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Jiro comments on What Can We Learn About Human Psychology from Christian Apologetics? - Less Wrong
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But there's only one kind of atheism, and many different kinds of religion, so the observation "isn't it funny that they went with the specific kind that's convenient for non-rational reasons" doesn't really apply.
The atheism of the never-believer is different to that of the deconverted.
At least in the Mormonism of my youth, it is generally acknowledged that converts tend to take their faith more seriously than those born into it. Lasting conversion is not an easy process, and frequently involves both social and internal conflict, so there are selection effects against less-dedicated converts. Additionally, cognitive dissonance and sunk-cost reasoning will tend to make people attach more value to their faith if they had to fight for it. A similar effect in atheism would be unsurprising; deconversion is at least as hard as conversion.
Is this what you had in mind, or did you mean something else? And is this a meaningful distinction to make here, since you can't convert to born Catholicism anyway?
I wasn't aware distinctions were meaningless unless a matter of choice. Makes me rethink the whole life vs death issue.
I'm honestly not sure what you're trying to say here. Can you clarify?
Given that the atheism of a never-believer is different than the atheism of the deconverted (more on this in a moment), the deconverted still only has one of those options actually available to them. "But there's only one kind of atheism [that you can deconvert to]" would still set it apart from the multiple theisms you could convert to.
On the other hand, I don't think I agree that there's only one kind of atheism, nor that the cleanest dividing line is between deconverts and never-believers. In broad strokes all atheists share certain beliefs, but when you zoom out that far, Abrahamic religions start to blend together too.
It may be the case that there is only one kind o atheism that you can convert to. I never said there was more than one kind of atheism you can convert to, I said there was more than one kind of atheism.
How so?
Atheism stands out more. The explanation that you converted for non-rational reasons is just as good as before, but it's less of a coincidence, so this is less evidence of an error in reasoning.