What’s really behind this atheist’s conversion to Catholicism?.

A friend and reader (TY, Sue) brought to my attention the matter of Leah Libresco, a twenty-four year old prominent atheist blogger for Pathoes and the Huffington Post who has announced she decided to become Christian   And not just Christian, but is converting to Catholicism - arguably the sect most ensconced in extreme supernaturalism.  It seems she claims to have succumbed to Christian arguments about morality being God given and decided there must be a god. Naturally, the religious community is rejoicing. "Heaven is roaring its approval'" exclaimed one sheeple.  Story here:   http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/06/22/prominent-atheist-blogger-converts-to-catholicism/

Her more detailed explanation sounds much like convoluted Chopra-esque double-speak: random words thrown together into indecipherable gobbeldy-gook that she is probably  very proud of. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/unequallyyoked/2012/06/this-is-my-last-post-for-the-patheos-atheist-portal.html

  

Conversions of the faithful from belief to atheism/agnosticism  are common, happening by the thousands every day.  But an atheist conversion to religiosity, a person of reason who presumably respects evidence, science, and modernity and is immersed in secular readings and education is rarer than an uncircumcised Jew.  People of reason don’t commonly succumb to delusion and ignorance and just abandon reason because of hackneyed argument proffered by a religionist in debate that has been blunted and refuted ad nauseum. 

The few atheist conversions to the dark side of belief I’ve heard of are rather famous.  CS Lewis, the author and Xtian apologist claimed to have been an atheist who found Jesus. Problem is, as I discussed in The Atheist Camel Chronicles, he was 15 years old when he came to Jesus, and said he was an atheist because he was “angry at God.”  It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that being fifteen and “angry at god” (an oxymoron for a genuine atheist) does not an atheist make.

Another famous, and presumably genuine, atheist convert is  Dr. Francis Collins, the head of the Human Genome Project, who says he was an atheist while a graduate student, but then was asked by a patient what he believes in, causing him to examine the existence of god. (that’s the short story).  He was also swayed by CS Lewis’ insipid (oops sorry), by CS Lewis’ apologetic arguments for the existence of god. While he embraces the concept of a supernatural being, he rejects young earth and creationism (pick and choose religionist).

Collins has deluded himself so effectively that he has created a unique comfy little zone that allows him to accommodate non-evidence supported supernatural belief and yet still practice the objective evidence driven demands of genuine science..  He does it brilliantly. He has convinced himself that his work in deciphering the human genome is deciphering the language of god.  Thus, he is an anomaly among his peers in the hard sciences whose work and discoveries have lead well over 90% of them away from belief and firmly planted in the reality of atheism/agnosticism.  

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When I consider these examples the concept of my chucking rational thought and respect for reason out the window, and dropping back to medieval non-think isn’t something I can even fathom.  It would be akin to my suddenly rejecting everything I know about the universe and embracing the geocentric model of the solar system.  Or waking up one day and having the epiphany that the rainbow isn’t just refracted sunlight passing through water droplets...it’s REALLY god’s reaffirmation to me personally that he won’t be pulling another one of his famously murderous great floods.

So what to make of this?  What’s behind this young atheist blogger’s sudden belief that eating a magical wafer and drinking wine is cannibalizing the actual body and blood of a 2000 year old dead man-god?  That a demon can infest ones body? That dead things spontaneously come to life; that virgins give birth; that hundreds of saints are standing by to act as a conduit for your prayers to god; and that telepathically telling this being you accept him as your master will give you eternal life in heaven after you become worm chow?  In my opinion, and by my experience, there are at least four possible explanations for this girl’s sudden abandonment of  reason:

1.  She harbored but suppressed the culturally induced beliefs of her parents and boyfriend (a Catholic by the way)  all along, perhaps unconsciously;  and now feels left out and  yearning to be embraced by the community and receive the nurturing she see’s in church centered religious life.
2.  She is an immature girl who has succumbed to the pressures of her boyfriend and his Catholic circle of friends and is experiencing the equivalent of the Stockholm syndrome.
3. She is suffering from a mental imbalance or undetected brain tumor.
4. She is pulling a world class poe; will eventually out herself, laugh at how everyone   fell for her gag; and make quite a few thousand dollars from a tell all book.

If it’s one or two... she’ll be back to reason eventually.
If it’s three... sorry, get well soon..

If it’s the last, she had better be prepared for a major backlash from the media.  They hate being fooled.  Trust me...I know.