Following your recent blogs I have started to see a real difference between the attitudes to atheism here in the UK and those of North America.

It comes across that being an Atheist in the US is akin to being in a minority group with the same issues as being gay or black may have in some parts of the country.

Here in the UK, declaring you have no faith or religon will not raise an eyebrow, will hardly warrant a comment or start a conversation, in fact it is becoming the norm....

I notice that God is not mentioned by our politicians or community leaders.  Tony Blair only talked about his faith AFTER he left office. In the USA, the impression is that God is mentioned all the time with "God Bless America" at the end of every speech.

Some statistics for you.....

Church attendances are falling.

The Percentage of the UK population classed as regular church goers (defined now as once a month ! not weekly)  is 15%.  The figure for the USA in 2007 was 43% (and that was based on a weekly figure !!)

It is calculated that by 2020 that 15% figure will be down to 4%

Also bear in mind that the 15% includes the influx of large numbers of Eastern Europeans (mainly from Poland whose church attendance is calculated as 75-80%)

And whilst 33% of the population have openly classified themselves as Atheist or Agnostic compared to the 58% you replied that they are Christian, the 58% figure is questioned as most people reply christian as a default answer that wil not require explaination to the questioner and as such is thought to be overstated.

So I guess my question is "How hard is it to be an Atheist in the USA ?"