This is a painfully true observation.<p>I think the first time I really realized it was when I was drifting away from my religion of birth, and actually started to listen to atheist people around me. I soon discovered that the only difference between most of them and the religious people I know was the value of $religion variable. For one group it was &quot;God&quot;, for the other it was &quot;no God&quot;. The thought patterns were <i>exactly the same</i>. Neither of them could actually justify their beliefs.