Out of 57 countries in a WIN-Gallup global survey on faith and atheism, Ireland ranked 43rd in terms of the population considering itself religious.

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Even today, and even in secular western Europe, the bald and confident atheism and materialism of Diderot and Holbach seems mildly shocking.

ECONOMIST: Atheism and the Enlightenment

Because of Russia's history of official atheism and anti-Semitism, there are few countries where Jewish-Christian relations present so many paradoxes.

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Mr Robertson said he could have written a better case for atheism and described most of the arguments as "sixth form schoolboy variety".

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Not everyone is happy with this proposal: the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Alexy II, is reported to be against the idea of using music he believes many people still associate with repression and state-imposed atheism.

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But she argues that modern atheism is as one-dimensional and transient a phenomenon as the modern varieties of theism (including fundamentalism) to which it responds.

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Rather, he held the convictions of a thoughtful, civilised man, who could as easily write plays as pamphlets or naval history, who liked the pipes as much as jazz and was as moral, for all his atheism, as any man of God.

ECONOMIST: Ludovic Kennedy