Still, DeMaro said, Page was meeting academic standards and was not undergoing any disciplinary actions.

Page said he quit before graduation because he could no longer fulfill his dream of being an Army officer.

He had been trying to effect change for nonreligious students, he said, from inside the military. He said he would continue to advocate from the outside through his affiliation with the advocacy group Military Religious Freedom Foundation.

The group's founder and president, Mikey Weinstein, called Page's act one of great courage. But he said he was not surprised by Page's allegations.

"We have the Christian Taliban running amok unchecked in the technologically most lethal organization ever recorded in human kind," Weinstein said about religion and the military. "There's no problem except that we have a small document called the Constitution that separates state and religion."

Weinstein said people like Page were critical in ensuring constitutional rights for all those who join the military.

"There is no difference between this and degrading anyone for the color of their skin or being a female," he said.

But he commended West Point for honorably discharging Page and not punishing him for what he has done.

Page said he's received support from other nonreligious cadets. But he's also been called a coward and a quitter.

A former classmate, Charles Clymer, wrote an open letter to Page on the Facebook page of the Secular Student Alliance. Clymer described himself as a Christian but also an "aggressive, outspoken liberal" who voiced his opinion loudly on what he called the injustice of "don't ask, don't tell" and limited career options for women.

He said he was not a typical cadet, but that he was angered by Page's online post and believed that Page lashed out simply because he wasn't cutting it at West Point.

"I never, not even once, witnessed, heard about, or even thought it implied that non-religious cadets face discrimination of any kind at the Academy," Clymer wrote.

"I saw widespread homophobia and sexism but never any negative sentiment towards those cadets who identified as atheist or agnostic," he wrote. "In fact, the closest thing I ever observed that looked like a pro-Christian bias were the few cadets who believed Islam is evil, and that was a very small fraction of our class. The vast majority of Christian cadets treated non-Christian cadets with respect insofar as their beliefs are concerned."

Page said that, ultimately, he was not concerned with what others said about him.

"That's really fine." he said. "I am not trying to talk about myself. I am trying to talk about church and state."