And many of them are. That’s why the Episcopal Church may end up being escorted out of the Anglican Communion. (Or has that been resolved?)
I’m in the Bible Belt also – five miles or so down the road from the Southern Baptist Convention. (That’s an actual building.) The only problems that I’ve had have been while I was a teacher and I wasn’t fundamental enough. I am a Christian, but I was harassed because I didn’t believe in teacher-led prayer in school and I requested All Saints’ Day and Ash Wednesday off for religious days when I was an Anglican. I was told those weren’t “Holy Days.”
The obvious harassment was that they put me through the same difficulty every year. I always got those days off, but it was a pain in the butt.
And they were forever having prayers with the students or on teacher work days. I had to sit through hellfire sermons too. One of them was from a television evangelist. Pissed me off royally.
I have to keep reminding myself they’re all gone now. The principal was fired. One of the women was booted from the profession for having sex with one of her students, and another (who used to steal from me) was arrested for DUI before she passed away. I took disability for depression.
But I don’t mind at all when someone isn’t religious. I hope they have happy lives.
I’m not, actually I’m an atheist, and I’ve stated it in the past to coworkers and friends and such when the issue came up. Not that I was stating “I don’t believe in God!” when they brought up church or somesuch, more so of the context of “What religion were you brought up in?” or “The Bible states you shouldn’t…” or politely declining to join in prayer (this happened only once) when one of the people I worked with was ill.
Shock was the main response… One person said I shouldn’t be allowed to work in the health care field with patients
I just stated that I can believe or disbelieve whatever I want and I’ll continue to live my life and do my job with the moral that people should be treated well and thought of as valuable to society. Friends, coworkers, people, anybody.
They still don’t like it and sometimes bring it up, but I blow it off and live my life well as I can as an example of “Hey, so what? I don’t believe in God but I’m doing better than many of your fellow ‘Christians’, so deal with it.”
On edit, I did relate as a joke to a Catholic who took offense the story where I thought a patient that had ash on their face a couple years back had dirt smeared on them and cleaned it off thinking someone wasn’t paying attention to the cleanliness of their residents. The resident didn’t care (I don’t think they were with it enough to know) but someone brought me aside and mentioned what it was. I found a member of the church in the hall not too long after and asked if they should be re-ashed or whatever after explaining I didn’t know. He laughed it off and said he was sure it was ok and not to worry.
I wonder if those of you in the US who said the issue of religion never came up have noticed that “God” is on our money? It’s also in our Pledge of Allegiance. Not believing in “God” is surely not the mainstream in this country, Bible Belt or not. It is assumed that “we all know there’s a god” even if we are “not religious”(that is, not attending church). That can get a bit tiresome, resulting in some people announcing their atheism without even being asked…I worked with many Christians who all blithely assumed I was one of them until I put the Evolve Fish on my car. Not one person ever mentioned it or asked me about it, but I think they stopped assuming I was one of them…and started assuming I was the spawn of Satan, probably.
Always? Or long? I’m not sure that such has been the case for many years. I’d guess it stopped when it no longer became the parking place for second sons of the aristocracy. IME most of them seem to be out-and-out left-wingers, the right-wingers generally being very much (70+) older. And many of the newer CoE clergy seem to be a bunch of hand-wringing utter wimps with services being little more than an extended whine. I don’t attend church much these days. I don’t know or care about his politics, but I found the appointment of John Sentamu very refreshing.
Christ, again? I honestly can’t believe that people give a crap whether the word “god” is on money or not. And I can’t believe that some people get offended that others might think they believe just because the majority of the population believes in a higher power.
And then to leap to “Well now they think I have little horns and cloven feet” after admitting to being an atheist is so childish.
There is also a huge difference between BEING not religious and being an atheist. Or rather “not religious” is a much bigger set that contains atheists, among others. I’ve never been an atheist - For most of my adult life I’ve been possibly best described as some sort of Deist. But until two or three years ago when I really started getting involved as a Unitarian, I would have said I was “not religious.”
Not religious can mean anything from “I reject organized religion, but read my bible daily and have a firm belief in God’s hand guiding me” to “I spit on the concept of God.”
Would you care if it was a swastika instead ? That’s pretty much how I feel about “God” on money. And the circumstances of it being put there pretty much make it an outright slap at non-Christians. How would you feel if “If you aren’t a Christian, you are a Communist traitor” was on the money instead ? That’s effectively what it means.
Yeah and I care about that the same amount I do that there’s a pyramid with an eye in it on there as well, i.e. not at all. Doesn’t mean I’m a freemason or worship anything to do with Egypt. Do those atheists who get in a tizzy over money also never say the word “goodbye”?
Childish? I have had believers say exactly that after learning that I’m an atheist. I recognize that many believers would never dream of thinking such a thing, but some of them certainly do. It’s not that great a leap to make.
To answer the OP, yes I think it is socially acceptable to say that you are not religious. Saying you are actually an atheist however, is much less so.
It’s fine in my circles. Of course, I’m 27 and live in the Castro, so we’re a bunch of godless pinkos anyway.
Are you citing a 16 year old sitcom episode?
I don’t know where you’re from, but there are plenty of people in large, multicultural liberal cities who honestly, genuinely don’t give a shit if someone’s gay or not, full stop.
(Bolding mine). Well I don’t know how it is in the US, but in the UK you would be entitled to make a formal grievance against those individuals on the grounds of discrimination and harassment.
In the UK, where church attendance is tiny, there’s a long tradition of keeping your religious views to yourself. It’s very ‘CofE’ (Church of England, the majority religion in these parts) to keep religion a private matter. I’m an atheist myself, but tend to find most acquaintances are agnostic, perhaps believing essentially in God but by no means practising. Therefore anyone who actually goes to Church regularly and tells everyone about it is either (a) Catholic or (b) deemed a bit weird.
The vast majority of religions worship a “god” or gods of some kind. And the vast majority of the US believes a god or gods exists. Comparing that to the wholesale slaughter of Jews (by someone who was non-religious no less!) or bigotry against millions of people is a childish position.
Congratulations, you met an asshole. If that makes you think every believer is an asshole, how do you function in everyday society?
You wouldn’t, so you’re obviously a bigot who deserves to be shunned by polite society.
Have I painted with a broad enough brush to enrage you? Congratulations again, that’s how you sound to anyone with a belief in a higher power.
I’ve met lots of religious people with this attitude. I’ve had people who were nice and treated me like any other human being suddenly turn defensive and hostile upon finding out that I was an atheist. One guy I had worked with for years refused to talk to me afterwords. One lady called me an idiot to my face, told me that I was going to hell, and then commanded me to love god because that was my only choice. There was one old lady who started shrieking something about damnation at the top of her lungs when she heard the word atheist. Do I think that all religious people are like this? No. But I do think there are enough of them out there that I generally won’t talk about it out of a sense of self preservation.
It might be more socially acceptable in general, but you better be sure about specific people before you say anything, because there’s still a lot of them out there.
These behaviors, while not the “norm”, are very common. We are painting with a broad brush because there are lots of people out there who could use a nice colorful stripe so we can avoid them. Even some of the people who don’t go off the deep end will calmly explain how atheism is so bad for me – something they wouldn’t do if I was merely a different flavor of christian from them.
See why people don’t like admitting to atheism ? Hitler kills the religious enemies of Christianity, and he’s declared an atheist and atheism is given the blame. Because atheist is a synonym for evil in the minds of believers, and because believers don’t want to admit that Hitler hated Jews because hatred of Jews is a Christian habit. And since Hitler is a modern icon of evil, he MUST have been an atheist.
By not bringing up religion, or admitting to atheism; at least not outside an anonymous forum like this.
That’s how atheists sounds to “anyone with a belief in a higher power” regardless of what they do. And calling an atheist a “bigot who deserves to be shunned by polite society” is if anything fairly mild for a religious person’s reaction to atheism, in my experience.
Justin, if you were trying to show that atheists are wrong to be loath to talk about their lack of religion, well, you’re kinda succeeding in the opposite.
You’re not allowing people to have other opinions, other experiences, and other points of view. Since that’s what many atheists find tiresome about our culture, you’re just reinforcing it.
