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Lots of atheist, including myself, were born again at one time. For me it was as a teenager. I was a calmer version of your friend, but I did the whole "witness" thing, to some degree. Even then I shied away from the extremists, and even my preacher, who was one of the most religious and spiritual people I've ever met, saw such people as extremists and bad for Christianity's image.
A lot of southern Christians of the evangelical sort feel that "once a Christian, always a Christian," and that "former" Christians are of two types: either they were false converts in the first place (as someone above said), or they are backslidden (if that's a word). Neither is good, but there is hope for backsliders.
My advice would be to not approach your brother on the subject, and even support him in general terms. Otherwise, he just won't listen. You aren't trying to overcome the effects of alcohol or excessive partying, you are trying to convince him to throw away his eternal life and float lost in an unfathomable universe without guidance. That will be his perception, not mine. If you aproach him as though everything he knows is a mental illness, then you are basically destroying everything that makes him himself. You won't succeed, but if you did, what would he fill that void with? It might not be just "irritating," but deadly to him or to others. Drugs, alcohol, crime, who knows. Happens all the time.
Most former Christians I know who are still sane evolved away from the religion, or evolved into a higher understanding of spirituality and religion itself. Sometimes they go through a rejection of all things religious, and even a hostility to it (you'll see that here, with all the people who follow up any question about religion with a comment about it being make-believe, or worse). Usually they move out of that phase, or sometimes just go straight to the next phase, which is an acceptance that there is something spiritual, and that all people develop their own metaphors for it--for some it involves atheism, others it involves religion, for some, a realization that there's not much difference between religion and atheism. There are probably other phases, those were just mine. :)
I've also known former gung-ho evangelical witnessing types who grew into a more spiritual interpretation of Christianity. They didn't give it up, they just moved beyond the extreme literalness of the fundamentalist and into a more aware realm. (Damn it's hard to say that without sounding ridiculous! Hope you can muddle through it, if anyone is still reading now!)
But everyone I know moved there through their own volition, after being educated or just encountering questions that they could not quite reconcile. I've never known anyone converted through the nagging of others. Most people won't listen to the nagging--they feel that others are just the temptations of Satan, or some such thing, and feel that they are stronger and better people for overcoming it.
So you won't convert him. The best you can do is be his brother, support him, tell him you respect him even if you don't agree or understand, and win his confidence that you aren't an evil man. Realize that he sees you as the same misguided oaf that you see him as, and to him, you are wrong and he is right--just as you see him. Maybe you can convince him that he is driving people away from him and his words by being too gung-ho. Maybe not. But you won't change him. He will either change on his own, or he won't. Just be there when he needs it.
This coming from someone with the most screwed up family you can imagine. Probably you shouldn't listen to me! :rofl:
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