Little Hawk says: These threads always end up in a hopeless muddle, because too many people are all talking at once, most of them are trying to "win",

Nope, you're wrong. Try again. Or not. But you've been wrong every one of the other 100 times you've said the same thing in other discussions. Boring . . .

On the atheist government thing: It's a pointless discussion. People are people. Some religious folks are mass-murdering megalomaniacs. Some aren't. Some non-religious people are mass-murdering megalomaniacs, some aren't. Most people with a desire for that much power are corrupt. Some aren't. Religion or the lack thereof doesn't enter into it, except sometimes as an excuse.