Religion Mar 8, 2011 at 4:09 pm

Comments

1
If you've voluntarily decided to go to hell anyways, I'm not going to spend my time explaining to you just exactly how it is that Jesus loves you. It's all part of God's plan anywyas.
2
I think you're on to something here, but I'm not sure that it's because we don't give a shit. Entirely, anyway. I know a couple of atheists (or agnostics—which is how I define myself) that really do care and think that anti-atheist discrimination is a huge deal, like that against women and gay people. But the flaw in that logic is that being atheist, just like being Muslim or Christian, is a choice. One does not choose their sex, race or sexual orientation, but one chooses if they believe in a higher power.
3
Religion, well-intentioned? [Insert Jabba laugh here].

I don't even have to look at the link to know who that is. Yes, he's insufferable, but he has a point. And as far as "athiest culture" is concerned, wouldn't most secular culture qualify as such? This is all way too much to cover in blog comments, so:

A Christian, a Buddhist, and an athiest walk into a bar. The bartender says, "What is this, some kind of joke?"
4
So, does this mean my debit card is godless?
5
Living in inner SE Portland, I actually hear atheists complain about varying degrees of discrimination fairly often. It's usually completely unfounded and sandwiched between comments about how great Cat Power is, but I do hear it.

And yes, debit cards are soulless and godless.
6
To clarify, by "inner SE Portland" I really mean "too damn close to Reed College."
7
To my mind, the joke really goes...

A priest, a rabbi and A Horse walk into a bar. The bartender looks at them and says, "Get the fuck out of here."

8
I'm an atheist who lives in inner Southeast. I complain about a general sense of discrimination and I don't give two shits about Cat Power.
9
This is interesting, but I think there's a very strong atheist culture in our country, more or less epitomized by the Portland Mercury -- the most godless major media outlet in the country's most godless state. Which is more or less why I'm reading it.
10
Expanding on that: Atheists work collectively on all kinds of political issues -- protecting Planned Parenthood from religiously motivated attacks, for example -- it's just that we don't see them as atheist issues. Us atheists just tend think they're good ideas.

In the same way, the majority of U.S. Christians don't identify their political beliefs as Christian, either. They just tend to think that public support for things like monogamy, traditional gender roles and compassion for poor people are good ideas.

Ideology is usually invisible when it's your own.
11
I'm an apathetic agnositic with a pinch of nihilism--I don't care because I don't know (care?) if there is a god and it doesn't really matter either way.
12
This is something that really, really bothers me. A lot.

I'm an atheist. I got there the hard way- by being raised in a very religious household and then realizing that religion was b.s. as I became an adult. We do put up with too much shit sometimes.

I don't want to get too personal here, but at family gatherings I have had to put up with comments, questions, and accusations about myself and my capacity for personal morality. I know that my family are basically good people, but they would never badger a Jew, Hindu, Buddhist, or whatever the way they badger me. I've mentioned this plenty and I've been told "No, you're an atheist. It's different."

Most people are pretty good at respecting people who believe in Shiva or Jesus or Moses. They can even respect people who believe in Allah. But we, for some reason, are fair game. That is not something we should put up with. Demanding respect doesn't make us Ayn Rand-ish douchebags. It's the only way we'll ultimately fix this.
13
Also, I nominate SMirk to take Christopher Hitchens' place.

@MichaelAnderson: You are a smart cookie, sir.
14
I guess since us Atheists have made the correct choice when it comes to religion, no one bothers hearing our voice.
15
right on sarah.
16
If nothing else, people of faith should take the current situation as blasphemy- Jesus & Bhudda sure as hell wouldn't want to be associated with the money of a given country. Might as well put their faces on outhouses while you're at it.

17
"Atheists work collectively on all kinds of political issues -- protecting Planned Parenthood from religiously motivated attacks, for example -- it's just that we don't see them as atheist issues. Us atheists just tend think they're good ideas."

That's exactly right. I was thinking, "Oh, well, I don't feel discriminated against because no one in power is actively trying to take my rights away." And then I thought, "Hallett, what the fuck? How about that 'get out of pregnancy free' card you like to think you have in your back pocket?" I'm just not used to framing things in religious terms, I guess, because it's such a non-thing in my life.
18
I Am Blogtown's Complete Lack of Surprise, but Todd Mecklem is an atheist as well.

(Sorry, Todd Mecklem is having a Bob Dole moment.)

Is it legal to scrape the words "In God We Trust" off of coins and put them back into circulation? Isn't it only illegal to deface coins for fraudulent purposes, that is, to pass them off as something they're not?

There is no real separation of church and state in the U.S. as long as that slogan is on the currency. "We" don't trust in God. Some citizens do, some citizens don't.



19
The god I don't believe in thinks that fundamental religious types are ignorant pinheads.
20
Remember you have to baptize these heathens using holy water to make sure they go to hell. Why expose those innocents in purgatory to their evil ways.

Even the alien lizards on V are looking for the soul using a slicer dicer.
21
I'm an atheist, I don't care.
22
Occassionally encountering stuff that doesn't match your personal beliefs doesn't equal discrimination.
23
Shit; I don't even know where to begin here...I've been dealing with this one for a very long time, and on one hand, you don't let your disbelief become dogma, either: that's part of how you lose this one.

But it's also true that you don't let the crazies run the debate. And the crazies are the ones who believe in a creating hand that just isn't there. They form the majority of humanity, by the by.

We're lucky we live here. I can only fucking wonder what I'd be if I lived in Alabama.
25
The print on money offends me less as an atheist and more because it's such a cynical and effective way to accuse people of not being real Americans. In the 1950s it was decided that God wouldn't know whose side to join in the Cold War unless our paper currency told Him what to do. After that was cleared up, anybody who disagreed with putting God all over money wasn't really an American. Why not? Because it says right there on money that God is associated with money.

Yet another hilarious example of Christians rendering to Caesar things that are God's.
26
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." The burden should be on the nutjobs to prove that their Invisible Sky Daddy wants his name on coins or doesn't want men having sex with men or what ever the currently popular bronze age schizophrenic's delusion of the week is.

Unfortunately us rational types are left trying to prove a negative, and that doesn't work so we stop bothering after our angsty teenage French philosophy reading years because it is rapidly becomes very depressing to try and convince people who are basically mentally ill to act rationally.

Thus a society where the non-delusional are left to foot the bill for their weirdness though subsidies for everything from paying for the foster care of their sick kids when they pray over them instead of using antibiotics, to their tax-free churches. Just think of the millions you could get by taxing church property and assets like everyone else.

The worst 'discrimination' is that the crazies are not only running the debate, they are are making you pay the bill for the debate hall.
27
I think Blabby nailed it: "Occasionally encountering stuff that doesn't match your personal beliefs doesn't equal discrimination."

On a different note: Do we really need yet another voice in the endless arguments over religion? One thing I like about atheists is that they tend to just ignore all that noise. When religious factions start clashing, atheists go off somewhere quiet and drink coffee and read a book and make jokes with their friends about how crazy everyone else is. I like it that way. We don't all need to jump into the fray.
28
I fully believe that all religions should be treated equally. That's why I treat Christians the same way I would treat someone who worships Zeus.
29
Aaaaaand Number Six brings us to a new point. Throwing around words like "delusional" and "mentally ill" to lump together all people of faith--that is, people of all faiths--is just as destructive as the kind of rhetoric that comes out of hardline fundamentalist religious traditions that claim "God hates fags" and so on.

This nation has the greatest religious plurality of probably any country on earth, yet here we sit in a blog thread in Portland, Oregon, claiming all people who hold any faith or religious tradition are loonies that want to kill your same-sex partner and take away your birth control (likely those circumstances would not both affect the same person, but you get the idea).

That's the perceived discrimination I see/hear about: it's a broad-brush, sweeping generalization that all Christians or all people of faith are akin to the right-wing nutjobs that have hijacked ancient texts to fight access to abortion or the ability of a man to love another man. I disagree emphatically with those interpretations of religious text, and I know many Christians and people of other faiths that do, too.

With that mindset--that all Christians and people of faith are angry teabaggers that want to cut all social services--of course you feel discriminated against. But I'll bet many, many Christians would agree with you that "In God we trust" shouldn't be on money and that President Obama probably shouldn't make a priority of the National Prayer Breakfast.

The Illuminati-style discrimination against atheists is really a cabal of politicians and business leaders that utilize religion and religious groundings to advance a separate agenda that includes those things that are then attributed to "all Christians." It's like saying because oil companies are lobbying to loosen environmental regulations, all people who own cars hate the planet and want offshore drilling everywhere.
30
Hello, my name is McAngryPants and I'm an atheist. I really don't give a shit about religious organizations. I just don't see why they should get a tax break for being delusional.
31
I maintain my position that if you believe in an invisible sky daddy with a thing for palestinian virgins, or believe you are eating his kid's flesh on Sundays or believe in magical angels or fairies that intervene in your life then you are delusional. I concede, @oregonmetry, that these delusions vary in strength and type among christians both individually and by denomination and that different christians apply or don't apply their delusions to politics in different ways. But the fact remains that whatever the flavor or intensity of the delusion, it is a delusion.

Luckily for them, in Oregon at least, they aren't going to lock you in the state hospital for having religious delusions.
32
....assuming your assumptions are right.
33
The Supreme Court is a bit slow on human rights. They supported prison for 100k + innocent Japanese people following Pearl Harbor. They supported restrictions on marriage between multicultural people until 1967. Someday they might get god off the dollar and have some cents.
34
"Tide goes in, tide goes out. Never a missed communication. You can't explain that. You can't explain why the tide goes in."
35
Also, if six Catholics and three Jews monkey around with our money, then Darwin wins.
36
"Someday they might get god off the dollar and have some cents."

I chortled heartily.
37
Thanks for the great discussion, guys. I don't have anything to add except that maybe I should post more often about being an atheist.

Please wait...

Comments are closed.

Commenting on this item is available only to members of the site. You can sign in here or create an account here.


Add a comment
Preview

By posting this comment, you are agreeing to our Terms of Use.