Once, when I was about 10 years old, I was visiting a friend’s house. For some reason, the topic of religion came up over the breakfast table. I said I didn’t believe in God. The next day at school, my friend said his dad told him not to hang out with me anymore because atheists have no morals. 
After that, I became a lot more tight lipped about my lack of belief.
It is a matter of semantic correctness.
People say they know when actually they believe and say believe when they actually know. Many people are not very precise in their use of language. And sloppy language leads to sloppy thinking. That is why claiming to know should be used sparingly. Just because someone says they know does not mean I accept that they do.
But I mostly don’t talk to theists about religion and god related delusions. Or atheists in person either on that subject.
Plenty of people assume that their paradigme of reality and reality must be the same thing.
psik
I was wondering that myself. Plus, I’m still waiting to see what the asterisk refers to.
To the OP: It’s highly unlikely you’re the only person on the Internet who __________, no matter what you fill in the blank with.
You probably disbelieve in just one less God than atheists.
Atheists are a very small minority of the world (and even U.S.) population.
This link gives some figures. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_atheism
You’ll find a lot of atheists here on the SDMB because they tend to be highly intelligent people and this sort of forum attracts highly intelligent people.
Atheists also tend to be very vocal about their atheism, so they stand out. Whereas the majority of Christians or Jews, or just non-religious believers rarely talk about their religious views.
Just for the record, I’m not an atheist, but you could probably search the 1,400 posts I’ve made here in the past 6 years and find very little reference to my religious beliefs.
There’s less social pressure to conform when you’re chatting anonymously on the internet. No friends or family who will demonize you, no teacher or other people who may look at you funny. Plus, being able to use a computer gives you a couple more IQ points than the rubes who don’t use computers
…which helps make up a little bit for all the IQ points drained away by Facebook, kitty pictures, and internet porn.
Damn atheists. They are always coming around knocking on the door and leaving pamphlets, demanding special tax breaks, asking for certain days of the year to be set aside so they can not think about God, just pests in general.
If you’re talking about online, I agree.
If you’re talking about face-to-face, I don’t think it would be possible for me to disagree more.
In repsonse to the OP, no.
In hte USA, everyone is free to make their opinions known, except for government employees, who may be punished for making it known that they are Christians.
There’s a negative correlation between porn and intelligence now? Damn!
It’s horrible. They come to work on Ash Wednesday with a smudge on their forehead and they get fired, mention that their kid was baptized and they are walked out the door. It’s so bad the President of the United States has to pretend to be Muslim. I really don’t see how much longer Christians can stand the kind of discrimination and abuse they face on a daily basis.
StR is a reformed Thor worshipper. Only the retrograde orthodox worship him on Thursdays.
And never the twain shall meet.
So it’s just their opinion that they are Christians?
I’m pretty sure that you can get fired from the New York Yankees for making it known that The Red Sox are the bestest team evar.
Let’s not discuss religion.
Good one.
Examples of this term include “Jumbo Shrimp,” “Spiritual Truth,” and “Intelligent Theism.”
Oh, I’ve got to have a cite for this! It must be shown that all the victims did was let it out that they were Christians-it can’t just be a part of a larger effort to break the rules to push an agenda of some sort.
This is known as a sneer; it is not a meaningful statement in the world of substantive discourse.
While IANan atheist, it’s interesting to know that through history the kind of thinking you represent has never been kind to those who did not parrot the great, unquestionable religious truths.
One treatise on the war of religion against science reported the “awful pun” against Heliocentrism:
“Ye men of Galileo, why stand ye gazing up into heaven?” (A twisting of the first part of Acts 1:11)
But despite such clever abusive retorts, it was Geocentrism, not reason, that failed.
Kanicbird, let’s try to stick to substance, not sneers.
[del]Now, shut up, yewww![/del] 
Ummm… should I say “Thank you” for your openness or “My Condolences” for your reasoning powers?
:dubious:
96%? I’m figuring that you have read some survey that has it that high. (Percentage of people who say that they believe in God.) I’m skeptical. Maybe those who said that, even if they were completely comfortable with the question, should be asked follow-up questions. Questions about what they mean by the word.
For instance, I’ve met a circle of friends who were “Pantheists” of a sort and blithely assumed that nature was what one meant by God. Add a Deist here and there and the figures for “believers in God” go up even more. There should be a cross-check for those who mean something significantly different from Jewish/Christian/Muslim deity beliefs.
- Jack