Temy's site, http://members.tripod.com/~AtheistEvangelist666/debate1.html contains an account of an atheist converting to Christianity. I remarked that the person involved was an atheist but not a skeptic.

Today's LA Times Magazine contains another atheist conversion - this time a young woman raised a modern more or less secular Jew who became Orthodox and has just entered into an Orthodox marriage. http://www.latimes.com/news/timesmag/20000610/t000055180.html

In this heart-warming story, "What's a Nice Cosmo Girl Like You ...Doing With an Orthodox Husband?" by Andrea Heiman, Andrea describes how she achieved her dream job in journalism at age 25, but things were so empty until she started studying the Torah.

Andrea actually joined American Atheists when she was 16. But when she lived in Beverly Hills, she consulted a palm reader, Tarot cards, a psychic, and believed in "spirituality", just not in religion. Then she went to an Orthodox gathering to meet boys, and came under the spell of a rabbi, started taking classes, moved to Israel, and married someone selected for her by a teacher.

Once again, this person was (at least at age 16) an atheist as far as religious beliefs, but not a skeptic or a critical thinker.

But the most important part of her conversion seems to have been that she met a group of people who seemed to be living a good life, and wanted to join in. She doesn't talk about seeing god or feeling the spirit of god, although that might just have been an editorial decision.

Just more food for thought

-- Anonymous, June 11, 2000