If, in the unlikely liklihood that would happen to me, I’d have left the twisted little group of bead-throwers and gone home.
It would be even better if we had all gone to the restaurant in my car.
The last couple of times it has come up:
- Get the usual “you’re not really an atheist…” nonsense.
- Got invited to go to their church and just see it. They seem to think I’ll have a Jake Blues moment and see the light if I attend. I declined.
I probably would have just joined hands out of respect. It’s no big deal to me.
About the prayer thing, my wife and I were reflecting on the double standard- if youre the only atheist (my wife isnt, but shes not the whole praying in public type) you’re kind of obligated to participate.
But if there’s one churchy person in the group, they probably will pray, and ask others to participate. I’d like to see the one atheist who is so crass as to pull this on a bunch of churchy folks- try to obligate everyone to NOT pray. In my experience, nonreligious people tend to be more considerate about it.
Copenhagen, where I live, has that problem. They’ve started closing plenty of empty, unused churches – and now the question is what to use 'em for instead. The empty buildings, I mean. The general consensus amongst the Danes seems to be: Supermarkets OK, mosques no no no no no.
In the UK they’ve been put to great use as cool apartment conversions. I lived in one for a while.
That’s a different dilemma for me. I don’t mind sitting silently during grace, but everybody holding hands around the table right before eating is too germy for me. Kind of awkward to get up and go wash.
And I thought out of respect for me they could have just skipped it.
Not to mention that lovely smell of cat pee when the tree warms up. Not all of us can get Balsam Firs…
“Awful flat out here, eh?”
“You mean topographically?”
Interesting subject. im not atheists because i believe some unknow force sparked the big bang that force is God. i dont know how he looks, or what is our porpuse in its eyes. i can relate to this threat, because i do not believe in any religion that were created thousands of years ago by a bunch of ignorant and fanatic people. anyways. all my best friends are Catholics and we talked about this often, but they accept my believes. i also have a christian friend whose family use to talked to me about god and how we are supposed to devote our lives to serve him. after i told them what i believed, lets just say that was the last time i ever hang out with them. my friend does not invite me to their house anymore. we do not speak of the reason why, but it is not hard to guess.
You need to hit meme generator. Buddy Jesus saying “Denying healthcare to the poor? That totally sounds like my kind of shit!” should go down a treat.
Living as an atheist in a predominantly Muslim country, I don’t even want to begin with. I never dare to admit the fact that I don’t believe it.
My third-world-country nationality, stuttering, and poorness just reminds me of the fact that how fucked-up my life is.
I got my first Chick Tracts yesterday, whoohooo! One was dorky, something about how every revolution is just a way for someone new to take power. Which is true, to a point. Not even sure just how they squished religion into that.
The other was very adamant that ‘good works will not get you into heaven, only the belief in JC’, and then proceeded to spend the entire tract saying all these religions are bad. I mean, they all believe in JC, so…wtf? That one made no sense at all.
Are they supposed to?
Oh, and I got lucky growing up, and had mild Christian influences, but church wasn’t oppressing and we were allowed to decline going at age 13, so no biggie. My folks stopped going the day we did. 
I’m going to chime in and agree that it’s a non-issue in Canada. I think the only time I’ve ever met disapproval with regards to religion was years and years ago when I was talking to a classmate who’d moved from the States. I don’t remember how it started but she asked me what religion I was and I shrugged and told her I didn’t have one. I still remember her clutching her cross necklace and looking at me like I was crazy. At some point, she came over to my house and saw the ancestral alter my grandmother had set up and there was a “Ah ha! Your family’s Buddhist!” gotcha moment, but I still shrugged and said it was more a cultural thing than a spiritual thing that my grandmother liked to have around. I’m still not sure whether grandma understands the difference between Buddha and Guanyin.
The friend has mellowed out a lot since then about people having to belong to a religion, no doubt after meeting a lot of apathetic Canadians, but I think it’s still a struggle for her to understand that a lot of Canadians don’t tie their identity to religion or politics.
shrug That’s just how it is here. In fact, I was shocked (shocked!!!) to learn that my mother went to a Catholic school. I never heard a peep about Jesus’s teachings growing up.
My religiosity very rarely comes up in normal conversation, but whenever it does and some rude bastard asks me how I could possibly be an atheist, I tell them “I’m terrified of worshiping the wrong god! How do you know you’ve picked the right one?”
My SIL insists that the Catholic Church is, in fact, the Whore of Babylon.
Everyone’s life is fucked up, at least in their own head. Try to find whatever pleasure you can anyway.
If your culture is intensely religious to the point where you can be bodily harmed by claiming there is no god, then it’s only self-preservation to not bring it up. Hopefully you find common souls somewhere in your life to share time with.
As an atheist, I don’t believe in souls either.
please. the was the use of the term “common soul” meaning “people who think alike” obviously, not the spiritual “soul.”