In a comment above, I mentioned the nature of these references at being weak at best. There is an inherit problem with sourcing this kind of data and/or being the "front man" for it for obvious reasons.
The very nature of having a large group of people thinking the same way, executing their lives in a way pre-determined is a very bad thing. You can label it however you wish. An atheist is basically someone who has identified what they are not. When you talk about "pretty non-religious", you're talking about unlabelled or not completely adherent atheism. That's still a great thing. Nothing wrong with believing in some thing as long as someone else didn't tell you to.
The argument "It's good that a large group of people believe in a single ideology and adhere their life to it" will never have wings among intellectuals. Now, if you take that argument and apply it, you won't go far down the road when you'll invariably have to talk about religion. Do you excuse it? Or accept that it is one of those groups?
No disagreement here. Religion inherently forces an idea on a person. However, when a person determines the course of their life, which happens to align to a particular religion, it must be accepted whether by intellectual or not.
The problem with this conversation is that it dips in and out of respect of ones beliefs – which is a tricky platform to walk. If I say "No, people should throw away religious ideology", I will be called all sorts of names. If I say "I think X people should be enslaved", I will also be called all sorts of names.
Why is this true? Because with religion, there are several degrees of information you must process to get to a point where you see the correlation of religion and enslavement. Saying "X people should be enslaved" is only 1 degree. Why is it okay to tolerate something because it is more for our brain to evaluate? Why does it matter how many steps there are to the same result, or other negative result? It doesn't matter. If the end point meets slavery, brutality or death it is as/more severe than the act itself.
The very nature of having a large group of people thinking the same way, executing their lives in a way pre-determined is a very bad thing. You can label it however you wish. An atheist is basically someone who has identified what they are not. When you talk about "pretty non-religious", you're talking about unlabelled or not completely adherent atheism. That's still a great thing. Nothing wrong with believing in some thing as long as someone else didn't tell you to.
The argument "It's good that a large group of people believe in a single ideology and adhere their life to it" will never have wings among intellectuals. Now, if you take that argument and apply it, you won't go far down the road when you'll invariably have to talk about religion. Do you excuse it? Or accept that it is one of those groups?
Excusing it is callous and hypocritical.