This is a list of people who accepted atheism for a time and then abandoned it in favor of a different philosophical position.

Converts to Christianity

• Steve Beren - Former member of the Socialist Workers Party (United States) who became a Christian conservative politician.^[1]
• Anders Borg - Sweden's Minister for Finance.^[2]
• Francis Collins - Geneticist who was an atheist until age 27, but then converted to Christianity.^[3]
• Joy Gresham - Poet and wife of C. S. Lewis.^[4]
• Anna Haycraft - Raised in Auguste Comte's atheistic "church of humanity", but became a conservative Catholic in adulthood.^[5]
• Ignace Lepp - French psychiatrist whose parents were freethinkers and who joined the Communist party at age fifteen. He broke with the party in 1937 and eventually became a Catholic priest.^[6]
• Félix Leseur - Doctor turned priest. His conversion, in part, came by efforts of his wife who was declared a Servant of God by the Catholic Church.^[7]
• C. S. Lewis - writer who became an atheist as a young man but returned to Christianity and wrote many books about his faith.^[8]
• Alister McGrath - Biochemist and Christian theologian. Founder of 'Scientific theology' and critic of Richard Dawkins in books like Dawkins' God: Genes, Memes, and the Meaning of Life and The Dawkins Delusion?.^[9][10]
• William J. Murray - Son of Madalyn Murray O'Hair who became a Born again preacher.^[11]
• Enoch Powell - Conservative Party (UK) member who converted to Anglicanism.^[12]
• George R. Price - Geneticist who became an Evangelical Christian and wrote about the New Testament. Later he became a more conventional Christian and switched from religious writing to working with the homeless.^[13][14]
• Dame Cicely Saunders - Templeton Prize and Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize winning nurse known for palliative care. She converted to Christianity as a young woman.^[15]
• Edith Stein - Phenomenologist philosopher who converted to Catholicism and became a Discalced Carmelite nun; declared a saint by John Paul II.^[16]
• Peter Steele - Lead singer of Type O Negative.^[17]
• Fay Weldon - British novelist and feminist.^[18]
• John C. Wright - Science fiction author.^[19]

See also: List of notable people who converted to Christianity from agnosticism or atheism

Converts to Islam

• Jeffrey Lang - Mathematician who adopted atheism at 18, but is now Muslim.^[20]

Converts to Judaism

• Will Herberg - A posthumous collection of his writing is From Marxism to Judaism^[21]
• Mary Doria Russell - An author who'd been baptized Catholic before being atheist for 20 years.^[22]

Converts to non-Abrahamic religions

Note: This section refers to those who left atheism in favor of a non-Abrahamic religion that requires some form of theism. This primarily means Hinduism.

• John Dobson - Atheist who joined the Hindu Vedanta Society.^[23]

Other Ex-atheists

• Antony Flew - Became a non-religious deist.^[24]
• Moses Hess - Socialist philosopher and Left Hegelian who first influenced Karl Marx in his criticism of religion, but who later tried to combine the pantheism of Baruch Spinoza with Hegelianism.^[25]
• Richard Rorty, (1931–2007): American philosopher associated with Pragmatism and Postanalytic Philosophy. He said in his acceptance speech for the Meister Eckhart Prize that he no longer identifies as an atheist.^[26][27]
• J. Neil Schulman - Libertarian science fiction writer who states he met, or experienced, God and that this ended his atheism. The first such experience would have occurred when he was 35. That stated he remains skeptical of "the church" and does not belong to any religion.^[28]
• Dave Sim - Comics writer and anti-feminist. He converted to, or created, his own mixture of Abrahamic religions.^[29][30]
• Max Cavalera - lead singer of Soulfly. Became a believer in God and an admirer of Jesus Christ but doesn't pratice any kind of religion.

See also

• List of former Muslims
• List of former Protestants
• List of former Roman Catholics
• Former Latter-day Saints
• List of former Christians

References