NORFOLK, Va. — He’s an electrical tradesman, a budding investor in real estate, a doting dad whose young son is infatuated with pirates. But in his busy life, Jeremy Martin still finds time to rebut accusations that atheists like him will burn in hell.

“I’ve seen people gritting their teeth and balling their hands up while they listen to me,” said Martin, 33, of Maple, N.C. “I’ve gotten some loaded statements like, ‘What are you going to do when you find yourself in a lake of fire?’ ”

Martin’s godlessness may be anathema to the region’s large faith-based community, but he has like-minded company in Freethinkers and Atheists of Virginia.

The group, founded in 2002, draws people to its gathering every other month. Their journeys to atheism are varied, but they share a concern: that society has become so biased toward religion, it threatens their freedom not to believe.

About 100 people are active on the group’s Web site and in its e-mail chats on topics such as religion and science.

That small organized presence is typical of atheists’ ranks nationwide. In a Gallup poll last year, 1 percent of respondents said they were convinced God does not exist, and another 4 percent said God “does not exist, but are not sure.” The rest said God definitely or probably exists.

What frustrates atheists is not that they are outnumbered, but that they are reviled. “We are the last group in the United States who it’s politically correct to hate and discriminate against,” said Dave Silverman, a spokesman for American Atheists, a 43-year-old national advocacy group. “In the Bible Belt, it’s even worse.”

At a recent gathering in Virginia Beach, Va., several Freethinkers and Atheists members agreed that they often feel like outcasts.

“We get that all the time: ‘It’s a Christian nation — if you don’t like it, why don’t you just leave,’ ” said Lauren Floyd, a computer programmer who co-founded the local group. Yet atheists have good cause to feel they are pariahs, according to a national survey by University of Minnesota scholars this year. Researchers found that Americans rank atheists below gay and lesbian people, recent immigrants, Muslims and other minorities in “sharing their vision of American society.” In addition, “Americans are less willing to accept intermarriage with atheists than with any other group,” according to the study.

Penny Edgell, a sociologist who led the study, said irreligious people often are seen as amoral because Americans’ core values historically have overlapped with religious values. “Religiosity is seen as a proxy for being a good person,” she said.The stereotype of atheists as amoral and values-free was a particular frustration among members of the local Freethinkers group such as Matt Edwards, a former Catholic who works in a supermarket.

“I consider myself a very moral person,” the 29-year-old father of two said. “I care for my children, my wife, my believer parents,” he said. And, he added, he strives to treat others as he’d like to be treated, according to the universal values in the golden rule.

“It took me a while to decide I was an atheist because, if you use that word, people think you’re like a serial killer: They can’t believe you know right from wrong, that you can love people or care for people,” said Jan Floyd, a retired biology teacher retired who is married to Lauren Floyd, the Freethinkers’ cofounder.

Several of those at the group’s recent gathering said that despite being raised in religious households, they ultimately questioned whether it was right to believe in God and religion.

Martin, who was raised Southern Baptist, said he had nursed doubts about the Bible’s veracity and claims by theists for years when the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks occurred.

“I remember holding my son tight, thinking, ‘What kind of a God would do this?’ And it hit me: ‘Don’t lie to yourself any more. There is no God,’ ” he said. “That was it. That was my final straw.”

However they arrived at atheism, members of the group said they shared not only disbelief in all religions, but an affinity for science, reasoning and logical argument based on evidence.

“Naturalistic explanations for things have always been far more satisfying for me than, ‘God did it,’ ” Lauren Floyd said. He said he launched the group in 2002 to connect with like-minded people for fellowship and good conversation.

Lauren Floyd said he has increasingly come to believe that atheists need to be both proud and loud to counter what he calls a post-Sept. 11 increase in public religiosity.

That climate, he said, foments public spending on faith-based initiatives and attacks on teaching evolution, as well as distrust of atheists.

“More and more of us are willing to stand up and say, ‘Don’t take this anymore,’ ”he said. His Freethinkers colleagues mulled over an interview request for a year before agreeing to talk to a reporter.

Silverman said the same assertiveness is driving American Atheists as it files lawsuits defending atheists and holds rallies such as last November’s “Atheists in Foxholes” in Washington that celebrated atheist military veterans.

“You’ve got to fight back, and a lot of people are coming out” as atheists, he said. “We are definitely getting feisty.”

”“ We are the last group in the United States who it’s politically correct to hate and discriminate against.””