Why do so many Christians claim to be former Atheists?

[Succubus]

'I used to be an athiest, but...' We see a lot of this in various faux conversion threads and it's an act, its an appeal for creditability and transparently so.

'When I was an athiest I used to steal and cheat on my girlfriend and drink to much', etcetera.
And those actions were a direct result of not believing in god? I suppose it's out of the question you did those things because you were an arsehole!

Edit: Found it

‘I’m an atheist, BUT…’ The sequel is nearly always unhelpful, nihilistic or – worse – suffused with a sort of exultant negativity. Notice, by the way, the distinction from another favourite genre: ‘I used to be an atheist, but…’ That is one of the oldest tricks in the book, much favoured by religious apologists from C. S. Lewis to the present day. It serves to establish some sort of street cred up front, and it is amazing how often it works. Look out for it.

Dawkins. The Dog Illusion.

[Chad32]

Lots of former atheists, and drug users, if you go to the right places. I don't know why people feel like they need to throw that in, but I doubt that half of my little town grew up atheist, and did hard drugs, until some christian saved them.

[Minimalist]

They are lying sacks of shit.

[The Grand Nudger]

Just following pauls example.

[Pat Mustard]

I think it's to try and gain credibility with atheists. Playing both sides.

No it's simply a ploy to gain cred with fundagelicals. Becuase as Cecilia has laid out above, these "former atheists" simply trot out how much they were of the fundagelical strawman of atheism rather than talking about anything an atheist would have experienced. Everything about their "former" experience is simply in the lens of opposition to fundagelism, therefore it is there to speak to the fundies.

[Mystic]

I was an Atheist for a week. To be honest, I don't know how you guys do it, not look at God's light and embrace it. It was the most horrible 10 days of my life, and I even talked my doctor about it!

[Minimalist]

It's easy.  There's no fucking god.

[downbeatplumb]

I was an Atheist for a week. To be honest, I don't know how you guys do it, not look at God's light and embrace it.  It was the most horrible 10 days of my life, and I even talked my doctor about it!

Its easy to be not believe in something that does not exist.
I have no idea what sort of thing these theists talk about, it describes a fantasy land where they get to feel better for some reason.

It reminds me of this.

[Succubus]

I was an Atheist for a week. To be honest, I don't know how you guys do it, not look at God's light and embrace it.  It was the most horrible 10 days of my life, and I even talked my doctor about it!

Ten days? That must be a biblical week then.

[chimp3]

Here we have another story (on fox news of course) about a believer who claims to have been a former Atheist.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2018/03/2...to-me.html

We see this sort of thing a lot.  Like with Howard Storm.  Only whenever we get these Atheists, they never seem to really know what it's like to be an atheist.  It's easy to make the claim that you were once an atheist.  Because we don't really have any qualifiers other than "Doesn't believe in God"  But none of these people ever seem to really get what being an atheist is like.  .....

.....Now is it possible she's not lying?  Sure.  But that doesn't mean I think we should give her the benefit of the doubt here.  Or any of these other folks.  It's easy to claim to have been an atheist.  

Why would she do that? Because we are that fucking cool!

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I was an Atheist for a week. To be honest, I don't know how you guys do it, not look at God's light and embrace it.  It was the most horrible 10 days of my life, and I even talked my doctor about it!

Maybe you're just not cool enough!