Great find! He brings up a lot of very important points. I emphatically agree that:
Some atheists seem unaware of the fact that religious customs and traditions can be central to the identity of entire communities of people, and individuals who don’t believe in God may still want to carry on those traditions and customs because they feel some kind of moral duty to maintain them. So, for example, someone who identifies themselves as Jewish may in fact be an atheist in an intellectual sense while at the same time insisting on eating only kosher food or only marrying someone who is Jewish. I have heard people claim that some Jews, despite not really believing in a God, do these things because if they do not, they feel they will be guilty of “finishing what Hitler started”.
Family and community play an important role in the lives of many, if not most, people. To be part of a group, we must share values. It may be more important to a person to remain part of a group than to confess his or her atheism. After all, as Muslim friends have pointed out to me, what’s the point of rocking the boat, of upsetting your mum? For many non-believers, secrecy and pretence are the only options they feel they have, even as adults, so that they can be good children to their parents. A friend of mine tells me that he “protects” his mother from his “true opinions”; I don’t blame him for it one bit, as I have no doubt I would have “protected” my mother in the same way.
