I would just say, non-religious tribes and societies have been around a long time, far longer than Christianity. For example 700 years BC there are were Indian tribes, cultures , whose philosophies were heterodox, non religious systems. Carvaka is one. In the South Americas there still remains a tribe whose whole existence has no means to form religion or concepts of deity or worship. So I would reiterate my response to where Christianity still stands, non-religious stands longer. For those reasons also I don't agree either that non'-believers or atheist are relatively recent phenomenon. I do agree with your sentiment, however I think for those so inclined to worship a bully in the playground, a mythical one is the lesser of two evils. But to my mind it's still no excuse for losing ones integrity that way.
The first good thing is that people don't need academics or intellectuals to discover what's already in their heart, the capacity to love. Beauty even with what some academics says has and will always been a private matter... as with Arts How could an humanist could be proud of supporting Artists by the church ? I mean the Christ was for supporting the poors and the weakest... If these artists were really smart they could have done more real productive creative thinking like Leonardo da Vinci... Furthermore the role of the Church wasn't to show by money or creation but by way of acting... Arts... same as Gold... no real value... relativity rulz. Bankers at this time had the possiblity to change the world for the better... however they fall again in the trap of lending with interrests, and all the consequences bounded ( inflation from gov, debts default... hedging). All the currencies of the time collapsed... How could the church of the Chirst have had the money to pay the greatest artists of the time ? It's totally unbelivable... they were on some sort of heavy psyop's coupled with powerfull drugs... or only totally lost in their lust for power, and physical possession... The true descendant of the suckers and bagholders of the empire collapsed... It wasn't called the dark age for no reason... But finally where does this money comes from? I mean that what they had in all sides ( arts, buildings, lands, law, power ) was the best that money could buy. Is it from the trade of allowing lending with interests against some kind of income streams from the banking cartels ? That's where sometime the heart of man can lose itself... with a guy like Galileo. If you had the opportunity to know that the world was round a the time, would you have kept it for yourself ? As it was the Ultimate Edge of the time... +1 and any others ways...