Btw, also I think it's worth noting that a lot of the misconceptions about atheism have to do with the fact that most atheists who talk about the subject are vocal, self-identifying, often come from an academic background, have thought about the subject a lot and often use a lot of highly specific terms and categories.
The "just don't give a f***" category of atheists just ignore the subject if possible. If asked to pledge to god, they'll do it because it's convenient and it's just not a big deal for them, for example. They might even belong to a church for social reasons.
Having talked about it with some people like that (for a specific reason connected to me once belonging in this one non-religious youth organization, which would be more complicated to explain than interesting), those people in many cases prefer to say they believe in god if asked about it, simply because it's more convenient.
One reason being, if they admit they think it's just silly believing in a god, there's a chance that an atheist or a really religious person gets all riled up and they just hate it when that happens, because it's such a boring subject and yet everyone seems to expect that they, as "atheists" have a lot of well thought out opinions about it they'd like to share. The same does not apply to religious people, as "the silent majority" of religious people is something everyone is familiar with.
I don't know how common this type of atheism is, but based on the fact that most groups of people tend to have a silent majority and a vocal minority, I'd guess it's more common than people realize.
EDIT: basicly, being non-religious can often be socially inconvenient, so many atheists just do what everyone else does and claim to be religious. It's just easier.
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