In this website I will argue for the idea that "Americanism" is the true religion of Reality, as it best reflects real life in America. I think labels matter and a life-stance is empowering.
In my opinion, I think too many atheists and agnostics (and other non-religious) spend too much of their energy arguing with Fundamentalist Religionists about "god" belief; rather than focusing on the problems with Fundamentalism's overall teachings being anti-life and anti-humanity. Thomas Paine, as a Deist, did not argue against theism as much as the problems with the Fundamentalism itself. He also focused on what he stood for, like in his pamphlet Common Sense.
"Atheism" as a banner or self-label is a negative stance, in my opinion; as it is only saying what you are not, what you reject, or lack a belief in. It does not say what you do believe in. or stand for, or what philosophy of life you practice.
The term "agnostic" is problematic because even though Huxley coined the term agnostic to be synonymous with methodological naturalism, both theists and atheists alike generally mis-define it as saying it means being a fence sitter and just saying, "I don't know," or "I'm undecided" about supernatural issues. When in fact Thomas Huxley was very skeptical of supernatural claims and argued that belief in personal/interventionist gods and the devil and demons was both unethical and improbable. For example, see how often Huxley refers to New Testament Bible stories being "improbable" in his article Christianity and Agnosticism. Nevertheless, since most theists, and atheists for that matter, incorrectly assume that Huxley Agnosticism does not deal with probabilities, I find the term agnostic to be utterly useless in conversation; and more of a confusion-producer than a useful term. Meanwhile the term rationalist just sounds smug and Spockish (as in Spock from Star Trek); and modern neuroscience shows us that we are not that rational anyway, at least not only rational; but in fact Hume was correct that reason is ultimately the slave of the passions.
Labels like atheist and agnostic continue to be perceived generally negatively in the American public consciousness. In short, these labels suffer from bad PR. So a non-religious non-theist rationalist spends too much time and energy re-educating others and clearing up misconceptions about labels like atheist or agnostic. Ugh! No thanks! I have better things to do with my time. I mean why bother fixing a bad image when the image makers are partly to blame? As the documentary Flock of Dodos shows, it is often the non-theists and scientifically-minded types themselves that lack good PR and marketing skills.
I like the new trend among secular types to present Stoicism as a viable alternative Philosophy of Life to religions ones. But as a popular author of one such book on Stoicism, William B. Irvine himself suggests not using the term Stoic to refer to yourself (due to the popular misunderstanding of Stoics) but instead to just live the Stoic Way.
So for me the choice was always to avoid all labels and just call myself a "human being," with an emphasis on our mutual humanity and how we are BEings, not static statues captures in labels. This has served me quite well most of the time.
Yet there is something about having a label or philosophy that I guess I just like as a thinking person who enjoys ideas. And the more I thought about it the more I realized that the solution was always right there, right in my back pocket in fact. When I went back to my studies of the US Founding Fathers and their Deism, I realized that Americanism itself was a Philosophy of Life, with it's own symbols and doctrines so to speak.
Since I am an American and like being an American and was surrounded by Americans, it made sense to say I am a "Practicing American" when asked what I believe or what philosophy of life do I practice. Then I could have fun telling people to pull out a Dollar Bill in their back pocket to explain to them what I believed using the US symbols on the Dollar Bill.
So from a marketing perspective it is more socially intelligent in my opinion to respond, when asked what I believe or what are my values, by just saying: "I’m an American," or "I'm a practicing American," or "I follow the American Way," and "My beliefs are on the Dollar Bill." Then I can talk about Americanism as a secular religion based on Reality, Reason, Deism, and Capitalism. Since most people, most of the time, have a Dollar Bill in their pocket or purse (or I have one in my wallet to show them), I can explain my life philosophy with the symbols on the Dollar Bill that they carry around with them everyday.