Welcome to another video in our series about
the common fallacies and tactics committed
by adherents of the dogma of religion, and
the dogma of the state.
And this is something referred to as, the
Statement by Conversion Fallacy: basically,
here's someone who USED to be on your side,
who isn't anymore.
"Here's someone who used to be an atheist,
now he's a Christian!
What do you have to say to THAT?"
Really?
Do you have ANY idea what a yawn that is for
us?
I mean, it happens all the time on our side!
We have atheist after atheist after atheist
who used to be Christian or Jewish or Muslim
or whatever.
Someone says they used to be religious but
are now atheist, we say, "Cool, we should
hang out sometime."
But what do religious people do when they
get a convert from atheism?
"Yay!
We got one!
We got one!
Whoppee!
Let's take him around, get him to churches,
get him on TV, get him a book deal, WE FINALLY
GOT ONE!!!"
You know what that says to us?
It says that it is such a rare event for an
atheist to convert to a religion that you
have to seize on that unique opportunity.
Whereas on our side, it happens so often that
running into an atheist that used to be religious
is a commonplace occurrence.
So think about that next time you want to
push this person in our faces, as if it somehow
proves you were correct all along.
We have a LOT more examples of people converting
our way!
So maybe you don't really want to play that
game, huh?
Just a bit of advice.
What's more interesting is when we run into
the person who says that they personally used
to be an atheist, but it's something like
this:
"I used to be an atheist because I hated God
and wanted to sin."
No, people aren't atheists for those reasons.
If you tell us that you used to be an atheist,
and for the reasons why you run down the tired
old list of strawman arguments for why people
are atheist that no one who wasn't already
on your side believed for a second, then don't
be surprised when we doubt that you were ever
really an atheist after all.
We see it with related subjects like evolution:
"I used to be an evolutionist until I found
out I was lied to, and then I found God!"
Protip: people who accept evolution as scientifically
valid don't call themselves an "evolutionist."
Or Darwinist, or any of the other monikers
you put on us.
We don't really HAVE a word for "person who
believes in evolution."
We accept gravity, too, but we don't say we're
"gravitationists" or "Newtonists."
If you want us to believe that you accepted
evolution, you have to demonstrate that you
actually KNOW SOMETHING ABOUT IT.
Don't give us all the long-debunked crap from
creationist talking points, like, how evolution
is a dog giving birth to a cat, or how it
violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics
or whatever.
Again, if you do that, don't be surprised
if we don't believe for one second that you
EVER accepted evolution.
Why on Earth would you people think that just
making up the fact that you used to be on
our side would be persuasive?
Even if it is true, it actually tells you
nothing about whether or not evolution is
true.
The scientific evidence does that.
Also, this is another case where the fact
that there's more than one religion comes
back to bite you.
One atheist converts to Christianity, and
this is proof that Christianity is correct.
Another atheist converts to Islam, and this
is proof that Islam is correct.
But, how can they BOTH be true?
And then you have the tug-of-war of Christians
converting to Islam or Muslims converting
to Christianity.
How can conversion be ANY kind of evidence
when there are all of these contradictory
conclusions to draw from it?
No, this is just another Argument from Self-Authority.
But there is one point that religion has over
the state here: they can actually point to
verifiable examples of proper atheists converting
to Christianity.
They've even got a Wikipedia page for that!
Statists don't seem to be able to do that.
They don't point to a Libertarian on the order
of Murray Rothbard or Harry Browne giving
up their Libertarianism and converting to
statism.
If that ever happened, then for whatever reason,
the statists are keeping it secret.
Oh, but there are no shortages of individual
statists who claim that THEY used to be libertarians!
And like the religious people who claimed
to be atheists or "evolutionists," it just
doesn't ring true.
"I used to be a libertarian, but then I learned
to care about others."
"I used to be a libertarian, but then I grew
up."
"I used to be a libertarian, back when I was
selfish."
"I used to be a libertarian, but then I went
to college and learned reality."
And you REALLY think that this is supposed
to convince us?
Or how about this:
"I used to be a libertarian, but then some
libertarians were mean to me!"
Really?
THAT'S the criteria you use to find out the
truth?
Who's MEAN to you?
And like religion, we run into stuff like
this:
"I was a libertarian because I believed in
social Darwinism."
When if anything, social Darwinism is the
ANTITHESIS of Libertarianism!
There's all sorts of crazy things, like this
one, almost verbatim from Salon.com:
"I was a libertarian back when I had a limited
vision for the future."
Or THIS one, again almost verbatim from Salon:
"I was a libertarian because I thought that
selfishness and cruelty are fantastic personal
traits."
Or this one, almost verbatim from Salon--wow,
a lot of these guys are on Salon, aren't they?
"I was a libertarian until I realized knee-jerk
anti-government sentiment is not a viable
political philosophy."
Oh?
Well, good thing that's NOT WHAT LIBERTARIANISM
IS!!!
So again, don't be surprised if we think you're
just cooking this up as a lame attempt to
convince us--of what?
Again, why should we be convinced by conversion,
and not by facts and rational argumentation?
And you also have the same problem as the
religious, of there being more than one political
philosophy:
"I used to be a libertarian, but now I'm a
liberal!"
"I used to be a libertarian, but now I'm a
conservative."
Okay, so, which is correct?
Liberal or conservative?
"I used to be liberal, but then I grew a brain
and became a conservative."
"I used to be conservative, but then I grew
a heart and became a liberal!"
See?
It doesn't work!
There's no consistent conclusion that Argument
from Conversion can point to.
I have something to say to BOTH the theist
and the statist: I DID used to be on your
side.
There was a time when I was a very devout
Christian.
There was also a time when I thought government
could solve our problems.
I believed in a lot of the causes of progressive
liberals; I was a big advocate of the Americans
with Disabilities Act, for example.
So in BOTH of these issues, I am a convert.
But have any of you EVER seen me use that
as an argument?
Rational people aren't convinced by other
people's conversion.
RELIGIOUS people are.
And that's the real issue here.
Christians try to convince us by trotting
out converted atheists, because that's what
would convince THEM.
And by the same token, statists pull this
"I used to be libertarian" crap because, being
no less dogmatic than the Christians, that's
what would convince THEM.
And the fact that it doesn't convince us is
taken as just more proof that we're unthinking
automatons blindly marching in lockstep with
each other.
But if it's fallacious reasoning--AND IT IS--then
NO rational person should be convinced by
that!
And we aren't.
And the ones who would expect us to be, therefore
cannot be rational.
The conclusion's pretty obvious, isn't it?
Stay tuned.
