People who become megachurch pastors can't be genuine converts from atheism? Read his story for yourself. Contact him through his website if you want to assess his motives.
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C.S. Lewis described himself as "the most reluctant convert" to theism of anyone in history. He was an Oxford don who became one of the greatest Christian writers and apologists of the 20th century. Flew was a celebrated debater favoring atheism until his conversion to theism, which he said was based on the findings of science regarding the complexity of life.
Read or listen to their own accounts and draw your own conclusions.
Let me say that I'm sure there are plenty of people who go from theism to atheism for reasons many of us would consider totally legit. Anyone can have a change of heart and I think we're all entitled to that. All XJWs should certainly know that one.
But there are also evangelical people who make this claim and who seem...disingenuine at times. At least to atheists. Many atheists have been confronted by an evangelist or two who seemed determined to make converts by any means necessary. Even lying. Sometimes they say things like, "Yeah, I used to be an atheist. My life was a horrible lie and I was terrible person. Just like you. Then I accepted God into my heart and now everything is just skippy. Maybe you should give it a try instead of wallowing in your shallow misery. Jesus loves you, you know, and so do I."
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It's hard not to roll your eyes at people who say crap like this. Its not only offensive, it's also clear just how clueless such a person is.
Experiences like these make atheists a little suspicious when we hear people make the "I was an athesit too" claim. I think most atheists, like myself, know that such conversions can happen. It's not as if we're all too proud to conceive of such a thing. It's just that people making the claim often do so dishonestly. Not always, but often. So as soon as someone tells us this, some of us start paying close attention to see if their claim appears genuine.
In other words, I hope you won't take it too personally when an atheist treats these claims with suspicion. Especially if there's a good reason to do so.
With regard to C.S. Lewis and Anthony Flew, there are good reasons to think that Anony Mous's claims about each of them have at least som merit. C.S. Lewis seems far too clueless about atheists or atheism to have ever been much of a nonbeliever. His writing seems ill informed and even deliberately offensive to athests at times. He is the classic "I was an atheist too but then I became a good person" kinda guy. His writing about atheists seems more like pandering to fundamentalists who dislike us. Kinda like the Watchtower's writing on atheists has often been.
Several of Anthony Flew's friends have gone public and said he's going senile. I even read a few interviews at the time where the ones doing the interview were saddened by what they perceived as his slipping mental state. I have no idea if those writers were atheists with an axe to grind or not. These claims about Flew might be false, but they are out there. BTW, many made a big deal out of his conversion to deism (not theism AFAIK, but to deism, which is different) at the time as if it was a huge blow to atheists. Yet many of us had never even heard of Anthony Flew before this story went out. I certainly hadn't. His time was long before my time. So most us just kinda shrugged at the whole thing.
I know nothing about Strobel. But I don't think it's unreasonable to raise eyebrows at a guy who went from atheist to mega-church creator. That doesn't mean it can't happen and be genuine. But I think we can all admit that his story is a tiny bit fishy. I think most people would want to hear more before they took his claims at face value. Or at least I'd say that based on what I just read here.
None of this means that conversion from atheism can't happen. I'm sure it can. But I certainly don't believe every story I hear either.
