Anecdotally, atheism, while people are free to believe as they wish, cannot form the bedrock for a free society as the Twentieth Century clearly taught. Again, hearken back to Burke: "Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without."
There is no such thing as neutrality, and anyone who presumes to approach any subject without due allowance for his own built-in biases and prejudices deludes himself and builds on a sandy foundation.
"Know thyself."
With regard to freedom, F.A. Hayek, something of an agnostic, said that freedom only became possible in the world with the emergence of the monotheistic religions.
In the former, pagan religions, the gods were capricious, not subject to law. But, the one true God is both the God of Law and the God of Liberty. His Law frees us.
His Law, reflected in the Ten Commandments, puts forth the basic laws that any society must obey in order to flourish.
Now, does this mean that only a religious person - and, specifically, one who adheres to the Ten Commandments or its equivalent - can be moral, or that the majority of a society must be religious in this sense to be free, virtuous and prosperous?
With regard to individuals, no, all men and women of good will can be moral. Hence, the Angel heralded the coming of the Messiah by addressing all men of good will.
With regard to societies, as a practical matter, yes, the majority needs to be religious and adhere to the Ten Commandments. And, in a democracy, we should support political candidates who promote religion and who exemplify this in their own lives. It’s one thing for an intellectual such as Hayek to claim to be some kind of an agnostic; but, it’s another thing for a high-ranking public official.
Now, I think you can see the trivialization of religion in the cultural left. In the shifting winds of politics, the enemy of freedom is now shifting from atheistic communism to a strange form of post-Christian, “multi-cultural” religion.