Religion shouldn’t even be on the minds of non-believers and atheists shouldn’t need to identify by what they don’t believe and I hope that some day we will live in that world. But what would that world look like?

• Atheists wouldn’t have to hide in the closet out of fear for their livelihoods, social standing, careers, or relationships.
• Not believing in fairy tales would be viewed as a positive for political candidates, not a negative.
• Schools would teach science with out people trying to undermine that.
• Schools would also teach comprehensive sexual education to all children before they become sexually active.
• Exemptions for vaccines or medical care standards would not exist for religious of philosophical exemptions and the parents who resist would be viewed as the irresponsible and unfit parents that they are.
• A person’s, especially a woman’s right to self determination would be unchallenged by backwards people who want to impose outdated moral codes on all.
• Priests and pastors would fall under the same mandatory reporting requirements as any other professional that people often go to to talk about their problems, they would also require formal training and licensing to perform any “counseling services.”
• These same religious leaders would also need to be treated the same as anyone else and willing to turn over over their own to the authorities when one of them rapes a child (or other church member) or steals money.

There are plenty more things that we would need to see before atheists would be able to ignore religion, but these are just a few of the big issues that readily come to mind. I’m sure the vast majority of us would much rather focus all of our time and energy (including blogging) on living life and studying reality, but unfortunately the religious right, crime syndicates like the Roman Catholic Church, and the general societal hatred towards and distrust of atheists gets in the way of that.

If religious believers just kept their faith private, didn’t put their children in harms way, and didn’t try to impose their beliefs on our laws, then I’m sure we would all be happy to let them live with their delusions. Until that day comes, we will not back off and we will not shut up.