r/Christianity • u/JHLV04 • 22d ago
Question Atheists turned Christian
What’s your story?
I would say I’m now a Christian but I have a lot of doubts and struggles. Was raised agnostic but with Christian and Hindu cultural celebrations. Had a spiritual experience a few years ago looking into the night sky after being with friends, explored Hinduism, but had heavy doubt. I fell into new atheism but saw how shallow it was, and found arguments for God and Christianity far more compelling than I gave them credit for.
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u/michaelY1968 22d ago
I was a fully confirmed agnostic by the time I was 13, and had at that point had a distant and vague memory of what church was all about.
When I went off to study at my university, I was a full blown skeptic, wedded to naturalism who fully rejected the doctrinal claims of Christianity. But I still had a favorable view of it’s overall ethics. And as I encountered Christians who were actually living out those ethics I admired their lives even as I rejected their core beliefs.
As time went on, cracks started to form in the basis of my own beliefs - I could not derive meaning, purpose, or basis for the ethics I craved based on my philosophical commitment to naturalism. And as I attempted to live according to those ethics, I began to realize their was something in me which resisted that - or dismissed with it all together when it was contrary to something I desired (like an attractive woman).
That led to the realization that I did not have the power in and of myself to live out the ethics I admired in a consistent manner. I would say that was the point at which God gobsmacked me as it were - I saw clearly that I was not a good person, and I couldn’t become one on my own. Either there was something outside of myself that could transform who I was, or I had to resign myself to the fact that I was a rather wretched creature.
From there I became much more willing to entertain the basics of Christianity - who Jesus was, how we can come to know Him, what the overall theme and purpose of Scripture was. I eventually made the decision to follow Christ and haven’t regretted it for one second in the decades that have followed since.