Atheists doubting the validity of atheism

Jean-Paul Sartre

Notable professing atheists have had the characteristic of variability and instability when it came to maintaining thoughts in accordance with atheism. For example, Jean-Paul Sartre was one of the leading proponents of atheism of the 20th Century. Yet Jean-Paul Sartre made this candid confession:

“

As for me, I don’t see myself as so much dust that has appeared in the world but as a being that was expected, prefigured, called forth. In short, as a being that could, it seems, come only from a creator; and this idea of a creating hand that created me refers me back to God. Naturally this is not a clear, exact idea that I set in motion every time I think of myself. It contradicts many of my other ideas; but it is there, floating vaguely. And when I think of myself I often think rather in this way, for wont of being able to think otherwise.

”

Atheist PZ Myers dreamt about dying and standing before the pearly gates of heaven

See also: Atheism and death anxiety

On April 2, 2012, Science Daily reported that Death anxiety increases atheists' unconscious belief in God. In a 2012 Psychology Today article, Dr. Nathan A. Heflick reported similar results in other studies.

On October 22, 2014, the atheist PZ Myers bolstered the case that atheists have an unconscious belief that God exists. Myers wrote in a Pharyngula blog post: "I woke up from a dream a little too early this morning. I dreamt that I had died and gone to a cliché. That’s right, I was standing before the Pearly Gates…"

It is evident that Myers has no intellectual/evidential justification for the non-existence of God. For example, when the evangelist Ray Comfort asked Myers why he is an atheist Myers gave the illogical, circular argument response of: "Why am I an atheist? Because there is no God".

There have been no reports of theologians or creation scientists having dreams that atheism is true.

Richard Dawkins and agnosticism and atheism

The agnostic Richard Dawkins has publicly flip-flops between the positions of agnosticism, atheism and militant atheism (see: Richard Dawkins and agnosticism).

Leonid Brezhnev

In his nuclear arms negotiations with President Jimmy Carter, the atheist Leonid Brezhnev said, "God will never forgive us if we don't succeed."

Gary Thomas wrote in Christianity Today As Vice President, George Bush represented the U.S. at the funeral of former Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. Bush was deeply moved by a silent protest carried out by Brezhnev's widow. She stood motionless by the coffin until seconds before it was closed. Then, just as the soldiers touched the lid, Brezhnev's wife performed an act of great courage and hope, a gesture that must surely rank as one of the most profound acts of civil disobedience ever committed: She reached down and made the sign of the cross on her husband's chest. There in the citadel of secular, atheistic power, the wife of the man who had run it all hoped that her husband was wrong. She hoped that there was another life, and that that life was best represented by Jesus who died on the cross, and that the same Jesus might yet have mercy on her husband.}}

Atheism has a lower retention rate compared to other worldviews

See also: Atheism has a lower retention rate compared to other worldviews

According to recent research by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, in the United States, a majority of those surveyed who were raised in atheist or agnostic households, or where there was no specific religious attachment, later chose to join a religious faith. A notable example of a person raised in a atheistic household who later became a Christian is William J. Murray. Mr. Murray is the son of the late atheist Madalyn Murray O'Hair who founded the organization American Atheists. In 1982, William J. Murray founded the Religious Freedom Coalition.

In addition, in atheistic Communist China, Christianity is experiencing explosive growth. On July 3, 2005, the New York Times reported concerning many countries in the former Soviet Union: "A return to religion in Romania and the region's other formerly Communist countries has in many places outrun the speed at which the church can screen and train clergy..."

See also

• Resources for leaving atheism and becoming a Christian
• Evidence for Christianity
• Atheist factions
• Decline of atheism
• Atheists have low retention rate compared to other worldviews
• Attempts to dilute the definition of atheism
• The question atheists fear
• Atheist restaurant - satire
• There Are No Atheists In Foxholes
• Atheism and cowardice