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Churches have every right to be bigots. The government does not.

It would be funnier, though, if their religious views didn’t cause so many people so much pain.

“You can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else.” – Winston Churchill

For me it was liberating because finally the Universe made complete sense. There was only matter and energy that followed constant laws...anything 'supernatural' was simply dreamed up by humans. When bad things happened, it was not punishment, just chance. It meant that we could make this world into what we pleased, for good or ill. My choices were on me alone.

I'm from the Bible Belt as well. My suspicion is that you actually do know some atheists, but you just don't know it. It's very difficult for atheists to be "out" in the Bible Belt. As to your question, I would first just point out that it's less that I "decided" there was no God, and more that I just "realized" there was no God. And for me at least, it wasn't "liberating" so much as terrifying. I wasn't frightened of God's judgment or anything like that. Having grown up in a fundamentalist Christian household, I was always taught that doubt, in itself, was sinful, so by the time I got to the point of not believing, I had already crossed the line of doubting God (and thus being subject to judgment) long before that. In that sense, when I finally realized there was no God, it actually erased any fear of judgment - there's no God to judge me, thus no fear. Instead, I was terrified of the reaction that I would get from people around me when they found out that I no longer believed in God. My number one concern was my grandparents, whom I am very close with. I knew that it would devastate them, and that was really tough for me. (To this day, I have never really "come out" to them, although my parents told them - something that I honestly think I will always be resentful towards my parents for.) Beyond that, literally everyone around me, friends, family, my whole community really, were Christians, and so there was a deep, deep sense of loneliness when I realized that I had basically become "evil" in all of their minds.

It is liberating not to follow any religion because I feel that most of them (the major ones i.e. Judaism, Islam, and Christianity) are oppressive, intolerant and encourage ignorance in one way or another.

generally do not recommend reparative therapy because of its very low success rate

How does one digest all of the data

In our essays, we do not normally draw conclusions

Our policy has always been to provide our visitors with a balanced presentation of both or all sides to each issue

Our DNA, mixed with the DNA of another, lives on through any children that we have

It is fixed -- or almost always fixed -- in adulthood, and is normal and natural for a minority of people

morally neutral

Humanism is a philosophy, worldview, or life stance based on naturalism--the conviction that the universe or nature is all that exists or is real

Humanism serves, for many humanists, some of the psychological and social functions of a religion, but without belief in deities, transcendental entities, miracles, life after death, and the supernatural

Humanists seek to understand the universe by using science and its methods of critical inquiry--logical reasoning, empirical evidence, and skeptical evaluation of conjectures and conclusions--to obtain reliable knowledge

constitutional equal protection

“The daily recitation in public schools of a pledge declaring that the nation is ‘under God’ is discriminatory toward atheists and humanists,”

“No child should go to school each day to have the class declare that her religious beliefs are wrong in an exercise that portrays her and her family as less patriotic than believers.”

The world urgently needs more liberty and justice, and therefore more humanism.

The ethical system of humanism prioritizes these ideals at a higher level than any belief system that precedes it