Well sure, guys! You CAN be an atheist and still have very positive and life-affirming values. You CAN be religious and believe in (your idea of) God and STILL be a totally selfish, ruthless, competitive jerk who thinks only of his own needs. In fact, the latter mode is quite common. :-)

The debate here is not really about whether people believe in God or not, as far as I'm concerned. It's about whether they think (and act) constructively or destructively.

The words people choose to habitually use are important in establishing their level of consciousness in that regard. Observe how a given person speaks. Do they tend to focus more on hating...or on loving? Which focus would produce better results? These are matters we all could stand to spend some time being more self-observant on.

As for hypocrites who "talk nicely" but don't mean it...yes, well, you just have to watch carefully what they do and you can soon get wise to that little game.

To be enlightened does not HAVE to mean "believing in God". The World is chock full of unenlightened people who believe in their own particular idea of "God".