The argument seems to be that we as non-theists merely want to have intelligent debate with one another, and that we just want everyone to be able to believe whatever they want.

How positively useless!

I don’t know if I’m being clear enough. Let me elaborate a little more. It seems to me that much of the secularist student movement has no broad political goals. Certainly not persuading anyone of our position.

I mean, how rude! If we persuade someone that we have a valid position then we are stooping down to the level of the religious fundies, aren’t we?

Or it could be said that if we try to persuade others we are stooping down to the level of every successful political or advertising campaign in history.

When I went to the CFI 2008 Student Leadership Conference, I was very surprised to learn very few people there had believed in God beyond childhood. The most hard-core hold outs (broadly speaking) lost their religion in early adolescence.

When I pursue this question with members of my own club, and other atheists I meet online, this seems to be the general trend. I wish I had a study to cite, but my hunch is that most atheists are atheists from an early age.

I believe this lends itself to a lack of perspective.

The vast majority of the people of earth believe in God or Gods or spirit ancestors, etc.

For all of you who found the non-existence of God to be obvious at an early age, most people do not.

I am inclined to speculate that since religious seems to be so ubiquitous both in the present and in history that religious thinking seems to be a part of human nature.

Many evolutionary psychologists would also agree that xenophobia is a part of human nature, and with each passing generation we are losing more and more of our xenophobic disposition as a species.

Yet secularists seem to be committed to doing nothing about the prevalence of religion in the minds of their fellow humans.

As someone who was religious into his adult years, and was freed from this backwards and delusional thinking, I would argue that you are not doing your fellow humans any favors by not interfering.

I should also add that it was due to a couple of good friends arguing with me about the errors in my world view that I went on to do some extra reading and eventually changed my mind.

One has to consider whether or not being honest about what is real and what is true to our fellow humans is an ethical duty.

At present this seems to be a minority view in secularism.

The majority view seems to be that to not interfere is our ethical duty.

I find this to be somewhat depressing.