Dear Mother, you know why people are more willing to admit their sports team than their religious affiliation? Because the people who are yelling at each other today over one being Packers and the other Steelers will be friends again tomorrow, and the fact that I'm an atheist and you're a Catholic has been a source of friction between us for the past ten years. Because nobody's willing to call anybody unAmerican for supporting the wrong football team, but worship the wrong god ('wrong' here meaning 'not Christian') or none at all, and have fun convincing your neighbors that you're just as devoted to a more perfect union, establishing justice, insuring domestic tranquility, and all that as they are. Because ultimately, however worked up people get about sports, it's just a game, and religious affiliation is, uh, not.

But mostly it's because you want to hear about my religious affiliation about as much as I want to hear about yours, and in the interest of a more perfect union, insuring domestic tranquility, and all that, how about you and me both not talk about it.

Sincerely, your daughter, who is proud to be an atheist and is SICK of taking shit for it.