everyone (else) seems to be hating on atheists

[Mister Agenda]

]Sure, and then some atheists try to jump to "therefore religious are less educated" while those studies which properly control for those aspects (income, area) find quite the opposite.

You don't need statistics to refute stupid reasoning.

The state in order to bring up the morale of Russian people during WWII (many of whom were still secretly Christian). To then say that implies the state "left the Orthdoox alone" is just ridiculous because it was after decades of suppression.

The atheist state that was determined to wipe out theism (except for overlooking several hundred churches they could have destroyed) was happy to promote it when it served the state's purposes? It's almost like they were motivated by expediency. You think maybe the churches that were spared before the late forties supported the state?

It might be an effective way to "find out the source"(though you give a very big "if"). Its not an effective way to write a legitimate source of information.

In fact, it sounds like writing a legitimate source of information wasn't what they were trying to do at all. 'We have info that says X, can any of you guys source it' sounds like something else entirely to me.

Except it doesn't talk about atheists at all. It talks about people with "no religious training whatsoever", which would include both theists and atheists.

As I said, it's not much, but people with no religous training at all is a group in which atheists are likely to be highly represented, as opposed to the group of people who don't go to church much.

Its even less meaningful than those studies about religion, because while a small amount of atheists are still religious, most atheists probably had some form of religious training, particularly in 1928.

So those atheists wouldn't be included.

Its no more "about atheists" than the other studies. This one just appeals to atheists more I suppose.

It does more to limit the field to atheists than the other studies, in my opinion. I could care less to whom it appeals, I don't see a causal connection between atheism and morality; although I strongly suspect a causal connection between humanism and morality.

Whatever helps you sleep at night!

Ah, the insufferable smugness returns. You'll make a great nun.Nice impugnment of my motivations and integrity. I'm sure you think it was okay since you didn't use any bad words. I guess I'll go back to thinking most of the so-called ex-atheists are liars, given how profoundly ignorant most of them are of real atheists. What was I thinking, giving them the benefit of the doubt. Ignorance is excusable, lying about having been an atheist as a 'witnessing technique' or to get 'religous cred' is corrupt. Shame on me for thinking they were merely honestly mistaken.