All true. Though I know of such an atheist-turn-theist that is quite well adjusted and content. His conversion made me question what belief actually is and how humans go about believing things. As far as I can tell, belief is not a choice. I'd like to think it's rather a predisposition.
here is an interesting story in a book by a guy that preached with billy graham and after looking at the evidence gave it all up: http://www.amazon.com/Farewell-God-Reasons-Rejecting-Christian/dp/0771085087
Over time, for one reason or another, people change some of their their beliefs. Some believed in Santa Claus until they didn't. Others believed that their parents were always right, until they didn't. Yet others may have believed that Suzie Q. was the only girl in the whole wide world for them, until they didn't. And so on.
Is it possible for God to exist and not exist, at the same time? If one subscribes to the notion that there are multiple universe's and multiple deminsions, then that may be a possibility. Is it not possible that life forms like ourselves drift between these universes, all based on some arbitrary set of circumstances? Or perhaps it's not so arbitrary. If one believes in evolution, is it not plausible to believe that beings such as ourselves grow/evolve in to these other universe's? Maybe we're far enough along not to need a God, or maybe we're not yet far enough along to accept a God. How do we determine our spot on the evolutionary scale? Technology? Then we are well along the way, and there is no need for a God. Social interaction between ourselves? Then we're barely out of the cave, as is evidenced by how kill each other over the most trivial of matters, religous beliefs being a prime example. I would think, and it's only an opinion, that the more advanced people would have more humility than pride. More selflessness than ego. Technological advancement is not a determining factor, unless you choose it to be. The camp that you fall in to will determine whether you can know a God or not. Neither is good, nor bad. It's not pass/fail. It's simply evolution.
"Is it possible for God to exist and not exist, at the same time?" Of course. God exists, God exists in the mind of theists, and God does not exist in the minds of atheists...all at the same time. God cannot not exist, simply because God is existence itself. God is totality, where that totality is fullness or emptiness, absolute or relative, black or white, all numbers or no numbers...there is always a totality, and Totality is God. The Totality includes both existing and not existing at the same time, which is easy because God is not bound by the rules of time and space. Can God create a stone so heavy he can't lift it? Sure. And He can lift it at the same time He can't lift it...because there is no boundary of time and place for God. God is all times, no time, all spaces, no spaces, all opposite values, having no opposite value.
At some point, a theist has to realize how incompatible his belief is with reality, at which point reality gets tossed aside for whatever comfort the belief provides the theist. But the theist should also realize that he sounds like a stark maniac to those who prefer reality.
Can two different people have the exact same thought at exactly the same time at two completely different physical locations of the earth? (not to mention two different parts of the universe)
"NOR MUST WE OVERLOOK THE PROBABILITY OF THE CONSTANT INCULCATION IN A BELIEF IN GOD ON THE MINDS OF CHILDREN PRODUCING SO STRONG AND PERHAPS AS INHERITED EFFECT ON THEIR BRAINS NOT YET FULLY DEVELOPED, THAT IT WOULD BE AS DIFFICULT FOR THEM TO THROW OFF THEIR BELIEF IN GOD, AS FOR A MONKEY TO THROW OFF ITS INSTINCTIVE FEAR AND HATRED OF A SNAKE." Charles Darwin
So Darwin compares animal instinct to what a child is taught? Laughable... Were this the case, we would not see the number of atheists who have made up their own mind. Dare say, children would believe everything their parents ever told them, would be drones living out the beliefs of childhood, etc. Darwin was wrong on this one. In fact, one could make an argument, that if Darwin was right about conditioning to believe in God, that the atheists who have rejected their childhood concepts of God have just subconsciously traded that belief for a new belief in the gods of science, like Dawkins, Hawking, Einstein, etc. Now, do you think the atheists are going to accept that they are not actually being rational in their praise of science, but rather are just acting out on childhood programming?