Every time I happen to mention that I’m an atheist, whoever’s around me goes ‘noooooooo’ or asks why I don’t believe in god. First day of school this year: teacher says ‘Does anyone in here consider themselves to be an atheist?’ No one said anything, I was too stunned at the abruptness of the question, like he would give us bad grades if we were, then he said he was glad that we wouldn’t admit it if we were! Like it’s so bad, we don’t go around saying that we’re glad if someone doesn’t admit their belief in god. Then, a Christian in my class comes up to me and asks why I don’t believe in the Almighty, that Jesus is my savior. I look at them, and they run away. Today, for some reason a kid in my class said that I was Jewish. I said I was nothing. Then someone else, who heard me say that I was nothing, asked me why I don’t believe in god.
I just about blew up in his face.
I can’t take it anymore! Atheists are exactly like everyone else, except they happen to not believe in something. I respect other people’s beliefs, but they refuse to respect mine. I have a friend who is just about the firmest believer in the school, we get along fine. I respect her beliefs, she respects mine. But all other believers…oh, no, I can’t not believe in god around them. They are always trying to convert me to their religion. Fuck off! I have a right to believe in whatever I want to believe, just like you!
So it’s considered abnormal to be an atheist? It’s bad? Evil? I don’t give a fuck. I’m abnormal, bad, evil, whatever, but there’s one thing about me that no one can change:
I’m an atheist.
And you can kiss my evil, non-believing ass.
Gee…the last time I got flak for being Pagan IRL was in 1998, in first-year cégep (~= grade 12). Maybe you should revise whom you’re hanging out with so as to drop the total asshats.
Believe…what you want? Not possible. At all. It’s merely a theoretical right to believe what you want. After all, everyone should be Christian (Jewish is forgivable, as well, but Christian is ideal). God said so.
I’m still recovering from the barrage of hearts on lockers at my high school on Valentine’s Day…a few thousand “Jesus loves you!” messages that lingered for weeks. I feel for you.
And matt, I didn’t think it was truly possible to get around the holier-than-thou types. It’s not possible here, unless you want to be around the drug-crazed “I’m so rebellious” crap constantly. All the classrooms are filled with people who strive to be missionaries and are getting their practice in now. Half of the school newspaper consists of reviews for Christian concerts. There’s nothing quite like being told to leave the country, to go to a place like Cuba or Afghanistan, because I object to a mandatory pledge of allegiance that has the phrase “one nation under God” in it. It makes me angry just thinking about all of it.
Funny, I’ve never had this problem. Nobody’s ever asked me what religion I was, or if I believed in God, unless something topical was happening (i.e, something on the news about RCC and child molestation, and I’ve been asked if I’m Catholic or not)
Perhaps, as matt_mcl suggested, it’s the are you live in or the people you hang around with ?
Sorry, I can’t help much… maybe you could try “sorry, I feel my beliefs are personal” whenever anybody asks.
It’s that way with every religion, or non-religion.
There are good examples of people from each, and there are annoying ones.
I think the problem that anti-atheist people have with atheists is that they have come across a few of them who are MILITANT atheists, the kind who just seem pretentious about it, looking down on people who are silly enough to believe in a God.
These people are just as annoying as those people who tell you that you will burn in lake of fire if you don’t accept Christ as your saviour.
I’m not saying that you are like that, but there are some who are, and give atheists a bad name- the same as a few Catholic people who give the rest of us a bad name
This shit brings back so many fucking memories for me it isn’t funny. I spent most of my early adolescence realizing the fact that most Christians are not evil, monstrous, closed-minded Simon Legrees bent on making everyone bow to their bigoted faith. I lived in a region not friendly to non-Christians until I was in high school and I became an atheist (or certainly a seriously skeptical person) when I was in elementary. So I had to keep my philosophies to myself and endure the stupid little fucking thoughtless bigotry and unstated assumptions and general holier-than-thou crap until I left the southern midwest for the northwest, where people don’t care what your philosophy is as long as you don’t spew it in their face and Southern Baptists are a distinctly rare breed.
I had to deal with the Good Kids, the Little Angels, and their cliquish little prayer groups. I had to deal with Christian groups operating on school property right after school let out. (An end run around the First Amendment in a region where the Bill of Rights is called ‘That pinko shit.’) Fuck. I’ll never be able to look at my childhood with rose-colored glasses as long as I remember my ‘peers’ and my school.
(Derleth regains composure, remembers intelligent friends he found later, who could talk about religion without becoming dogmatic and showing deep bigotry and minds narrower than the insides of Fat Bastard’s arteries.)
I’m open to provide moral support if you need it. I probably took the wrong path, not standing up for myself, but my parents didn’t want me ruining my dad’s chances of keeping his job.
Was this a public school in the US? If so, I suspect this teacher could be in an assload of trouble if it was found he or she was interrogating the students about their beliefs.
I’m a Christian and have many different friends/relatives who are Atheists, Agnostics, Jewish, Catholic, Morman etc. And I have many friends who are Pagans and Wiccans and also friends who are Gay. They all know what my beliefs are and most of the time it’s easy to get into religious conversations and still be friends at the end :). I do get some crap from other Christian friends who ask why I always hang out with the “heathens”. I just tell them I was once one, Jesus hung out with them, and they are my friends.
