I was raised Catholic but deserted in my teens. I was more or less agnostic in college, and then after years of confronting my thoughts and feelings and how they conflicted with other people's, came to the conclusion I'm an atheist. I was closeted for a bit but not anymore. I find that I have some theist friends who don't preach and really do try to "walk the walk", and for that they earn my respect. I've been lucky in that I've found not as much judgement as I thought I would, and in fact have discovered there are lots of atheists around, we just aren't that loud about it. LOL