We're too savvy to fall for this snake oil (again!). The US strikes me as being at the level of development that Britain reached in Victorian times: a great industrial and imperial power with jingoism and flag-worshipping nationalism combined with paternalism and religiosity in a sanctimonious and self-aggrandising way. It seems to be a stage in the development of the imperial nation-state and the US will come out the other side of it just as we did.

From my personal experience there is very little Christian bullying in the US. I honestly don’t get why people say that. If anything things have gotten way better for atheists in the last 10-20 years.

Yeah, but we don't have the islamers doing here as much as there.

US evangelical groups were sending creationist teching materials to schools a year or two ago.

As an ex-pat, I'm always surprised when I visit each year to see just how much Britain has become Americanized - and that includes the covert involvement of Breitbart in swaying the Brexit vote.

As others have commented here, don't think yourselves immune, and don't think that things can very quickly change (Brexit being a telling example).

Despite what is going on in the administration and the news, I would say it has steadily declined over the years. I was born and raised in the south (aka bible belt) and growing up, I was one of very few non-believers. And if you were, you didn’t speak about it in the open for fear being shamed and/or ostracized by pretty much everyone, including family. Nowadays, you still deal with the religious fervor of those strong believers and the majority are christians, but I, seemingly, bump into way more people that aren’t believers and are willing to openly discuss it.

Overall, I think it has gotten better. Still got a ways to go though. More people are willing to speak out about their views and it seems like this trend has only risen. The news makes kinda seem more than it is. Not to say that in some ways it isn’t, but I truly think that we are on the rise.

I think that the most dangerous threat to liberal democracy in all of it's forms is permitting the existing of selective schools, especially faith schools. We have a C of E school in my village and they don't have to toe the line like the state schools. Being a C of E school, the difference in teaching and curriculum from state schools is minimal. But the potential is there to introduce doctrine which is not friendly to democracy.

Tell us about Brexit!

I can’t see it happening in England because society there is becoming more secular not more religious. The same goes for Scotland. To say we don’t have it in the UK is not true however as in Northern Ireland we have the same problem as America. The DUP are all extreme protestants with the same views as the evangelical right in US. They are preventing same sex marriage and abortion becoming legal and effectively making us second class British citizens.

Your key word is “seems”. If you go by the media you would think that US churches are perpetually bullying the populace and that things here are dire and out of control and that theocracy is on the way. The media loves to whip up a frenzy, but it’s mostly just fluff IMO. There are a handful of church zealots who make a lot of noise but have little power.

The media is screaming and crying bloody murder over the election of old DT. They are spreading the message that his supporters are ignorant, impoverished, racist, uneducated, bigoted, drug using, baseball cap wearing “evangicals”, whatever the heck those are. Meanwhile Trump is a sort of secular guy while Clinton claims to be a Methodist. I doubt if many people voted based on their religion.

You probably do not face the threat that we do, because evangelical protestantism is not strong in the UK. The evangelicals are the source of the problem.

That's a very important question.

I think religion is capitalism's sibling. It's a powerful tool used by the ruling class to prevent unrest. Where there's poverty and inequality there's faith.

It does sound a bit of a nightmare in the US and it feels like religion is being used to enable fascism.

I would like to know what the early warning signs for the UK are too. If the Conservatives got in again I can envisage compulsory religious education being widened. More religious programmes on TV. Laws being changed which allow faiths to advertise etc...

I wonder if more egalitarian countries have less faith.

I don't think anyone is immune. In my experience, we've seen a lot more radicalization and "shock" Christianity in the last 20 years here. Especially from the smaller, "independent, non-denominational" churches.

Some of the worst I've seen have been non-denomination Church of Christ sects--one I dated a girl from one time. The girl was an instrumental music education major in college, and her church didn't allow women teachers, instrumental music, or pants. I didn't understand it at all...