Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and Christopher Hitchens are in the new vanguard of authors articulating atheism (Mr Harris thinks that people who are more moderate in their religion still do harm through a religioushabit of mind that is no less irrational than fundamentalism).
To be sure, the law is not always observed: yet the intake of alcohol by Americans between the ages of 18 and 21 is much lower than it is by Britons, and that habit of abstinence stays with many Americans all their lives reinforced for some by a strong religious culture of temperance.