Pretty sure that's half the board, and the other half is cradle.
How many of you are converts?
Jordan Nelson
Jason Russell
I was a convert, but that was in my teens years ago. You may as well call me a "native".
Jace Perez
I was raised by two atheist parents. They weren't like, fedora atheists though - one time I did catch my mum reading The God Delusion so maybe there was a slight fedora tendency there. I found god in my mid-twenties after losing all hope in the world. Looking back now, I struggle to understand how I didn't just kill myself. The life of an atheist is an incredibly depressing one and you spend your day dodging big questions and perusing vice to distract you from your own mortality. Call it all one big cope; but when you have to choose between hopelessness and hope, the choice seems quite clear. I found Pascal to be a real help in organising my thoughts. I feel that for the first time ever I have life in me.
Connor Smith
My mother's family is Catholic. My father's family is Methodist. I grew up in both churches. I was baptised Methodist, confirmed Catholic. I broke away from the Methodist church when the old minister retired and they hired a woman. Not that I have anything against women, mind you, but a woman preacher? That dog don't hunt.
Lincoln Fisher
I was a Hindu before calling the name of Jesus to save me.
Asher Turner
I was practically born into it, even though my family went later to follow a more spiritism path. I did catechism in my teenage years, though I lived most of my post puberty life as a filthy atheist and degenerate. Though finally I've seen the errors of my ways, and heard the calling of the church last year, so in some way I also consider myself a convert.
Connor King
I feel alot of anons here are converts, myself included, overall though I'd say through the entire world converts are probably less common
James Jones
My paternal grandparents were Catholic, and my grandfather slapped me once and they had my rapt attention ever after. My Dad had rejected religion, but my grandmother fed me a communion wafer (I wasn't even baptised) and the terror I felt around them made me associate Christianity the sacred.
My Mom taught me a prayer, and explained Christianity to me from the perspective of an Atheist via a childrens' Bible that my half-brother sent me. Said half-brother proceeded to try to convert me when he baby-sat me several times.
In 2015, my life fell apart from drug abuse, and the visions I got drove me to various strains of religious mania. I was emailing my grandmother, and I came to see my violent, drug-abusing atheist parents as the source of all my problems. I was also an atheist, and it became obvious to me that atheism = drug abuse = masturbation = misery.
These dots became connected, and suddenly I saw that God had always been trying to reach me. God didn't touch me through Buddhism, Islam or Paganism - I never called any Bhikkhus, despite 15 years of private involvement with Buddhism and professing to be Buddhist, and Satanism lead to me cut myself with knifes.
Joseph Morgan
Well, that is the default way things play out of course (inheriting our world views from our parents), and God doesn't penalise people for not having been exposed to the true gospel, it's only a problem if people willingly turn away from it once it is revealed to them. If a person actively decides to search for 'the one true religion' later in life for whatever reason however, Christianity does still present a compelling case for any critical neutral observer legitimately looking for the truth, even if some of its followers were lucky enough to just get dumped into it without thinking about it by default. Starting with its sound roots in ancient Judaism:
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then subsequently building up to the reliability of the NT:
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and why christianity makes the most sense philosophically:
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youtube.com
That was basically my trajectory for becoming Orthodox after I rejected the atheism I was raised with.
Parker Price
From cradle lukewarm Methodist to edgey nihilist/satanist to Orthodox convert here. Had my eyes opened on 4pol of all places - been a long road but it's worth it.