As wacky as the US slouch to theocracy has been what with the creationists and the folks conflating Islam and terrorism… I still probably would have said that there are still enough reasonable and fair-minded people scattered about to nip that sort of bullshit in the bud.
Guess not. The worst thing I can hope for them is that they come to their senses a a late enough stage to regret all the time they wasted pandering to the imagined whims of a false idol but without enough time remaining to make up for lost time. On the off chance there is a god behind the curtain, I hope it takes a dim view of those that would look the other way while a FIFTEEN YEAR OLD GIRL is ostracized, abused, and framed by her school for respectfully failing to share in your groupthink.
“Why do I have to promise them eternal life and/or threaten them with an eternity in Hell to get my followers to do the right thing? Why can’t they be more like those friendly atheists?”
That news article claims there are 91% believers in god in the US according to a poll. Wow, that’s shocking! I don’t trust these numbers at all. To think that in a first world country like the US 9 out of 10 people believe pray to a supernatural entity boggles the mind, unless “believing in god” includes vast flavors of agnostics. There are heavily populated states on the coasts where I just can’t see this happening.
The idea that my atheism could intrude on my everyday life is bizarre to me and reading about the court proceedings is a harsh reminder of that.
Anyway seems to be a groupthink mentality typical of backwards small communities. When you’re in a minority of one life can become pretty hard. To see adults turn on kids like this is disheartening.
More and more I see myself agreeing with Dawkins that it’s time to end religion’s “free ride”.
Edwin introduced himself to the jury as National Legal Director for American Atheists and asked the prospective jury in the Oklahoma panhandle if they could accept the testimony of an Atheist over that of a professed Christian. When the jury looked at him blankly, the judge asked the prospects if they understood the question. One woman spoke for many in the group by asking "What is an Atheist?"
I don’t know why these fundamentalists bother. All Atheists are going to burn in Hell forever unless they renounce their Devil-worship of Evolution and turn to the all-Merciful God.
:dubious: I’m not sure what link you’re trying to make between the bolded passage in the first paragraph and your second paragraph, if any. But in general the type of person to not know what an atheist is, probably isn’t a fundamentalist. Fundamentalists are incredibly serious about religion, it’d be very out of character for them to not know about atheism.
I do not want to tear the focus away from the justifiable hostility towards the mockery that town is making of church and state, but…
1010011010?? Most Dopers are capable of running a Google search by themselves without help. Really. In fact, many of us can even dress ourselves all by ourselves!
Next time, would you consider actually linking to a story and not merely showing off your terrific Google-Fu? (Especially when that consists in nothing more than typing her name into the search box…)
I’m not sure that Martin Hyde was engaged in that fallacy. I suspect that it is more likely that he just has not encounterd a lot of folks from the Bible Belt (or even folks from any community that is mostly internally referential). People whose entire source of information is from within a particular frame of reference are often unaware of the beliefs of others. I know a number of Catholics who are really misinformed about many Protestant denominations–despite living in a country that is around 70% Protestant–simply because their own neighborhoods have been 95% Catholic. (And I have certainly encountered a huge number of Protestants who have really wild notions regarding Catholicism.) While (many) Fundamentalists are devoted to their own version of religious truth, in places where even Mormons and Catholics keep their heads down (and all religions that are not within the “safe” Protestant denominations are considered to be led by Satan, not by human difference of opinion), I suspect that there really are people who never hear atheism condemned from the pulpit and never grow up realizing that is is possible to not believe in a god, much less that there is a word for such people.
I grew up as a Catholic in the bible belt and regularly had my Baptist friends ask me if I worshiped <insert something totally crazy here> or if I was going to hell.
But, I don’t, as is the custom here on the “Dope” equate Bible belt Protestants with Christian fundamentalists.
Truth be told I don’t view fundamentalists as being more than a large chunk of Southern Baptists and a few other scattered churches.
Does anyone have any clue why this has stayed below the radar so long? Even IIDB has only one short thread on it, and a handful of blogs. (That ABC website story was abysmally poor news writing.)
