In my experience, the atheists I’ve known have all seemed to come in two flavors. The ones who are extremely intellectual and have slipped into a zone where their mind is closed to anything they cannot explain on a chalkboard, or those who lost their faith somehow. The second happens with a tough death hitting close to them such as the loss of a child, a nightmare war experience, cold cruelty visited upon them by a hyper religious neighbor or family member...etc. Something happened and they called on god and got no answer, or gods people were mean and cold.
Either way, their theology and expectations were terribly wrong.
The first is beyond hope without them getting touched personally by the spirit.
The second can be fixed by someone beside them walking the walk, and not being a pest, but just carefully leading them into the fold and into an expectation of what faith really is and isn’t.
Neither responds to being described as without conscience or the capability to love.
One can STARVE conscience and love through a wrong worldview. It would be like expecting a dog that you fed nothing but lettuce to guard your house.
>>>Neither responds to being described as without conscience or the capability to love
Have you ever spent time with pure Marxist ideologues? They believe that human decisions are motivated by power-balancing, not love or conscience. According to Marxist pioneer, Friedrich Engels, the family is not an institution motivated by love, but a system of power and control. Engels, a Marxist man, is the person who created the radical feminist ideology.