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It's time to make this clear, since there was a hefty dose of unintentional timing: this 'Belief' series is neither fictional nor an April Fool's joke, despite part of it being posted on April 1. Ricky Ellis is a real person, a high school classmate of mine I have not seen in fifteen years, and those words are truly his. His profile on facebook, if you have access to it, contains more of the same, and specifically references me, once by name:

Ricky Ellis:  atheism= WHAT A JOKE!! Iv been standing my ground for 2 days againsnt some of the smartest people in bauxite......but thats not saying very much is it! LOOKS AS IF THE DUMBEST OF BAUXITE HAS GOTTEN WAY AHEAD OF THE BALL GAME!! AND MY SALARY IS TWICE IF NOT 3 TIMES AS MUCH AS THERES......NOW YOU TELL ME GOD DOESNT HAVE GREAT THINGS INSTORE FOR

Everyone else has had their say today, and I wanted to wait some number of hours to let my opinions fall into place before providing my response. A full, measured, and honest response here will include nothing new to longtime readers of domesticat.net, but which may come as a surprise to quite a few of the people who knew me only as a child or a teenager, and have only recently found me again on Facebook.

First, the initial introduction.  My name is Amy.  I am in my early thirties. I am married. I have, by choice, no children -- and I am not Christian. That last statement is of little consequence outside the Bible Belt, but of tremendous consequence inside it.