The Atheist Blogger

I’ve come to a bit of a conundrum and I’d like some opinions of a possible merging of blogs. My first blog (http://adrianhayter.com) was a personal blog I kept for various friends and to share some opinions / work with the world. I never really put much on it, and after I started this blog, it gradually fell into disuse. This is something I greatly regret, but maintaining two blogs can get annoying knowing that you are constantly switching audiences.

Obviously I don’t want to get rid of either of them, so I suggest a simple merge. My personal blog will merge into this one. The Atheist Blogger will continue to be a blog about atheism, but will also have semi-regular posts about myself, my life, and my work. I am sure this would interest those among you who like to hear about universities, computers, and general technobabble, but I’d like to hear a general consensus of opinions from everyone.

I will try to keep up my 1 article on atheism a day minimum (please excuse the past weekend which has been busy), but will also include articles about student life, especially student activism like my Atheist & Agnostic Alliance student group, and general posts about work I do on my course (Computer Science with Information Security)

Nothing else will change. The domain will be the same, the forums will remain, as will the book club. I’m an atheist student, and I want to share my entire life with you, not just my atheistic side!

A the title suggests, I would like to know which state (or area) of the USA is considered the most secular / non-believing. Since I live in the UK I am putting this question out to all my American readers in hope that they can throw back some figures for me.

Why do I want to know? Well, I’m currently going into my second year of university studying Computer Science with Information Security (which is way more interesting to me that it sounds to you). It’s a three year course, and at the end I will weigh up my options before deciding whether to do a PhD in it. Whenever I actually leave university, I have always had plans to emigrate to America. Truth be told, there are far more jobs in the computer industry over there, especially in the areas I want to go into (Gaming and/or Web Technology).

I don’t want to end up in a Bible Belt area for obvious reasons, so I’d like a place where I could feel at ease with my beliefs, and find other secular people to hang out with. California’s “Silicon Valley” is a good place to start, since it has the technology and I know of at least one secular/atheist group for workers there. Amiable Atheist recently made me aware of Arizona which has an increasing number of non-believers.

So, which state do you consider the most secular / atheist? Do you have any figures to show this result? What other aspects of this area would make it desirable for a liberal atheist technology geek like myself?

I await your answers!