Here's an assessment of the worst places on Earth to be an Atheist (click the link for an interactive map). Top of the list are places like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, Indonesia etc. (red = bad), no surprises there, but what grabbed my interest were the yellow countries that I would have predicted to be green (good) The UK ranked worse than France for example, this came down to our state religion and the way it interferes with education and politics. I was also surprised by New Zealand and Australia which I'd have thought very secular places, quite conservative though when you look at the numbers. Most other ratings were un-controversial, generally Islamic countries are bad and countries with very authoritarian regimes like Russia and China don't fare too well either. Personally I'd have given the USA a slightly worse score than it got because of the pressure on people to be religious, but then again that's mostly only a factor in the middle of the country, around the edges where the population centres are it's much more liberal.
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