[Grammar] Catholics- Catholic/ Protestants- Protestant/ atheists- atheist

[Crowned 91]

Hi! Are the following examples grammatically correct?

-We are both Catholics./ We are both Protestants./ We are both atheists.
-We are all Catholics./ We are all Protestants./ We are all atheists.
- We became Catholics. / We became Protestants./ We became atheists.
-We will always remain Catholics. / We will always remain Protestants./ We will always remain atheists.

-We are both Catholic./ We are both Protestant./ We are both atheist.
-We are all Catholic./ We are all Protestant./ We are all atheist.
-We became Catholic./ We became Protestant./ We became atheist.
-We will always remain Catholic./ We will always remain Protestant./ We will always remain atheist.

I am a little confused since there are a lot of examples with both the noun and the adjective online often occurring in the same article. However, an American native speaker told me that he always uses the adjective form, since in his mind the noun form has a negative connotation. :-?

 

[emsr2d2]

I happily accept the names of actual religions as nouns and adjectives:

I am Christian.
I am a Christian.
He's Protestant.
He's a Protestant.
She's Buddhist.
She's a Buddhist.

I don't find it natural when referring to atheism though. I am an atheist. I find "I am atheist" unnatural. That is not to say that it is necessarily grammatically incorrect but it would jar if I heard it.

 

[Raymott]

Also, "I am atheist" could be heard as "I am a theist", while "I am an atheist" could not.