Atheists and Allies

Circuitously, I saw the link to this piece on how to be an ally with atheists. I posted a short comment there:

I had a great experience in a social justice training where I shared my experience of exclusion as an atheist child in a very Christian community in the form of being silent during "under god" of the Pledge of Allegiance. Afterward, a participant who is my colleague and also is a minister came to me and told me it had been a life-changing moment. He told me "I said to God 'God, I'm in the room with atheists.' And God said, 'You're right where you're supposed to be.'" And it really made me cry.

And I want to say more about that here. That moment was so powerful to me because it's so the opposite of many many many experiences with religious people: