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Emile comments on Single Point of Moral Failure - Less Wrong
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This is why I prefer identifying as a rationalist rather than as an atheist. Being able to generally identify wrong beliefs is more important to having the right answer on the question of whether God exists or not. For all I know, you could have the answer for the wrong reasons - for example, "believing in God is something low-prestige people like hillibillies do, whereas smart classy people (the ones I want to look like) don't believe in that nonsense". In a different context, the same algorithm might give you something like "smart classy people admire the Soviet Union, so I will too" (disclaimer : I have no idea how fashionable it was, if ever, to admire the Soviet Union, I just picked the example at random. Someone with a better knowledge of history could probably find a better one).
In the years immediately following the revolution it is probably fair to say that the cultural elite of the American left (Greenwich Village, Bohemia, the Beat movement) admired the Soviet Union. John Reed's thoughts are probably representative since these people were hearing about the USSR from him. The CPUSA was sort of hip for a while, as well, through WWII. I'm not sure "classy" is the right word but these groups did hold a certain kind of social status that would have attracted young people. By the 1960s though, the same types of people would have admired Third World leftist movements rather than the Soviet Union.
Your "wrong" example is not so extremely far fetched. Somewhat related reading:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=scientists-say-free-will-probably-d-2010-04-06
Substitute "free will" for religion and you can see that people's morality will be affected by focusing on something they can't even define or does not even have a clear meaning. The author of blog posting seriously ponders whether publishing scientific findings on the human behavior can adversly affect the morality of the "less classy" majority of the society. :)
Not even the term "rationalism" can manage to sever itself from the Soviet Union. Both the French Revolution and the Communist Revolution were genuine bastard children of the Enlightenment - missing what we would now regard as some key elements, yes, turning into pure power plays as they spiraled downward, but way back at the dawn of time they both started in, metaphorically speaking, the coffeeshops of Oxford.
I think Robert Oppenheimer qualifies as smart and classy.