"Maybe we should specify what kind of atheist we're talking about. You have the steve shaw kind who are resentful of their religious upbringing and rebelling against it now because they can"

Ha bloody ha. How do you know I rebelled against it? As it happens I ever so quietly dropped the bloody thing. And I can't rebel now because I haven't been part of it for thirty or more years. Your simplistic analysis is absolutely typical of those Catholics (even though you're not one - clearly something's rubbed off) who love to brand non-silent ex-Catholics as bitter, resentful and militant. I'm no more of those things than anyone else who happens to disagree with the Catholic church, whether they're ex-Catholics or men from Mars. Finally, if you dig around the threads enough (I can't be arsed), you will find that I've said that my own Catholic upbringing wasn't particularly repressive. I don't like any religion but I happen to know more about Catholicism, for obvious reasons, than the others. That's all.