Atheism is still a taboo for American politicians

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Another key point: the type of people who are politicians in America (especially local politicians) are "joiners," and tend to join many different community organizations for 1) the social connections and 2) the chance to be known just enough by just enough people in their town/district for electoral reasons. The type of person who is civically engaged is the type of people who recognizes the intrinsic value of places of worships as community spaces, even if they don't personally have devout beliefs (or beliefs, period).

Yep. The Rotarian personality, basically.

Religious leftists would also do well to keep all this in mind when deciding how we feel about certain stereotypes of irreligious people--something that took me a while to learn myself.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Another key point: the type of people who are politicians in America (especially local politicians) are "joiners," and tend to join many different community organizations for 1) the social connections and 2) the chance to be known just enough by just enough people in their town/district for electoral reasons. The type of person who is civically engaged is the type of people who recognizes the intrinsic value of places of worships as community spaces, even if they don't personally have devout beliefs (or beliefs, period).

Yep. The Rotarian personality, basically.

Religious leftists would also do well to keep all this in mind when deciding how we feel about certain stereotypes of irreligious people--something that took me a while to learn myself.

And what are these? I'm curious.

I'm thinking primarily of associating staunch atheism solely with upper-middle-class white STEMbro culture, but as RINO Tom observes, staunch atheism is not really representative of the so-called "nones" anyway, regardless of the other problems with the stereotype.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Torie, I wouldn't be too apologetic.

To borrow a phrase, American 'nones' aren't 'temporarily embarrassed Christians'; the fact so few identify as Atheist despite Gallup recently identifying only 64% to 81% believing in God depending on how the question is asked is a reflection of US discourse.

None is None. It's not a holding pen.

It’s also not some “pre-Atheist” stage or collection of “soft Atheists.”

Considering that atheism is a lack of belief in God and not antitheism, it kind of is. Atheism is okay, and should not be seen as lesser to any religion.

It depends on if we're defining that lack of belief in an affirmative way or not, though. A lot of "nones" (side note: why have we not come up with a better term than this?), if pressed, describe themselves as agnostic or as uninterested in the question or as going back and forth on it depending on the situation.