I think he was commenting on the irony of you making that sort of statement considering that you have been all over the map. You used to believe damn near anything, the less evidence together.
Your argument: "You can't convert a non delusional person away from science into believing in a sky daddy. If you do, they really weren't an atheist to begin with," is almost a mirror image of the religious persons argument, If a Christian gets sucked away from 'the truth,' then he was never a true Christian in the first place.
Frankly, just because someone is an atheist doesn't make them nondelusional. Atheists may not believe in a god, but they apparently will buy into all kinds of other crap.
That may very well be true. Especially to a believer. If you fall away... then you didn't believe in the first place... At least not intellectually honestly.
I was a believer in many things before I changed and became a skeptic. Skepticism lead to atheism. This is how I got there.
I will never claim to have all knowledge. That would be ludicrous.
The difference between a believer and and a non-believer is that the non-believer (not the same as a debunker) is that they can end the argument with "I don't know for sure. We need more evidence."
Even a solid agnostic is worse than an atheist. The agnostic says "I canNOT know"
The atheist says, "I don't believe because there is no evidence, and you haven't presented me with a way to test it."
All that rubbish stated... Yes Atheists can be delusional about everything else.... from Homeopathy to UFOs to the Bildeberger Group......
Being an atheist does not make you a good skeptic.
But being a good skeptic will almost always lead you to atheism.