"If a half-blind, former atheist can see the light, I believe anyone can." Amen! I'd add that a current atheist has it in them to see also.
My dad passed away a month ago, a rabid atheist for most of his life, a devout materialist and progress devotee, a scientist. When you're dead there is nothing.
During our goodbye visit a couple of weeks prior I left him with a riddle and a request. I asked, we know that energy is neither created nor destroyed right? Yes. Every thing is energy, it only transforms right? Yes. So, what is consciousness? Hmm. What does it transform into? Hmm.
I asked him to jiggle a few molecules to let me know if he found something on the other side and two days before his body stopped, while he was unconscious I was awakened in the early morning to a triple pulse of warm breeze wafting over me. I smiled and went back to sleep; the meanest atheists can see reality too.
Gawain