Taking sides

Is not a non-religious education in fact forcefully atheist? Not to take sides over God, over the soul, when this is the whole of an education—is that not a way, and the worst, of taking a side? “One is content not to speak of these things,” one says. This is materialism itself. The substitution of state irreligion for the state religion then is no surprise. One could be astonished only that the denial of religion displays the same parade of fanaticism, of intolerance, and of persecution that religion itself displays. The radicals who really hold public power, whether by the followers who matter in the government, or by the fear that they inspire among the more moderate, persecute religion in all its forms.

-- Marcel Proust, via State Irreligion | Marcel Proust | First Things