atheist-outreachThe question is in the title.
Nice stories about conversions are also welcome.
If you want stories like this, watch the 700 Club. I don’t mean that as flipantly as you might think. I watched these with morbid curiousity for a long time and have since heard other sources, but they are all the same.
The basic storyline is; A possible beginning in a faith community as a youth, a fall from it or some other choice to change environments, often this involves drugs or something “evil”, some event or vision brings them back to faith. Some start in the bad environment, but the endings are always the same.
Events can be dramatic such as a near death experience with a visit from a diety or something less ethereal such as a person of faith lending a helping hand and being compassionate.
Visions can be magical such as seeing a crying statue or just a certain glow on an evening walk in the park. Francis Collins saw three huge icicles while on a hike and concluded that the trinity is real, go figure.
I don’t think I have ever heard someone tell a story of researching and logically concluding that a specific religion is the right one that it will lead them to fruitfulness while alive and/or afterwards. The closest might be some Buddhists, based on the results that they get from the practices of meditation and mindfulness. But that would be the non-God type of Buddhism, so it doesn’t really count for your question.
Since we’re all born atheists, I supposed that those who end up believing in gods do so largely as a result of social indoctrination. Likely almost everyone they knew in their young life believed in gods, so they came to the conclusion that the god(s) their family and friends worship must be real.
I suppose there are people who are either raised without belief, or who reject belief as teens or adults, who later change their mind. I don’t know anyone personally who has gone through this, but I suspect it generally happens as a result of a personal experience that “convinces” the atheist that one or more gods exist.
Such a change in belief is likely to be a highly personal thing, and not something one can make many general statements about.
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