Atheism

Here is what I see to be the dilemma.

There has to be a balance in the expression of beliefs. We live out of balance.

In social life, it's perfectly fine if my atheistic views are not the same as my friend's christian views. We can be friends; our relationship is not contingent on us being congruent in this manner.

However, in a situation like a school board meeting where specific theistic views are being introduced into a science curriculum, atheists should be able to cry foul without the some religious fundamental type saying that our science curriculum are now atheist indoctrination.

I guess my point is that it isn't acceptable that the only way to live as a Atheist is to live closeted. So when someone dares to challenge the status quo judeo-christian values, we have to recognize that there is a difference between that and knocking at strangers doors uninvited and kindly informing them that they potentially face an eternity of torture.

Someone here no A2K once wrote (and I'll paraphrase): "Oh the deep shame and humiliation of being demoted to an equal status with your fellow citizen." I think this is very relevant. Atheists are not accepted, because we represent a mule and an acre on the religious landscape that theists believe they are entitled to, and don't plan on sharing.

T
K
O

Ah, I don't get your last paragraph. Maybe I do, but I want to be clear.

What I'm saying is that American culture and society has been largely influenced by Judeo-Christian beliefs so far. As our society's composition changes, their seems to be a resistance by the status quo Christians to let anyone but them shape the direction of our culture, and so as the religious landscape changes, they chant that they are the victim of atheist land grab even though we all have equal claim to shape our culture.

The "being demoted to equal" bit means that it can be threatening to go from a position to entitlement and privilege towards a position of equal ground.

e.g. - Imagine defending why any law needed to be applied differently on a Sunday without this kind of privilege.

T
K
O

But wait. Religion should not be relevant to choices.

(I sound uniquely naive, but I'm not kidding.)

We can make it irrelevant to our choices, but other won't. The end product: Our lives and laws will reflect religion whether we speak up or not.

T
K
O

Good god! Feeling unable to be open and such.

It is interesting to me that "atheism" has so little social significance in the UK compared to say the US. It seems to be the case that the "religiosity" of the minority is irrelevent, but that ethnological and cultural isolationist concerns have come to the fore, particularly with respect to Islam.

Over stated position in my opinion as the good Christians like to claim far more influence then they in fact had have in our culture.

See how they love to claims with zero foundation that the founding fathers was all good Christians and we are base on Christian "principles" instead of founded by free thinkers.

I call it lying for Jesus.

Good thread, Li'l Kay.

I dislike the shrill, "professional atheists," too. I once moonlighted at a restaurant, and on Saturday, would work all day there. There was a gas station next door, and i would go get a soda there often as we were getting the restaurant ready to open (the owner served Pepsi, which i detest, so i would go buy my own).

A woman worked in the gas station, and one day, the subject of religion came up (can't think way, although it migth have been something in the news at the time), and she rather warily asked me my religious opinion. It was weird--she looked around to see if anyone were in the store before she asked me. I told her that, as far as others are concerned, i'm an atheist, although that was a label put on me because i don't believe in any gods. We became friendly (although never much more than that), and she showed up one day with a huge package of materials, including a video! It turned out that she was a devotee of a local atheist "leader" (that was what the video was about, him on the teevee taking on the lunatic fringe religious types during a call in show), and that was the source of the material. We drifted apart in what was never more than a casual friendship, precisely because it all seemed to me as intense, demanding and essentially unreasoning as the religionists.

Atheists and religionists are not the only ones who can be shrill and militant about these things, either. Frank goes overboard with his insistence that agnosticism is the only genuine intellectual position, and that atheists are just another side of the coin with religionists. There was another member here in early days who took the same position, and who started a thread to the effect that agnostics are superior. If you pressed him or Frank about whether or not they were equally agonistic about pixies, fairies and elves, they became uncomfortable and evasive, and Frank on a single occasion acknowledged that he could account for why he made a special case with regard to god--before becoming hostile and foul-mouthed. I've never seen a religionist fulminate against me in more hateful terms than Frank used. Failing to believe in something, essentially saying "No thank you," is not the either moral or intellectual equivalent of believing in the thing.

In almost every public situation in which i've seen the question of religious adherence eventually come up, it seems that people have, for whatever reason, already come to the conclusion that i'm an atheist and have let well enough alone. I'd have to say that most Americans are as courteously tolerant of atheists (who are not pushy) as they are of other religious confessions (who are not pushy) to which they do not themselves subscribe. I'd say that, as is the case with watching Fox News, it is only a loud minority who are militantly anti-atheist.

And fanaticism is no respecter of political ideology (as in Frank, the shrill and oft-times hateful agnostic)--a good friend of mine is politically conservative, but not militantly so, no in any pushy way. He likes and admires the younger George Bush, and will become angry if anyone makes personal criticisms of the man. He is also one of the most vehement anti-religionists i've ever met. He will rage against organized religion, any time, any where, if anyone is so unwise as to push the subject on him. I guess he's an atheist, but i don't really know, because i've never asked him. It is, after all, not something i care about, and certainly nothing i quizz my acquaintance about. There can be no doubt, though, that he hates organized religion with a passion, and that despite having been raised in a devoutly religious family.

********************************************

A few observations on two "threads within the thread." The evidence would suggest that Thomas Jefferson was a deist. He certainly did comment acidly at times on organized religion, but that was pretty common in the men of his day--Adams was another who paid scant public respect to organized religion. The world of English politics prior to our revolution was profoundly influenced by the great watershed event in English history in the 17th century, the three civil wars. Unlike the Thirty Years War which was winding down as the English civil wars wound up, the English experience began with religion, and even when it took on strong political overtones, the period revolved essentially around questions of religious adherence. This was very much a strong influence on intelligent men on both sides of the Atlantic a little over a century later when our revolution took place. I strongly suspect it played a large part in the popularity of deism over organized religion among many well-educated men of the day.

But the wars (for it cannot be denied that this is their character) between religionists and atheists have laid waste to our history, too. People who are anti-organized religion or atheists would have us believe that the founders were all deists (and secret atheists), and are as quick to lie about matters as are the religionists. George Washington may have been a deist in his heart, but that we can never know--what we can know to a certainty was that he was an active participant in the Anglican church in which he was raised, and an active vestryman in the Truro parish in which Mount Vernon was located. The evidence is better that Thomas Jefferson (who politically speaking was an utter scum-bag, liar, cheat and coward) was a deist--but any attempt to paint him an atheist fails utterly to explain why he wrote his own version of the new testament, often referred to as "Jefferson's Bible."

The religionists in their turn want to portray all the founders as devout men of god, and willfully turn a blind eye to the often invidious comments that so many of them made about organized religion and its effects.

Gunga Dim's comment about atheism and evolution are beneath contempt, and apart from that comment, are beneath notice.

The claim about an historical basis for the putative Jesus is sufficiently pervasive that it should not be ignored. It is completely without foundation. Saying that there is no reliable historical evidence that the boy ever existed is not, however, proof that he did not exist.

As this is a thread about atheism, though, and because after years on line i've grown weary with the rehearsal, i won't review the stupidity of the claims that there is historical evidence for the boy.

LOL you do know he took every bit of supernatural bullshit out of his version of the bible and picture Jesus as a man not a god do you not?

I think there are two major reasons we can't be open and accepted by society.

1) Shunning atheists is reasonable if currently-dominant religious doctrines are factually true. (That was the point of my first post to this thread.) Judging by polls, about half of the American people do take the bible to be literally true. Why should these people socially accept atheists? How could such a demand possibly make sense to them?

2) "Social acceptance" is a soft issue. We atheists have no specific, hard issues around which to crystallize any general demands for social acceptance. Nobody is telling us to sit only in specific sections of buses. Nobody is prohibiting us from marrying believers. Nobody is prosecuting us under blasphemy laws. Without a hard issue to get everyone's attention, why would the majority of Americans ever reconsider their social prejudices about atheists?

LOL LOL LOL (what childish, idiotic ****--just what we'd expect from Bill)

Spare me the adolescent web-speak. That Jefferson "took every bit of supernatural bullshit" out of his version of the new testament (he didn't attempt a re-write of the bible) does not constitute evidence that he was an atheist. Nor can you substantiate that he removed all "supernatural bullshit" from the text he revised, unless you have a very bizarre notion of what supernatural means.

You said quite some time ago that you had put me "on ignore." That means that you don't read my posts, and you don't respond to them. Do me a favor, you simple-minded, profoundly ignorant clown--put me back on ignore.

thnaks littleK, an interesting and valuable thread (at least for a few of us)
as an aside, several times in the past few years I've found myself apologizing to a few christians over the overtly noxious posts of a handful af wacko atheists.

What balance must there be?

Thomas, that dinner at my house was the ONLY time I have ever given the option for grace to be said. I did this because I was eating with people who's practices I didn't know.

Setanta, I like the use of the word demanding in describing how fanatical thinking/behavior must feel.

I took seed's joke seriously and thought it caused us to sway from the topic. I was at least partially wrong. I find nothing to complain about this AM.

Last week, the departing office worker where I am employed bought the staff pizza as part of a fond farewell. One of the staff asked her to say grace before we started. At least two of us never pray, but we all acquiesced and it went smoothly.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When the residents begin political or religious oriented conversations, I allow them to say whatever they wish, but try to remain noncommittal in their presence. It doesn't always work out that way, but generally we remain friendly. As in the case of Bill E--. He asked did I want someone coming to my house to teach me about Jesus. I did not tell him my views, but fended him off by saying "I am one of those people that does not go to church." Then hemmed and hawed until he dropped it. Today, we have friendly conversations and trade alternative medicine information.

I spent some time with Buddhism, before I was thirty. I found aspects of it enchanting. I was fascinated by the Tibetans. And Zen. I still dip occasionally into the book, Zen Flesh, Zen Bones. Also attended Nichiren meetings. But, I find aspects of Christian and Muslim thought enchanting also. In boot camp, I attended Jewish services. The rabbi was intelligent and entertaining. But, in the end, I am without religion and god-belief.

Ok you rascals, who plugged 'religion' into the tags?