Quote Originally Posted by Shibumi View Post
I do not see atheism as brainwashing, on the contrary. If you let someone grow up without religion, odds are he will be atheist.

A quick look at religion at large strengthens my point, why else would so many italians be catholic, so many indians hindu, so many arabs islamic? You think they all individually "saw the light"? Hardly, I would say. So some form of brainwashing must take place. No?

Atheism on the other hand is wide spread across any national border.

You are a clever guy, I am sure you see the difference.
Religions are varient belief systems, and in that sense Atheism is no different than Islam and Christianity. Richard Dawkins' arguments and patterns of thought are recognisable to anyone who has faced fundamentalist Christianity, the sole difference is the belief itself - the thought patterns verge on being identicle. Those who think like this and raise their children like this indocrinate like any fundamentalist, and the result is that a fairly large portion of people "raised atheist" latch onto a religion as soon as they leave home. Personally, I think this is why simple, evangelical Christian sects do so well in universities.

To address Don's original point:

Underlying your post seem to be a lot misconceptions: that there is a monolithic Protestant/Roman Catholic divide, that the Archbishop of Canterbury is in some was equivilent to the Pope, and that England deliberately exported a form of Catholic-hating Christianity. None of that is true. There are a multiplicity of "protestant" denominations, some of whom are Catholic, some reformed; the Archbishop is merely the Archbishop of Canterbury and Primate of All England; abd we kicked the nutters out because we didn't want them stirring up sectarian hatreds.