not very many people who are not religious identify as atheist, more would say agnostic or just “none” or even Christian if they’re of the lapsed variety
Let's be honest. A lot of people who say they're agnostic are just too scared to admit they're atheists
To the extent this is true, this is a good thing. There absolutely should be some level of social taboo against open atheism. It's deeply corrosive.
I’m sure plenty of Germans would have said the same thing about Judaism in the 1930’s.
This isn’t a clever analogy, lol.