Ex Atheist? I Am Seriously Sick Of This Claim!

Posted by JCE

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So, it was another one of those days in the lab today. You see, besides the 'Holy Janitor', I also work with a pretty hardcore Catholic. He's not that bad of a guy because usually we have pretty lively discussions regarding religion and he doesn't get his feathers ruffled too much, though he is prone to using the 'Moving Goal Post' fallacy.

Well, today he used one of my most hated claims, he said "I was a pretty hardcore atheist at one time".

Ugh... I hate that statement! My response is usually, "Well if you are a believer now, then you weren't an atheist for the right reasons, because the claims of theism still lack empirical evidence."

Now, I want to make this clear from the onset, I am not invoking the "No True Scotsman" fallacy, he very well may have been an atheist at one time, I just have a hard time believing he was a rationalist. It is difficult for me to comprehend holding a world view that requires evidence and reason, then abandoning this world view for blind faith.

You see, many believers such as the infamous Kirk Cameron, claim to have been atheist at one time but have since 'seen the light' and now fervently believe. I argue they were never atheistic for the right reasons (yes, there are right reasons for atheism). A good reason to lack belief in a god is absence of evidence, or concern whether or not your beliefs are true and requiring them to be substantiated by fact. I do not think these are possibilities why my catholic friend claims to have been atheist, rather, I see him using this statement to say, "see, I was once the same as you and I found faith, you will too." To this day, no empirical, verifiable evidence exists for the gods of world religions and all of them are founded on faith, which is defined as believing something in the ABSENCE of evidence. Faith is not rational.

So, instead, I tell the claimants of such inanity that I am not merely an atheist, am also a rationalist and therefore require more proof than anecdotal evidence and 2000yr old holy books. These 'scriptures' that lack cohesive story lines and come across as hodge podge amalgamations of ancient myths are simply not enough proof, especially for a fantastical claim such as an invisible universal overlord and his super duper son, who is actually part of a tri-person/deity/spirit thingy.

This usually shuts the "ex atheists" up for a while, and I have never had one of them bring up their purported past 'atheism' again in conversation.
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