I like to move forward as my eyes are in the front and my feet point that way.

Our Atheism is like Mathematics. Zero people who know 1+1+1=3 with absolute certainty would ever honestly change back to trinitarian = one lies. ....T.S. Eliot and C.S. Lewis are alleged former Atheists but both prostrated themselves to sell more books not true belief

I sometimes think it could happen to me. I should make a medical directive that i must have my tablet when they lock me in the psych ward. That's the only way it could possibly happen. Unless God talks to me. In that case, see above. Lol

Once you have had your eyes opened to the hate, rape, murder, and hypocrisy of religion, how could you close them again? Once you saw the abuse done in the name of the "GODS" how can you close them again? I just can not imagine....

Having grown up fundamentalist, I've seen a lot of people leave the church only to come back. After a few conversations with them, you realize that they just can't handle the changes. They find themselves lost and frightened and don't know how to cope with the new realities without their security blanket. It's a difficult transition to make, and for some, they just don't want to do it.

You can say yes or no nobody nos the future thats a fact

"Maybe--anything's possible"--but only because I can't predict the future.

I really (x1000) don't see myself picking up religion again, short of a stroke or TBI or something like that. Likewise for anyone who has really thought things through.

When I hear of that happening I suppose the person was never firm in their convictions in the first place and/or either suffered a serious brain trauma or mortality-evoking life event. And I don't castigate them, because for all I know the same might happen to me.

But I really, really doubt it.

I don't think they could go back to belief. I think they might just get lonely. One thing we lack is the community religious people have and we are very social creatures. I think they may say they believe again but inside I doubt they do.

This is a bit difficult to answer because it's difficult to know who's really Atheist and who's just really pissed off at God or the church they went to for years, or possibly with a pastor/preacher at the head for the moment.
The sad truth is that some people just need something to believe in and can't seem to get past the idea you can believe in yourself without falling into old religious ideas of it being sinful to think that highly of yourself.

I think it's possible to go back but not in an intellectually honest way. You would have to do some mental gymnastics to justify believing in something for which there is no evidence. Certainly some logical fallacies come into play.

It will never happen to me... until it happens.

God moves in mysterious ways?

I try not to judge. It is nice to think my father and grandparents, etc are in a wonderful place where they play baseball all day and listen to polka music.

I never was in but I wouldn't become religious.

What is interesting is that when I was a dogmatic Christian, I never saw myself as an agnostic in the future. However, now I am open-minded to where I may go back to Christianity for reasons unknown. It's similar to why I am agnostic and not atheist; who the hell knows what is discovered in the future? lol

Personally I'm not fond of the phrase "true atheist." Obviously it's not a specific doctirine so it's hard to say what it is vs what it isn't. It also sounds like the evangelical defense "Well you were never a true Christian" which bugs when they say that. I can imagine an atheist asking for evidence and receiving what they see as substantial evidence while never seeing anything rebutting said evidence. If you're born without belief then every Christian is a converted atheist as well. Maybe an overly credulous atheist but still technically a "true" one if they didn't believe before.

I can only speak for me-other than a family funeral no

I have said it before until there is a dead god dody laying at my feet I will never be convinced.

Knowing what I know now I could never go back to a religion. It's like going back to believing in Santa Claus at my age. And I've never known a true atheist and when I say true atheist I mean someone that isn't just mad at God, go back to religion.