Atheists & Agnostics

...that's why they insist on children going to church and Sunday School - to get indoctrinated into the thought-malady. If you can snatch them early, they will likely stay in the church for a long time, or at least until they start getting exposed to freethinkers and rational people.

But no, I have not known anyone who went off the deep end and went nuts with greed and power. No one in my family or circle of friends. That is likely something that develops over time. It seems the other way around with religion: you get brainwashed early in life and eventually you can shed that mental straightjacket.

And I'm not claiming that one is more powerful than the other. But even with the accelerating rise of the "nones" the big-name preachers can still move a lot of sheep to do a lot of stupid shit.