In God We Must

[Admiral Yi]

Link didn't work for me.  Can someone tell me what kind of treatment our heroic lebiang aetheist is getting?

[garbon]

The little cartoon at the beginning of the article is an excellent example of why so many people don't care for Athiests in this country.

[Ideologue]

lol. I'm a relatively out atheist in the South and I've never had a problem.

But then again, I live in a real city, not Pig's Cooter, Texas.

It's hurt me, socially, on occasion.  But I don't want to fuck a Christian anyway.  They think Jesus told them that facials are evil; I'm not familiar with that verse myself.

Vegetarianism bothers people more, I think, because they think I'm secretly judging them.  And I totally am.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I think what makes it hard in America are the Protestant scum. I'm a Catholic, and I have never proselytized, nor do I really see other American Catholics proselytizing.

But pretty much my entire professional life I've observed extreme open religiosity at work. (This is from a guy who has essentially been working for the government his whole life, I can only imagine what it's like in the private sector where there isn't even the theoretical concept of your employer being required to be religiously neutral.)

The big problem I've seen with Protestants is they really must talk about their religion, and they must believe that every incident in their daily lives is governed by God taking direct hands in their lives. Catholics have a long theological tradition in believing in strong free will (going back to Augustine), but a lot of Protestants, while not strict Calvinist style pre-destination believers do believe strongly in things along those lines.

For example a guy I work with some years ago had a brain stem stroke. At the time he weighed 240 lbs on a 5'8" frame, ate cheeseburgers every day for lunch and donuts every day for breakfast and never exercised. His doctors told him his stroke was directly caused by cholesterol, high blood pressure and etc. To his credit, he basically lost all his excess weight, plays tennis religiously, and 4-5 years out he still lives very healthily. But anytime he talks about his stroke he'll talk about how it was "god's way of waking me up and making me realize what I was doing."

As a Catholic I just don't believe that hogwash. I think that his stroke was a result of him using his free will and living like a very unhealthy person, and then his body reacted in a predictable manner. Afterwards, I can believe that his faith gave him the strength necessary to change his eating habits (one of the more difficult things one can do, probably harder than breaking an alcohol or cigarette addiction because you have no option to go cold turkey and no societal reinforcement), but I just reject this concept that God sat there one day and said "it's time for you to stroke out so you quit being a fatass." That offends common sense, and if Catholicism taught that kind of stuff I wouldn't be a Catholic any longer.

But here's the thing, the guy talks about this stuff all the time, as a non-atheist I'm not religiously offended by it, but as someone with common sense I am. However, in the work place it's just preferable to smile and nod, because what is there to really be gained by telling him, "Yeah, that's a bunch of BS." There is nothing to be gained. That's just one of many people I know who say things like that all the time. I imagine any atheists I work with do what I do and just sort of smile and nod, because making such a wave really wouldn't be good. It'd be even worse in the private sector if you worked for someone who was like that, because in reality it's not smart from a career perspective to make waves with your boss by interjecting into his religious discussions that you think it's all hogwash.

[Iormlund]

The little cartoon at the beginning of the article is an excellent example of why so many people don't care for Athiests in this country.

It's probably the other way around.

The reason you get Atheist assholes in the US is the pervasiveness of religion. It's always shocked me how often one of the first things mentioned about someone is whether he or she is a Catholic, a Mormon, a Baptist or whatever. You don't see Atheist proselytizing here precisely because religion is a non-issue. Nobody cares what you believe in.

[Razgovory]

Define atheist.

First you define Theism and then whoever isn't a Theist is an Atheist.

You are an idiot.

[Razgovory]

The little cartoon at the beginning of the article is an excellent example of why so many people don't care for Athiests in this country.

It's probably the other way around.

The reason you get Atheist assholes in the US is the pervasiveness of religion. It's always shocked me how often one of the first things mentioned about someone is whether he or she is a Catholic, a Mormon, a Baptist or whatever. You don't see Atheist proselytizing here precisely because religion is a non-issue. Nobody cares what you believe in.

Except some of the biggest assholes come from Britain, not the US

We get atheist assholes for several reasons, but one of the biggest is the smug desire for intellectual superiority.  Atheists often come off as the kid in school who enjoys making the younger kids cry by telling them there is no Santa Claus.  Most people don't like to be belittled by some arrogant prick going on about "Sky fairies".

I should also note that the religious experience in the US has been fairly positive.  We have no state church, so religion is less tainted by politics.  Some very positive developments such as abolition and civil rights have had a strong religious element as well.

[garbon]

It's always shocked me how often one of the first things mentioned about someone is whether he or she is a Catholic, a Mormon, a Baptist or whatever.

You don't see Atheist proselytizing here precisely because religion is a non-issue. Nobody cares what you believe in.

I don't see Atheists proselytizing here in America (generally gauche to do so in person) although I do see some of them doing so here on Languish.

[Razgovory]

Margrat Murray O'Hare did.  But she's dead.

[DontSayBanana]

OvB's hit the nail on the head.  Militant atheists generally aren't thinking rationally (speaking as someone who's been part of the problem before).  Generally speaking, the rational viewpoint on religion is that it's a core psychological tool that can be more beneficial to some than to others, so proselytism of atheism is a pretty silly proposition.

I'd disagree with viewing us as victims, but the five stages of coping are good guidelines to consider, since they can also manifest due to grief or just about any fundamental enough change in one's life.

Example:

Denial - switched churches because I thought I was just uncomfortable with how "hellfire and bloody damnation" the pastor and at least one of the elders was.
Anger - mostly took the form of condescension.  I took way too much glee in seeing everybody off to church upon the realization I could reclaim my Sunday mornings without being struck by lightning.
Bargaining - missed the community, plain and simple.  Made a few occasional church visits just to see people (which I was aware was totally missing the point of attending church in the first place), figured I'd suffer through the obnoxious hymns and prayers to get to hanging out with people after the service.
Depression - self explanatory, big way.  Possibly explains how I went from being generally dismissed as just another cynical kid to an adult with borderline-OCD tics that required antidepressants.
Acceptance - Mostly there.  Still working off the depression, but I've generally accepted that I'm not a freak or a superhuman for not needing religion, nor is anyone else an idiot or inferior for getting a positive boost from believing in something.

[Razgovory]

OvB can be remarkably insightful when he wants to be.

[Martinus]

lol. I'm a relatively out atheist in the South and I've never had a problem.

But then again, I live in a real city, not Pig's Cooter, Texas.

It's hurt me, socially, on occasion.  But I don't want to fuck a Christian anyway.  They think Jesus told them that facials are evil; I'm not familiar with that verse myself.

Vegetarianism bothers people more, I think, because they think I'm secretly judging them.  And I totally am.

Actually, I feel the same about (vocal) Christians as I feel about vegetarians. You look like a normal person until we reach a trigger ("homosexuals are evil", "you should eat fish on Friday", "you shouldn't eat meat") and your insanity becomes disturbingly visible.

It's like finding out your best friend is into furry coprophagia.

[Martinus]

What really annoys me are apologetic atheists. "I have not been granted the grace of faith" is a sentence for the utterance of which one should be punished with extreme prejudice.

I have also not been granted the "grace" of having voices in my head telling me to kill the president but I am not going to apologize for that.

[Viking]

I have been trying to understand why it is so offensive when Richard Dawkins says "your theology is wrong mine is right" it is offensive but when the pope says it it is somehow not offensive. I also do not understand why when Richard Dawkins encourages people to agree with him he is strident but when Rick Warren does so he is not.

[The Brain]

The Pope is the leader of a global pedophile ring. Everything else kind of fades aways beside that.