Get this. I'm on my break at a public school where I work and your link has been blocked. Wow! Small town MN here where the population is about 3000 and there are about 8 churches and 2 bars if you include the golf course on the edge of town. I've been told that I can't plan activities on Wednesdays after school or evenings unless I call the ministerial committee first. They like to pretend it's the 1950s.

Great piece. Now, if you feel a relapse coming on, you'd better go to AA (Atheists Anonymous) I guess that's here. Seriously though, I found your explanation about why you changed interesting, bible studies and other things mixed in, but not one big transforming event. That's probably typical. People I have met who have renounced religion usually say it was a process not a big I saw the light event.

Thank you…. 13 years ahead of you, I’d suffered none of that.. But in my early twenties watched the wave arrive ..and with a motley crew of fellow (no women) Atheists, faced the storm. Letters to editors, support for women’s clinics, the gay community, local cable ‘atheist news programs,’ online battles with fundies.. even ‘picketing the pope.’ Imagine that, as you rode the tide, we were drowning…

I think the Republican party determined that without harvesting and harnessing religion in the USA, Humanism and Science would prevail.. So their industrial bakers funneled money into politics like never before ..and the ‘wall of separation’ crumbled. It’s never been repaired, as the Republican party has become dependant on their ‘supercharged’ exceedingly fanatic branch of religious zealots, their hatred and denial of science and humanity continues to fester…

Far removed from the action ...laying in bed with my young wife on the top floor of my families homestead cabin reading American Atheist Magazines cover to cover … while wondering what had gone wrong..? I witnessed ‘your kind,’ in many settings, such as the Oregon State Capitol lobbying their republican ilk against state colleges continuing research on ..anything. Or taking over our school boards with the hidden agenda of killing sex ed and science… They were everywhere - and riding high!

Madalyn Murray O’Hair had said (paraphrased), ‘every religion dies the same death, that of being found out.’ You found out.. I think the tide has turned, and much of the religious resurgence had been due to the ‘baby boomers’ having become parents and assuming ‘religion’ would best guide their young. It’s so complex, and tragic.. But welcome out, I’ve definitely noticed you around here, and appreciate the seriousness you bring to these discussions along with a perspective I lack. Yes, thank you … perhaps you’re that smidgen of hope I had ..through some decades of darkness ~

Thanks for sharing that, these things help me understand a new perspective and I like hearing other people's stories.