Prog rock singer Neal Morse became a born-again Christian after his newborn daughter was diagnosed with an atrial septal defect (aka “hole in the heart”). He had his church pray for her and lo & behold, she was healed – which had a 50% of happening anyway.
The really crazy thing is that modern bananas you find in the store bear NO resemblance to natural wild bananas, which are hard and filled with giant seed pits and virtually unpalatable to humans.
There is atheism and there is atheism. I am an atheist who does not collect stamps as in “I have no reason to believe there is a god, so I don’t.” Then there are atheists “I believe there can’t be a god and anyone who doesn’t agree with me is an idiot and everybody should be an atheist like me and religion is a plague on society” who burn up everyone else’s stamp collections.
There are many gradations of atheism. I’m a “I don’t believe in any god, but can’t prove that some theoretical god doesn’t exist. Your god, though, that one I can disprove. So ha!”
So I suppose I’m the sort who doesn’t burn anybody’s stamp collections unless they have the unbelievable temerity to show them to me.
I’ve been discussing atheism on line since before there was an internet, and I can’t think of too many people like this. And don’t confuse those who have secular deities (like Marx and Lenin and Mao) with atheists who have none.
It seems like it’s more about rudeness. In my experience religious people get very, very pissy when an atheist gets rude. (It varies on whether they consider ‘merely existing’ rude - many don’t, many do.)
Heck, I’m fine with selling religion…so long as I’m free to say, “No.” And they don’t get too pushy – but that’s true of all other sales, too. If they limit themselves to knocking on my door once a month, I’m good with that. Very much more often, and I’ll have to start thinking about restraining orders.
