"in a science class i recall telling the guys next to me that i am an athiest and they looked at me and were like 'YOUR CRAZY'"
I got the same thing from some of my fellow biology students. One even asked me how I could think about death if I don't believe in a higher power. I told her that she knows as much about death as I do, I just don't try to paint over death with old fairy tales.
We sometimes talk about intelligent design in college usually by refuting it. But I have a problem in how they teach evolution in the universities. I'm a senior now and I have yet to hear someone talk about Richard Dawkin's view of evolution that the gene is the unit of selection. I don't think they should talk about evolution or intelligent design in high school because, as in my high school, biology teachers are not always biologists. I had a soccor coach teach my sophmore biology class. They are not trained properly to explain natural selection or evolution.