Welcome back to the second installment of “Life as a Godless Heathen,” starring your resident whippersnapper. Since the first part of this column ran last month, I am pleasantly surprised to report that at the time of writing, I hadn’t received any nasty emails, letters or phone calls, though I’m thinking that’s more because the fire-and-brimstone type probably aren’t reading my column.

I did get a few from people telling me about their own observations of the trend. One pointed out that it isn’t necessarily a new trend, specifically identifying the rise of 24/7 extracurricular involvement that leaves families just too busy or exhausted to go to church. Another talked about attending a Unitarian Universalist church as an atheist, since the faith tradition focuses on how to live rather than what to think.

As a quick summary, according to a 2016 Pew study, 23 percent of all adults in the U.S. identify as “nones,” which includes atheists, agnostics, secular humanists, and people who just don’t follow a religion. That number has been on the rise, and there is often concern from the religious community about this increase of non-believers.

If you don’t believe in a higher power, what do you do with your life? Are you doomed to godless heathenism for life?

I’m being sarcastic here, obviously. But I’ve been asked those kinds of questions.

While there’s a wide variety of beliefs within the “nones,” one I see a lot is from the American Humanist Association: “good without a god.” In short, a person’s ability to do good in the world — helping little old ladies cross the street, running food drives, etc. — isn’t dependent on the presence of a higher power or that person’s belief in such.

However, being openly not religious or specifically an atheist can be a problem, even in a blue and relatively nonreligious state like Connecticut. Atheists and agnostics especially are generally viewed negatively by members of religious groups, according to a 2014 Pew study.

As a result, I had a bit of a hard time finding local people willing to be directly quoted about why they identified this way. When I attended the July meeting of the Atheist Humanist Society of Connecticut and Rhode Island, a few people said they got backlash from family, friends and even employers for being an open atheist. Some said they weren’t public about it specifically for those reasons.

I’ve never been threatened, but I’ve definitely been given a bit of side-eye and questioned. One of the reader responses I got talked about being called a witch, devil worshipper, and so on.

(On that last one, the Colin McEnroe Show did a fascinating show last year on Satanism, which, as it turns out, is a form of atheism. You should look it up.)

Tom Krattenmaker, who serves on the board of the Yale Humanist Community and writes about religion in public life, is working on a book about what people do after they leave the church, and he said an increasingly secular society will effectively become a big social experiment to see what takes the place of the church. Groups like the YHC are popping up all over the state and country to build community, find meaning, and live ethical lives without being religious.

I also went to one of the YHC’s Humanist Haven meetings in August to sit in on a discussion of what exactly these groups around the state are doing.

There are about seven regional groups, including AHSCTRI, and they send delegates to the Connecticut Coalition of Reason. There are also smaller groups based around lunch meet-ups or other casual get-togethers.

They hold conferences and tables at events to promote their groups to people who might not otherwise know they exist. They participate in rallies for causes they support and protest against ones they don’t.

They also have meetings with legislators to get bills passed on issues such as the standardization of oaths. Their specific goal here is the addition of “or under penalty or perjury,” which not all oaths in Connecticut have; other religious groups also can’t swear to God, so this would prevent anyone from having to out themselves, not just atheists.

They noted there’s a lot less money involved than with religious organizations, so they rely on volunteers and making alliances with other groups. For more information on the various atheist and humanist groups throughout the state, visit unitedcor.org/coalition-of-reason/connecticut.

Amanda Hutchinson is the assistant community editor for The Times. Read more of her work at amandalhutchinson.wordpress.com.