Why make stupid unsustainable arguments?

[athrock]

Of course there are some people who were not believers in God (which is all that atheism means) who later converted to religion. Why this is a surprise to anyone, I'm not sure; I'm even less sure of what your point is, here. Nonbelief is not some magic bullet that repels faith. However, we have a hard time accepting the claims of religious apologists who claim they are "former atheists" because it simply works too well as a way to sell their books, since credulous believers just soak up that kind of backstory. With very, very few exceptions, when you dig into the "I used to be an atheist and now I believe" stories (like my aforementioned C. S. Lewis example), what you find is people raised in faith-traditions who revert to that tradition after a rebellious ("mad at god") or apathetic ("couldn't have cared less about religion") period, as opposed to those of us here who have actually done our research and found that the claims made by Christianity are vapid or false.

While "more likely than not" is certainly a valid part of an argument, I have never, repeat never, seen an argument made that strikes me as more likely than not, when it comes to apologetics. Most of the arguments are "just-so" arguments, requiring major leaps from logic to supposition in order to support them, or else flat-out contradicting things we actually know, and asking the audience to reject the Scientific Method in favor of some form of woo-woo thinking.

And none of this changes the basic premise: arguments themselves are not facts. They will never be facts. They cannot be used in place of facts. They cannot be claims at all unless they encompass every fact that may bear on the question, rather than employing observer bias to shade some of the facts into a favored argument, as every apologist's argument I have ever seen has done. If the arguer's goal is to fool people, to make them draw unfounded conclusions, then yes, I suppose they have done their intended job. But that does not change the issue described above. Arguments. Are. Not. Facts!

No, Rocket. You've either missed or attempted to side-step the implications of what I said. 

Maybe you're just one step behind the people you are so dismissive of. Are you one of those who will eventually revert to your deep-rooted faith once you get YOUR "mad at god" period behind you? Maybe you're one of those "I used to be a believer, but now I'm an athiest" types who has been hurt by some negative experience that will eventually be healed thereby enabling you to return to the faith you once held. Is that it?

Get real. People who were every bit as committed to non-belief as you are today HAVE come to faith in a supreme being as a result of deep reflection on one or more of the philosophical arguments.  You can read about them online, watch their videos on YouTube or buy their books at Amazon. 

What? They weren't true atheists? We both know that fallacy. Was Anthony Flew "fooled"? Are other former atheists simply idiots because they have come to a different conclusion than you have? You're right and they're wrong, eh? No, it's possible to be rational about a false idea as well as irrational about something that is true. To claim that intelligent people are simply fools is the easy way out. These arguments are not so easily dismissed; if they were complete rubbish, they would not still exist. 

And as best I can tell, there are apologists on both sides of the divide...cranking out books to try to persuade people that their view is correct. Are Hitchens and Dawkins any different than Craig or McDowell? Haven't they banked a fair bit of money over the past few years? Are they simply "fooling" a different target market into handing over that cash?

Now, I'm curious about something, and I've asked this question before (though not to you directly):  what physical evidence is offered before the Justices of the Supreme Court in the United States? When the Court upheld Obamacare, were photos, bloody clothing, shell casings or imprints of tire tread admitted into evidence? And when the Court legalized gay marriage, did the attorneys present bank deposit slips, bags of cocaine and a dashcam video to make their case?

Or are these examples of ARGUMENTS being made in court based upon ideas, legal precedents, the constitution and the law?

So, you can split hairs over whether the philosophical arguments are "evidence", but they are still being used effectively to win people's hearts and minds to the theist position, and if atheists want to counter that, they need to do more than chant, "Show me the evidence. Show me the evidence." in their vain attempts to attain some godless nirvana.