THank you for the definitions ferakitten. Now at least I know what the word means (ROFL)..
I pity you having to live in a place where you are ridiculed because you don't believe in Certain things - it seems to hard to fathom that you could get mad at someone for not believing in something that can't be proven.
However that may be a product of my environment here in Canberra, Australia. Here, there are many different strains of religion in quite a small town (YES we are the capital of the country, but only 300,000 ppl) - There are churches, i believe there's a mosque (pls if I've used the term incorrectly i apologise) or at least a muslim building (that looks like a church - very impressive) of some variety, and christian, catholic and all the other sorts of churches around (lots of the ones with singing and dancing - almost like gospel but all white middle class bogans). BUt despite that, they all only have small groups of followers (by comparison to churches in the bigger cities and by the sounds of it, southern America) so no one really is in a position to be too precious about non-followers.
Having said that, we got a letter in the mail the other day from some lady trying to get us to see the ways of Jesus! It was
hand written! We couldnt believe it! We had never seen anything like it! I mean, we get the mormans and the Jehovah's Witnesses come round maybe 2 or 3 times a year(!) but this was very forward for these parts. THe only evangelist shows we have are on at like 4 in the morning when we're all asleep!
Hearing your situation made me appreciate more the fairly non-judgmental town that I live in (in terms of religion

). Maybe should should come out to Australia for a holiday. I'm sure you'd love it out here.