Former atheist

[Esquilax]

The kind of theist who'll sprinkle "I used to be an atheist" into their conversations with current atheists are a very specific breed, and are generally using that phrase in an attempt to give their position some cache that it doesn't deserve; the fact that they seem to uniformly forget the argument from authority fallacy the moment they become christian doesn't bode well for the rationality of their conversion. This grim feeling is, more often than not, borne out by what you hear when you ask them why they're a christian now; either they'll make some vague pretension to having considered the proposition rationally, before immediately switching tracks to attacking your position rather than justifying their own ("I just didn't have enough faith to be an atheist, once I started looking at the world rationally!") or they start pointing out personal experiences that they attribute to god without justification, that are themselves little more than passive aggressive attacks against atheism ("When I didn't believe, I was reckless, irresponsible, without purpose, I drank, etc").

The "former atheist" gambit is generally little more than an attack platform, which is why I don't actually care about it. Far be it from me to tell you what you did and did not believe, theists, but I'm not going to take fallacious bait simply in the name of giving you another perceived point of attack.