I used to be more vocally atheist when I first started studying philosophy, but this has moderated greatly over time. Mostly it's because I realised that the question of whether or not God existed was far less important that what people do with their belief. There are plenty of people who believe things that I think are outrageously implausible and un-grounded by evidence who are kind, honourable and ethical. And there are people who have what seems like a more rational view of many things, but still somehow manage to be arseholes about it.

I do take your point about verifiability of whether or not someone really said something. I've been thinking about this, and when I finish my current slab of academic work, I did want to come back to some implications of where this might go. Spoilers: I think we might have to revisit everything from 'seeing is believing' right up to the uncritical worship of empirical evidence.