Interfaith Group

But atheists generally use it as if not a synonym for mental illness at least a step along that path.

There are non-spiritual believers - but many believers believe that there is a spiritual world - there is a God to pray to for example in the example of mono-theistic belief systems. I believe that when I pray I achieve contact with my God - that there's a spiritual connection.

Atheists do not believe that such a connection is possible; and therefore a believer who asserts a connection to God is delusional. In some cases they go on to make comments about how a belief in communication with God is not really any different than believing you are receiving messages from a Dog or a Flying Spaghetti Monster or so on and so forth - pointing out that believing the later might well get one locked up in a mental institution.

Not always -and of course there are always "high-minded" atheists eager to defend the term deluded as not implying mental illness. This is one of the many phenomena that caused me to give up on the religion forum - you'd have one poster take all believers all the way to the nut house and then when you challenged that another would pop up to say "But of course delusion doesn't necessarily mean mental illness."

Bryant