My best friend in high school. Suddenly fell in love with a Mormon girl. I'm fairly certain they practice "flirty fishing" at any rate he fell so quickly and so deep into it I could barely tell what happened. Before I knew it he was constantly criticizing and condescending to me about every little aspect of my life. He had already had a "holier than thou" quirk about his personality but this had made it exponentially worse. This went on for some time until I told him I was going to try and figure out how to get him out of his cult. We did not talk after that.

This is a little tricky, because a lot of now-devout religious people claim they were atheist or agnostic before seeing the proverbial light. The problem, though, is that when pressed on the issue you're likely to find that what they really mean is that they never gave much thought to belief and just weren't actively following a particular religion. I suppose in a very general sense that qualifies, but it's hard to take that seriously because it's not a position they came to through reason so much as a topic they had no opinion on. And, of course, there are those who lie outright about being formerly atheist because they think that bolsters their theistic conversion story.

Another case is Francis S. Collins, a physician-geneticist, that led the Human Genome Project, no less. He wrote "The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief" after his conversion.

I don't personally know anyone but one historical case would be C.S. Lewis who started out an atheist but later became a Christian. Or maybe that was J.R.R. Tolkien. I know they were friends and that C.S. Lewis was Christian late in life but I'm not 100% sure that he converted or if he convinced Tolkien to convert.

People can absolutely be brainwashed at any age, particularly the elderly can be susceptible given the endless stream of misinformation coming out of religious indoctrination on radio and television. Open minded people can be transformed into fear mongering jerks by watching too much fox news. These media outlets prey on the elderly as they are often more likely to feel isolated and underappreciated.

I have some good friends (who are now married) who were the least-religious people I know. When their second child was born he was diagnosed as autistic at quite an early age. My opinion is that they found religion (and associated support) as a coping mechanism. They've since moved on to run Alpha courses (in the UK) to help spread the word. They know where they stand with me, and we remain friends; we have sensible conversations and we don't try and convert each other - I think our friendship (thankfully) transcends that!

I'm not the judgemental type and if their new-found faith helps them get through their inevitably-tough lives then I wish them all the best.

Several people previously have said that folks they know that became religious weren’t really atheist but instead they just weren’t active Christians. That is the experience I’ve had. I’m sure there are people that have gone from atheism to religion but I haven’t experienced that. The folks that I have talked to believed in the supernatural and in a god but then they get very religious and then think they have found GOD for the first time. They now have a personal relationship, they are born again and you know! I’ve thought about this and it isn’t the true Scotsman fallacy because these people somehow reason in their own minds that just believing in a god is equivalent to being an atheist and then truly finding him and getting that feel-good experience magically turns them into CHRISTIANS.

I have never known of such a person. Christians who claim this have never come up with an honest answer to this because religion breeds not only insincerity but liars.

Yeah, ever Christian I talk to says " I used to be an Atheist...." I'm sure some have, but 90% of Christians that claim to have been an atheist, were just not uber religious but still believed in God, I suspect. I have a hard time seeing someone who sees the issues of being a believer saying well even though I know these problems with the Bible being chalk full of immoral crap, full of unscientific nonsense, and full of contradictions, then turning around and saying but I see the light, and I believe.

Don't know of such a 'thinking' person that has turned to religious fiction!

Not to my knowledge. More people are questioning religions because of what is going on in the world now more so than ever.

It would depend. A gnostic atheist such as myself would not likely convert to any religion but an agnostic (a)theist who is not familiar with formal logic or why logical fallacies and word games are not evidence would not be inconceivable in their conversion. Moreover, many are only aware of bland, cultural notions of any of the deities without ever having actually studied the texts, languages, cultures, and histories involved. They're given a very white washed version and don't have enough understanding about how a cult works to know what they're signing up for. I'm sure plenty of people who know nothing are converted. And then there are those who are already in the religion who "convert" either to another sect (as though that makes a difference) or some other bullshit about not having been "Christian ENOUGH".

I have a few family members who claim to be former atheists. To a one, "atheist" to them means, "didn't really find a Christian church I liked so I didn't go to church for a while."

Lots of them here in the Philippines, the world's gossip central. It's kinda big business here, you know

I can relate to that. I grew up in an environment where everyone was encouraged to be an atheist and worship nothing (except for our own government). So later in adulthood when I was exposed to Christianity, I became curious and started reading the bible and going to church. I thought I was a Christian for a few years until I realized that my questions were still unanswered and I needed to continue with my search for truth. While I stopped going to church, I have to say the majority of the Christians I knew back then were happy and kind people, one of the reasons I was drawn to church I guess. My experience there was also mostly positive as the religion was not forced upon me and I chose to get to know it better. I don't think I was ever a true atheist or Christian. I consider myself spiritual in the sense that I think our five senses are limited and I believe there are beings and worlds other than the physical ones we can see.

I've seen people declare this on another forum I'm on, but I don't know if it's really true, or if they're just trying to flame the thread by saying it.

I knew a guy who was a Christian, became an atheist, and then went back to being a Christian. He went through a series of hard-core reality moments where he felt that God abandoned him, only to discover that there wasn't a god there in the first place to take care of him. But eventually, he couldn't live with that, and decided that this was just God's plan for his life and that he would submit to it.

I think that they are called 'born-again', seems like it's usually prisoners, especially those on death row that suddenly 'find god'.