Insights into Religion and Atheism

Around 1940, philosopher A.N. Prior put the following words, concerning religious people, in the mouth of a psychoanalyst in a dialogue called “Can Religion Be Discussed?”:

But a time may come […] when circumstances will push them into an emotional crisis in which they will go mad unless they do something about it, and then in the painful process of their own analysis they will see for themselves the roots of their urge to believe. Only in this way are genuine atheists made. Atheists by pure persuasion are usually, perhaps always, afflicted with a guilty conscience; the urge to believe is still in them, and they either try to quench it by becoming violent or unfair in their attacks on religion, or try to satisfy it by inventing milk-and-water religions […], using religious language to describe anything they find impressive or moving or mysterious.