Thiel seems to talk like a practical business teacher. Through his quotes I see advice for entrepreneurs and founders, greedy suggestions and ruthless behaviour, exactly the US way of high business. Because the bad side of religion supports these goals, he is considered religious and not atheist.

In order to be an atheist you have to not believe to any God but also to any other universal power (eg physical laws, mathematics, human civilisation). For me an uneducated person can only become an atheist.

>In order to an atheist you have to not believe to any God but also to any other universal power (eg physical laws, mathematics, human civilisation).

To be an atheist you just have to not believe in any God, full stop. Of course atheists believe in physics, mathematics and natural law. Just not in metaphysics and the supernatural.