First, let's please define what an "atheist" is? (Or agnostic for that matter).
Those two terms are also rather stereotypical so I simply reject them.
Why? Because I, as a halfway 'smart' human being very well have a BELIEF, but this belief has nothing to do with any institutional church like Christianity etc. So..for such people I might be an "atheist" simply because I don't believe in a diety or THEIR idea of a god? Nonsense.
I have recently read many, many good books which cover the subjects of NDEs, afterlife and reincarnation (check the books by Michael Newton, they are really good) but also old classics which I re-discovered like the "Seth" books.
So..you could say that I am "spiritual" but really not in a naive, stereotypical way.
According to my own philosophy and many of those spiritual schools, I now *STRONGLY* believe that our consciousness (or 'soul') is independent from our physical bodies. Our physical body is only a temporary means for our "over-ego" to be able to live physicality. Consciousness is FAR more. The funny thing is that modern sciences are more and more tending to agree with this type of thinking, almost to a point that it is speculated that "reality" is actually really created/a part of our consciousness.
After a lot of my own ideas and reading a lot of good books there is a lot more evidence for a duality of body/"ego" where the mechanistic view that "the brain produces consciousness" or "when we die everything ends" is helplessly outdated...this has actually been proven multiple times already.
The funny thing here is..look at the term at
THEIST and you calling yourself a
THEIST. The believing in an afterlife does NOT require a God. In fact, reading a-plenty of interesting books on the subject the idea of God comes actually rarely up!! Or "revelations" and experiences happen which have not a lot to do with our traditional idea of god...
What I am saying...being an a/anti-theist does in no way automatically imply that the idea of the afterlife is being rejected.
What do you want? You want to "have someone adopt your view"..aka..walking from door to door and selling bibles? Or telling him that YOUR view is better because you heard something "from your priest in church"...and now you wonder why you have difficulties to convince someone? That's pretty funny.
I have no clue what your theism is based on..whether you "belong" to some church and now you are attempting to make the other guy to believe.
The key difference between spiritual ideas and religion is that spiritualiy requires PERSONAL EXPERIENCE while religion is a 3rd hand experience where you are "taught" to believe in something because "someone tells you so". This is an extreme difference.
You are not obliged to teach him anything and for GOD'S SAKE (pun) don't preach someone else some 3rd hand religious teachings because it won't achieve anything but you coming along as being annoying.
For me, the "spiritual process" (if you will) in believing what I believe now has nothing to do with what others (schools, church etc.) taught me, but more from logical reasoning and seeing patterns and making conclusions.
Go read some books on NDEs, for example...or wonder why many older, native beliefs have so many common elements...or why even Christianity IN ITS EARLY ROOTS was actually spiritual with similar elements like reincarnation (Christ comes back to earth etc. while now of course they reject the idea...<-- lol ) , etc....there is a pattern there in many beliefs and religions.
And in time, the so called "out there" spiritual beliefs about a consciousness which is independent from a brain are far more credible than the materialistic views.
Whether "your friend" or whoever will ever get there (by thinking, learning, experiencing etc..) I don't know. But you can start giving him some books to read and get him to think.
You might want to start there:
http://www.amazon.com/Chris-Carter/e...304923&sr=8-19
Those are good books on the subject of afterlife/NDE, Newton and the Seth books might still be a little too "far out"