Plenty of rural areas are still very religious. I’m from MI originally and most of my family and friends there are religious.

Oppression? We are not anything even resembling oppressed here. Not anywhere in the states would you here of someone being beaten, or forcibly removed from their home for being an atheist. No one is going to jail for not believing in god here. There are areas where the PTA might snub you, or something like that... No, the atheists of Egypt are oppressed, we're occasionally inconvenienced.

I would think oppression is too strong a word in my experience. Suspicion, uncertainty, doubt. Am sure some people see an atheist as somewhat untrustworthy which of course would lead to some level of discrimination in relationships or employment. The extreme may be rare. A few years ago, I went to a Catholic Easter service with someone I was seriously dating. After a pretty mundane, traditional service, the priest came up and gave a sermon about the threats in the world to Catholicism, citing militant Islam, and militant Atheism. My head shot up, instantly alert after what had been a procedural ceremony. Militant Atheism in the same sentence as Militant Islam !!!! This was an older priest. It came across more about someone fearing his and his institution's dwindling influence in the world and locally. But what kind of an impact could that have had on 5-10 people out of about 200. I mentioned this to a Catholic friend who attends church regularly. She was surprised and said that is not the norm.

you can probably find it anywhere if you look hard enough

I live in metro Detroit. Atheists are seen as unethical even by my ‘open minded’ contemporaries. Though I’m accepted, there is an initial assumption that I’m a hedonistic, careless, and generally wild animal.