Ok I'm going to be brutally honest: I wouldn't want to live in a country where people keep their religion (or lack of) hidden from their family, friends or boss fearing what others could think about them. It seems to me that lots of right wing American Christians (the "vocal minority") want to establish a theocracy (while they condemn the same thing about muslim theocracies, for example).

My father is atheist, my mother was raised Catholic but hates the Pope and the whole Church: she's very anticlerical, very left leaning (bordering with modern communism) but still believes in a life after death where eventually everyone - even non believers, or believers in other religions - will spend their days after this worldly life. I asked her how a very erudite person with an outstanding comprehension of the World can believe in Heaven. She says the teachings of Jesus taught her to fight for everyone's rights on Earth, against discrimination, for a public, secular school and society who doesn't oppress the rights of women and minorities, and that's what really matters, but the thought of a better, metaphysical world comforts her. And I, an atheist, respect and admire her pro-society stance.