A Thought on Atheists Returning to the Faith

Yesterday, I came across the YouTube channel of a young Irish man who is a recent convert to Catholicism from atheism. (Not a revert, as he was raised atheist.) He gives an account of his journey from New Atheism below.

https://youtu.be/Kyu3kqqXGxk?si=HT55XLM_qvr8fHcc

This has become a rather common phenomenon. I've ceased to be surprised at stories of young men (and others, such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali) who have gone from New Atheism to believer.

Of course, I'm delighted at this phenomenon. But I'm surprised that evidence rarely seems to be the main consideration. In fact, most of these converts are quite explicit that they left atheism, and particularly New Atheism, because it was emotionally unsatisfying, or because it gave their life no meaning, or because it proved helpless against various cultural menaces such as woke.

I feel a sense of bemusement at this. I can vividly remember the high tide of New Atheism. The battle was entirely fought along the front of evidence. Where is the hard evidence? Extraordinary claims demanded extraordinary evidence. Why should I believe in Christ rather than Thor or Osiris? We must follow truth wherever it leads. Those of who took it upon ourselves to defend Christianity accepted these terms.

Now, it seems, it wasn't really about hard evidence at all. I'm not criticizing anybody for that. It makes perfect sense to me that the existential questions would come first. But it shows how misleading rhetoric can be.

(I should say, incidentally, that the video above may not be a good example of this. I see, on this chap's YouTube channel, that he has a lot of videos about philosophy and he seems very thoughtful indeed. Doubtless he was just giving a simplified account in this case because he only had a few minutes. But I think it's generally true.)

Something similar has happened with regard to politics. Twenty years ago, a young person who took an interest in politics, and who wasn't on the left, was most likely to be a libertarian. "What right has anyone to tell anyone else what they should or shouldn't do, if they're not harming anyone else?" That was their great standard. I found it hard to answer that question then, as I do now, even though I'm not a libertarian.

And yet many of the former libertarians have now become social conservatives, nationalists, or communitarians of some kind. Their rationale is generally something like: "I realized libertarianism couldn't prevent the bad social and cultural changes that were happening" But that's not really an answer to their question.