You are right. In the southern bible belt there is huge pressure to be a "true believer" in religion.. I grew up in that culture, but you could not pay me enough to live there again.

You may look at atheist groups on meetup.com

Or when you clock on Members on this site,there is a "nearby" tab, which lists members in the order of being closest to you. This site needs to grow more though.

I live in Florida and I came from NY 26 yrs ago. Even in NY there were difficulties. What I have found is that Meetup has atheist, free thought, skeptic groups. You might be able to find some or related subjects.