{"id":64,"date":"2009-03-24T15:37:25","date_gmt":"2009-03-24T15:37:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/flirtingwithfaith\/2009\/03\/is-conversion-possible.html"},"modified":"2009-03-24T15:37:25","modified_gmt":"2009-03-24T15:37:25","slug":"is-conversion-possible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/2009\/03\/is-conversion-possible.html","title":{"rendered":"Is Conversion Possible?"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

In his comment on yesterday’s “I Was Never a Real Atheist”<\/a> post, Nick commented:<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

“While I agree that the ‘Geek Squad guy’ was mistaken in his assumption that you were never an atheist, it’s also the case that many former Christians, now atheists, are repeatedly assured that they were ‘never true Christians’… or worse, that there is no such thing as an atheist. Both views are wrong – if someone says they never believed and now do, or vice versa, that should be taken on face value.
\nSome people simply refuse to believe that conversion, in either direction, is possible, and that perhaps the person was not really as committed to faith\/atheism as they claim. On the other hand, some will use their conversion (again, either direction) as a banner under which the can say they have ‘found the truth’.”<\/span><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n


<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

What is it about conversion – in either direction – that sometimes makes people on both sides of the faith\/no faith conversation uncomfortable? \u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n

<\/span>Some people simply refuse to believe that conversion, in either direction, is possible, and that perhaps the person was not really as committed t
<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In his comment on yesterday’s “I Was Never a Real Atheist” post, Nick commented: “While I agree that the ‘Geek Squad guy’ was mistaken in his assumption that you were never an atheist, it’s also the case that many former Christians, now atheists, are repeatedly assured that they were ‘never true Christians’… or worse, that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spiritual-growth"],"yoast_head":"\nIs Conversion Possible? - Flirting with Faith<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/2009\/03\/is-conversion-possible.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Is Conversion Possible? - Flirting with Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In his comment on yesterday’s “I Was Never a Real Atheist” post, Nick commented: “While I agree that the ‘Geek Squad guy’ was mistaken in his assumption that you were never an atheist, it’s also the case that many former Christians, now atheists, are repeatedly assured that they were ‘never true Christians’… or worse, that…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/2009\/03\/is-conversion-possible.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Flirting with Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-03-24T15:37:25+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Joan Ball\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Is Conversion Possible? - Flirting with Faith","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/2009\/03\/is-conversion-possible.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Is Conversion Possible? - Flirting with Faith","og_description":"In his comment on yesterday’s “I Was Never a Real Atheist” post, Nick commented: “While I agree that the ‘Geek Squad guy’ was mistaken in his assumption that you were never an atheist, it’s also the case that many former Christians, now atheists, are repeatedly assured that they were ‘never true Christians’… or worse, that…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/2009\/03\/is-conversion-possible.html","og_site_name":"Flirting with Faith","article_published_time":"2009-03-24T15:37:25+00:00","author":"Joan Ball","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/2009\/03\/is-conversion-possible.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/2009\/03\/is-conversion-possible.html","name":"Is Conversion Possible? - Flirting with Faith","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-03-24T15:37:25+00:00","dateModified":"2009-03-24T15:37:25+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/#\/schema\/person\/581859119d5895db46006b4beb0c1f27"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/2009\/03\/is-conversion-possible.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/2009\/03\/is-conversion-possible.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/2009\/03\/is-conversion-possible.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Is Conversion Possible?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/","name":"Flirting with Faith","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Joan Ball","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/#\/schema\/person\/581859119d5895db46006b4beb0c1f27","name":"Joan Ball","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/6b5\/6b5b96362ce68b986f37a822881ca1f5x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/6b5\/6b5b96362ce68b986f37a822881ca1f5x96.jpg","caption":"Joan Ball"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/author\/jball"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}