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prase comments on The Meaning of Life - Less Wrong
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It's a very complex topic, but to put it as succinctly as possible, the key difference is between self-declared atheists who truly appear as such, and those who insist on their atheism, but various quasi-religious elements are nevertheless clearly discernible in their lives and worldviews (to the point where I would dispute whether it makes sense to exclude them from the general definition of "religion").
Overall, my impression is that among the atheists found in North America, those of the latter kind are far more frequent and prominent compared to the post-Communist Eastern Europe, with Western Europe being somewhere in-between, but closer to North America. (Of course, these large geographical regions contain parts of greatly different religiosity, but what I write tends to be true for the local atheists found there regardless of their percentage in the local population.) Why this is so, and what exact quasi-religious elements are commonly seen among different sorts of self-declared non-religious people, are complex and fascinating questions, which are however difficult to discuss because they touch on many ideologically sensitive issues.
When I read people's writings on all sorts of issues, I can usually discern the two types of atheists pretty quickly and reliably, and based on your comments I've read in this thread and elsewhere, you do seem to belong to the true sort like you declare. Assuming you're writing from somewhere in Europe or the Anglosphere, as most people here are, this by itself places a significant probability on you being Eastern European, and more specifically from one of the less religious EE states, like Hungary, Czech Republic, or various former Soviet republics (as opposed to much more religious places like Poland or Croatia). Considering that your username is the word for "piglet" in several (but not all) Slavic languages, one of which is Czech, this seemed like a high-probability guess. Also, some additional evidence is that your English is excellent but still a little bit Slavic-souding, and your writing has a slight and vague quality typical of Central Europe that is very hard to explain. (By the way, if you're curious, I'm Croatian.)
This is probably in agreement with my anecdotal experience, but I haven't realised it explicitly before. What I can think about at the moment is the webpage Daylight Atheism, whose author had spent a lot of time defending the concept of atheist spirituality (e.g. here), and there was usually surprisingly little opposition in the comments.
It means simply "pig" in Czech.
My original idea was that you were Russian, and after reading your previous comment, I have put a non-negligible probability to you being Czech too; hence, my nationality-predicting abilities are visibly inferior to yours.
Can you identify some specific instances of Slavic sounding structures in my writing? It could help me to eliminate them.
prase:
I don't have in mind only such overt manifestations of quasi-religiosity, but also the way many people find beliefs and causes that technically don't involve any supernatural elements, yet nevertheless become objects of mystical reverence in their lives, and are altogether impervious to any rational discussion. In many cases, I would argue that such beliefs effectively involve postulating the existence of metaphysical entities which, while not anthropomorphic, are no less imaginary than the deities postulated by various traditional religions. (One philosopher who made some original and radical inquiries along these lines was Max Stirner.) But this is a really difficult and controversial topic.
One thing that's almost impossibly difficult for Slavic speakers is the use of articles, and you sometimes drop them in a quite Slavic-sounding way (I still do it occasionally too). However, these are just small and occasional things; your English is at a near-native level, and very well written overall. (Also, I should note that I probably notice this sort of thing more than a typical reader because I have a hobbyist interest in linguistics.)