I say pain because for most people, the... ecdysis... of constricting belief is an act that is often painful, and thus avoided by those who are not mentally flexible. Perhaps the most wonderful evolutionary tool we possess is the one which can destroy us, in that pain is, except for actual physical damage, often only as we choose to define it. We can spin our pains from ephemera, as it were, as well as our pleasures.

In essence, attempting to redefine the universe is incredibly uncomfortable for the majority of people, as they are no longer in possession of the fortress of certainty. Losing certainty for someone for whom it has been a lifelong possession (mostly, at any rate) is terrifying. It isn't called crisis of faith for nothing, after all.

There is very little effective difference between a small belief as you posit it, and a large one. Either way, the comforting belief exists. If anything, the small belief is the much larger one, in terms of practical effects. The loudest, most verbose theist is simply the easiest one to find, to debate with.

The vast majority of theists are , in my experience, what you term those holding small belief. There is no examination involved, because nothing has ever spurred such examination in any real sense. Surrounded by information that supports a specific worldview, inundated by social validation of that worldview, why would they ever bother? And spurred may be the most accurate metaphor, as in application of something unpleasant, sharp, forceful. You will not pull even a single theist away from their beliefs, very likely, by acting as a spur. Only be way of example, by being ethical, by helping others, by showing that faith does not equal comfort, and that humans can accomplish wonders without the omniscient eye of a judging deity watching over them.

In all honesty, I suspect atheists ask far too much of the "normal" theist, when they engage with them. The tone of your writing, for instance, involves a great deal of education, of experience, of choice to read widely and deeply, and retain what you read. All of this runs counter to the normal experience of people in our society. You are choosing a road less comfortable, in which the rocks have nothing but sharp edges, and while this also gives you the option of examining all the lovely quartz in the rocks, and perhaps even vales which others will never experience, the end of the road is a ravine full of nothingness. And given all this, how could you wonder at the willingness of people to accept a lie that the road continues?

To look on the lie of theism for what it is means rejection of the normal societal boundaries with which most circumscribe their universe. We are animals after all, and animals do not voluntarily choose pain. Those who do, are often those who already do not fit in, in the usual sense. So you ask those of small belief, those whose faith grants them meaning, to discard it for nothing.

The dismissal of deity will take centuries more, I suspect, even with all of us preaching to the choir, in the hopes that those outside the church of no church will hear it and finally wake up.