Sorry to bump this thread, but I haven’t mentioned the biggest factor in what ‘it’ is with me and atheism -
I am a Brit on an American-dominated message board.
In one of the current flood of atheism/religion threads people mention that most Brits see religion as mythology. whereas most Americans see it as fact.
In my over 2 years and over 8000 posts here I have made 11 threads about atheism. I think that is not enough to constitute a ‘thing’ with atheism.
Heck, Lobsang, I’ve only been here 4 months and 700-odd posts, and I’ve managed at least a dozen threads about Michael Moore.
I think that’s putting it a little bit too simply. (And would the statement not be more accurate as “Brits see religion mostly as mythology”? I mean, most religions contain myth, but neither requires the other absolutely.)
The way I see it, is:
A majority of Americans are, or claim to be, believers in Higher Powers. God, the Great Spirit, Earth Mother Goddess, the 12 Powers, Karma, J.R. “Bob” Dobbs. Whatever.
A large fraction of those believers in turn are convinced by their spiritual experience that the divine is not just a subjective perception, but is as real as anything tangible, and they can specifically identify and in leading their lives in accordance with it can point to specific sets of precepts.
A sizeable minority within that group, in turn, are fiercely, vociferously, in-our-facedly committed to the proposition that said precepts are statements of material facts that should be the bases for all civil discourse and legislation. And they invest a large deal of resources pushing that agenda.