This was my thing. I'm not a atheist, but the moment I talk about religion, it becomes "the thing". I imagine this is what vegans have to deal with, like the moment they share... It becomes a shit show of people questioning everything. And like bruh, let them eat vegan marshmellows and pray to Cthulhu.

I didn't meant to type a long wall of text but here goes anyway.

Yeah, people here are dismissive of the news headline, but I have a similar experience coming out as agnostic atheist. Luckily, I did not get as much as negative experience as you have, but when I came out, I was tried to be invited twice on separate occasions into Christian prayer meetings. Naive me didn't realise that both invitations are more like trying to get me "back into the flock".

On the second invitation, I went along just to see how it was. After the second prayer session I attended, I said don't want to go anymore. I had a long "debate" with the pastor on the phone to try to make me at least a believer in any religions. There was a bit of condescension in the conversation and kind of implied I am going to hell. The thing is, or rather problem for him, is that I don't feel or see whatever religious folks see even when I was going to church. So, I don't feel at least bit intimadated by threat of hell. The OG Judaism and Old Testament don't even believe in hell so why should Christians and Muslims do as well?

Not to mention, religions across the world have conflicting claims of historical and scientific realities. If they all conflict with each other and could not agree which is the correct one, then religions themselves are false. If there are universal scientific truth to each of their claims and basis, then one religion in one part of the world should have the same or similar accounts to another religious belief on the other side of the world. But that is not the case.

I told the last paragraph to the pastor and we were pushing back each other. I do not like to de-convert people from religion but he was trying to re-convert me so I laid down all the heavy stuff to him, despite signalling that I don't want to continue the conversation in the first twenty minutes.

I admit that I have had cognitive dissonance the following day and think "what if I'm wrong?" I simply re-think back that religious accounts conflict with each other and therefore not real. Also, it dawned on me that my emotions is probably more that I feel offended trying to be re-converted and being condescended. Conversely, the pastor must have thought I am a devil tempting him away from religion, lol.

Since then, I don't tell people I'm agnostic atheist. Christians (and Islam) feel religious obligations to convert as many people as possible. That's how they survive. I didn't think much about proselytising before but I realised that the practice is rather condescending and gives them superiority complex. This is not to say that there aren't militant atheist, but the religious zealots are more adamant from what I observed.

Where in the hell do you live?

Same. There's no benefit and everything to loose causally coming out. Most people will just assume you're part of their religion, so it's not like you even have to lie about it most places.