I had to explain the peculiarities of this issue from a USA
   perspective, as my friend was from another culture: Well, in the
   USA we have Secularism in our forming documents. "Separation of
   Church and State". That means we can't have a state religion. So
   what we have is Secularism. Secularism _looks like_ atheism on
   the surface, but it's not. Atheism is considered a religious
   choice in the USA. So when the teacher used the process of
   Critical Thinking on a 12 year old girl in a state-sponsored
   school to force her to conclude, "There is no God", she had
   crossed over a 275 year old line that is part of our founding
   documents. It's a unique Americanism that we have this and I
   imagine it makes some things difficult for teachers, but it's
   "how we do things here".ere".