unknowable, unintelligible and incoherent. It is therefore irrational to believe in something that is supernatural.
* Religious scripture:
o is man-made
o contains many translation and interpretation errors
o is often self-contradictory
o often contradicts known facts
o promotes conversion by violence
o calls for punishment and death to unbelievers
o contains virtually no specific and unequivocal predictions
o contains only vague predictions beyond its own time
o contains many failed prophecies, predictions and unfulfilled promises of God
* Scripture contains too much that is vague, metaphorical and symbolic to be instructions from a divine being to humans. A perfect being would be expected to be able to communicate much better than that.
* In order to render most of scripture useful, it must necessarily be interpreted. This makes it easily twisted to support nefarious purposes.
* The problems with scriptures outweigh any good messages they may contain. If read at all, they should be considered opinion and philosophy and taken with a grain of salt.
* Morals are based on human sympathy and empathy, not on divine guidance. Establishing moral codes based on theism is unnecessary, riddled with contradictions, and fraught with danger.
* Religion is divisive in that it pits groups of otherwise indistinguishable people against one another. There are already more than enough differences for humans to fight over. And religion is the most intransigent of such divisions because many people feel it is a divine duty to revile those who believe differently than they do even if they don't see the reason in it.
* Religions are generally intractable when it comes to substantive compromise with other religions or belief systems.
* All suggested ways to perceive God rely on internal mechanisms that are subject to personal desires, suggestion, and mistakes. On the question of communicating with God, religion insidiously asks us all to deceive ourselves.
* People are animals. We are only special due to our more developed brain. (We share 98% of our DNA with chimpanzees)
* Abrahamic religions teach that the earth is only about 6000 to 10000 years old. All claims of a young earth are refuted by volumes of clear and mutually corroborating evidence in multiple scientific disciplines as well as a host of mutually confirming dating techniques that are not subjective or rationalized.
* Every culture that has existed has had God myths and other superstitions. This is often used as an argument for the existence of God. Rather than indicating that there is a true God, this indicates that people are simply attracted to the idea.
* Goodness, truth, wisdom and all other purported attributes of God are human concepts. When applied to a presumed entity so completely different in kind as to be supernatural, they are meaningless. The idea of God is thus incoherent.
* Infinity is a concept humans cannot comprehend except in a limited mathematical sense. If God is infinite, this also renders him unintelligible.
* Belief in an afterlife is insidious and detrimental to social responsibility and mental health. It demeans actual life and frequently leads to the notion that killing someone is, at least conceivably, doing them a favour.
* Organized religion wastes untold amounts of money and resources that could be used to care for people, promote real knowledge, and advance the human race.
* Theism puts God above people thereby making people subservient, unimportant and expendable.
* Religion relies on guilt, fear and outlandish promises to gain obedience.
* Theism generally precludes any possibility of testing God or questioning his existence substantively. It is something like the wizard of Oz saying, "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain."
* The methods used in proselytizing for religion bear an unmistakable resemblance to the methods of confidence men. But the scriptures consider this the great commission of mankind.
* There are many good rational and logical arguments against theism but not one argument in favour of it that doesn't rely on a fallacy or assumption.
* There are so many Gods put forth by thousands of religions that no one could ever be certain of picking the correct one, assuming that one exists.
* Prayer is totally subjective and cannot be shown to have any more efficacy than pure chance.
* There is no discernible difference between believing in God and having an imaginary friend.
* People generally rely on facts and evidence in every human endeavour except religion.
* Unequivocal miracles do not occur.
* God supposedly speaks directly to the human spirit. This must be, at least partly, the same concept as mind. People who receive messages in their minds are invariably delusional.
* There is no positive correlation between belief in God and being a moral person.
* Populations that are predominantly theistic are almost invariably poor and undereducated. The converse is almost invariably true of populations that are predominantly atheistic.
* Populations that are predominantly theistic almost invariably have higher general crime rates, higher violent crime rates, higher murder rates, higher infant mortality rates, more disease and starvation as well as inadequate healthcare. The converse is almost invariably true of populations that are predominantly atheistic.
* Belief in religion has spawned uncounted cults that draw people in by appealing to the concept of faith without proof and the promise of prophets to come. Some examples are: Jim Jones and the People's Temple, David Koresh and the Branch Davidians, Marshal Applewhite and Heaven's Gate. These groups had religious followers who were convinced to brutalize, mutilate and kill themselves and their children on the basis of this kind of blind faith.
* Religion has an extremely violent history that includes such things as crusades, inquisitions, witch hunts, genocide, terrorism and holy war. Untold millions have died in the name of religious icons and for religious beliefs.
* Religions have a long history of misogyny.
* Religion can be and has been used to support the concept of slavery.
* Religious dogma is practically immune to the incorporation of new facts. The best it can do is strained reinterpretation.
* The argument that God cannot be proven not to exist is irrelevant when one considers that to do so requires that the concept of a supernatural God be intelligible and coherent, which it is not.
* There is a well known argument commonly called "The Problem of Evil". It basically says that if an omnipotent and omni-benevolent God exists, unnecessary or gratuitous evil would not exist in the world. Thus if God sees this type of evil and does nothing he is either not omni-benevolent because he doesn't care or not omnipotent because he is unable to stop it. There are many counter-arguments that have been used. However the only one that really could defeat the Problem of Evil is if one says that we cannot apply human standards to decide what is or is not gratuitous evil. This may well be true, but that argument renders God unintelligible and meaningless to humans. Either way, the concept of God seems to be highly doubtful.
* Theists claim that God has given humans free will. However, this free will is anything but free. The choices are forced on pain of death and eternal suffering. It is equivalent to having a slave and saying something like: "I grant you your freedom to leave at any time. But if you do, I will torture you mercilessly and kill you as slowly as possible."

Can you print that and send it to me? I need toilet paper.
Crusader.jpg
 
James also stated "I'm not interested in your story of how you were raised an X (input religious affiliation here) by your parents, then you were baptised into the same faith when you came of age, or those kinds of stories. That's what is expected. I want to hear the unexpected." So that reply is irrelevant. The reason your religious is because of your parents.

Yes for your parents, but that is not relevant to the original questions asked. James did not want to know that.

Ok yet you still haven't answered the question. What exactly convinced you from science that god was correct?

Nearly yet you still haven't answered James' questions. and What convinced you that theism was correct?

This was written in 2008 by a member of another site it say it all.With many thanks to Mr Friday.



You are like a leach, Or you don't know what you want . Or you just like to BS
That is it . I asked you. why don't you dish out your self.
 
You are like a leach, Or you don't know what you want . Or you just like to BS
That is it . I asked you. why don't you dish out your self.

Arauca, it's not their fault that they have no heart and no soul. Atheists are lifeless lumps that think that asking questions is hard work. They don't care about religious experience because nothing is sacred to them. They are the soulless robots that they hope to invent. Atheists are lifeless globs of cells, they are philosophical zombies. They are to be pitied.
 
Interesting thread topic, James! :)

I'm always intrigued by what draws people to or away from spirituality and religion.

Hapsburg, your story is neat.
 
You are like a leach, Or you don't know what you want . Or you just like to BS
That is it . I asked you. why don't you dish out your self.
Why are you rude, there is no need for it and why did you reply to the thread in the first place if you are not prepared to answer James' questions.
 
Why are you rude, there is no need for it and why did you reply to the thread in the first place if you are not prepared to answer James' questions.

I am not rude I answered to you, but since you are part of the conversation , you should answer my question.
 
I am not rude I answered to you, but since you are part of the conversation , you should answer my question.

geeser answered that: James R constructed this like a test scenario, to collect the reasons people convert. So far it looks like we have only one data point, from Hapsburg:

Hapsburg said:
It wasn't until College that I began having mystical experiences and seriously became polytheistic

After all, this is a science board, and James R--even more than the average contributor--is fully capable of formulating a thoughtfully constructed OP.

It's a core question that gets thrown around recklessly in the other threads. Here we have a chance to treat it objectively, without the BS and polemics.

How many people actually convert from atheism (or another religion)? And why. That's the focus here, not the retreat to the polemic you're encouraging geeser to take.

Maybe Hapsburg will come back and explain what a mystical experience is. Sometimes these are drug induced, or caused by sleep deprivation (both common in college) or illness or injury. But normal healthy brains don't have mystical experiences under normal conditions. Of course the other thing worth noticing is that, other than Hapsburg, no one is yet offering any evidence that conversion from atheism is more than rare event. Conversion from other religions is another thing. I guess time will tell but I suspect there will be very few people who will be offering narratives similar to Hapsburg, and their reasons for converting remain to be seen.

Did you convert, arauca and if so, why? My guess is that you did.
 
The Beautiful Christian Song thread is about a conversion experience that goes on.
The description of conversion is captured in the second verse of the Gospel of Thomas

" THE GOSPEL OF THOMAS
http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/thomas.htm

1) And He said, "Whoever finds the interpretation of these
sayings will not experience death."

2) Jesus said, "Let him who seeks continue seeking until he
finds. When he finds, he will become troubled. When he becomes
troubled, he will be astonished, and he will rule over the All."
 
geeser answered that: James R constructed this like a test scenario, to collect the reasons people convert. So far it looks like we have only one data point, from Hapsburg:



After all, this is a science board, and James R--even more than the average contributor--is fully capable of formulating a thoughtfully constructed OP.

It's a core question that gets thrown around recklessly in the other threads. Here we have a chance to treat it objectively, without the BS and polemics.

How many people actually convert from atheism (or another religion)? And why. That's the focus here, not the retreat to the polemic you're encouraging geeser to take.

Maybe Hapsburg will come back and explain what a mystical experience is. Sometimes these are drug induced, or caused by sleep deprivation (both common in college) or illness or injury. But normal healthy brains don't have mystical experiences under normal conditions. Of course the other thing worth noticing is that, other than Hapsburg, no one is yet offering any evidence that conversion from atheism is more than rare event. Conversion from other religions is another thing. I guess time will tell but I suspect there will be very few people who will be offering narratives similar to Hapsburg, and their reasons for converting remain to be seen.

Did you convert, arauca and if so, why? My guess is that you did.

I was born into it. but at some point through my study I started to question . but as I looked more into chemistry and biology ,and my experience in my relation with God my faith was reinforced
 
Arauca, it's not their fault that they have no heart and no soul. Atheists are lifeless lumps that think that asking questions is hard work. They don't care about religious experience because nothing is sacred to them. They are the soulless robots that they hope to invent. Atheists are lifeless globs of cells, they are philosophical zombies. They are to be pitied.

I'd rather be a lifeless robot than a hateful little man like you.
 
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