As another comment said this is a fallacy. This detracts from my original argument, and assumes I stated any of this in my main point. If you have questions about the argument ask questions about the direct things I said in my argument. Not shit I did not say an inkling about. Your making assumptions on positions I do not have.

Let me bite for the sake of biting.

Now if I take your loaded question as a claim, I would like a source for the hasty generalization “atheists/modernists/disenchanted are pretty much either irrelevant or clinging desperately to their position of vaning power, paralyzed, and often depressed” Part. Show me the stats.

“Religious and spiritual people are the drivers of mainstream politics and new political ideologies” That is sooo rich. Religious people have been at the front lines of halting progress across the spectrum. I guess you are right they are the drivers of mainstream political change, not good political change might I add. Whenever they do change for the good it’s because real progressives fought tooth and nail to change it on a state level. Only then do these churches catch up, and even then you have members that don’t agree/believe in the change. Some key examples of movements religions have been heinous on: Woman’s suffrage, Slavery Abolitionism, Abortion, LGBTQIA+ rights, Gaza, Access contraception/sex education, the list goes fucking on and on. Don’t even get me started on the dark money organized religions put in to get vile legislation passed.

I’m not trying to assume anything but the way you throw depression in the mix puts a bad taste in my mouth. Like it has anything to do with the other things you stated, religious people are depressed too. It isn’t secularist exclusive. The way religion handles depression is “deal with it god knew you could handle it”, “that’s not depression it’s the devil”, or even the more extreme “depression/suicide is a sin”. So if depressed religious people aren’t coming out and talking about their mental health all to often compared to atheists it doesn’t surprise me. I’ll give you a chance to correct the record and we can move on, as I do not want to detract from our argument.

Religions allow for people to discriminate just on the premise of “well it’s what I believe”. They think because it’s their belief it doesn’t have to be demonstrated or tested. Why is your religion/belief true? “Because my ancient text of choice says it’s true” ok well why is your religious text of choice true? “Because my religion/belief says it’s true”.