Statistically it IS normal - most people in both history and the present do in fact have such supernatural beliefs.
But you don’t, and at a minimum there should be just as much tolerance for lack of belief as for diversity of belief. The human race is still working on that one, too.
I think that this is a rather dramatic exaggeration of the situation. Sure, true atheists might be a relatively small minority, but people who have a broadly secular worldview (including agnostics, etc.), and who don’t base their social and political decisions on religion, make up a significant portion of American society.
Also, while atheists might not constitute any sort of political bloc, in the way that some religious groups do, they are also not really marginalized or deprived of liberty and influence in our society in a way that justifies your statement about “punching up” and “punching down.”
I’ve already expressed my concern about some of the ways that religion influences certain aspects of our civic discourse and our civil society, but I don’t believe that this makes atheists any sort of endangered species or subjugated group.
Yeah, in Thailand, they leave the pressure tactics to the actual government. This is a country that gets 1/12 on the Freedom House score for its Electoral Process, 3/16 for Political Pluralism and Participation, 2/12 for functioning of government, 6/16 for Freedom of Expression and Belief, 5/12 for Associational and Organizational Rights, 5/16 for Rule of Law, and 10/16 for Personal Autonomy and Individual Rights.
Heaven indeed!
Interestingly, the equal-highest score in all of the sub-categories (3/4) was for the religious faith. To be honest, in terms of my freedom and well-being, I’ll take a few evangelicals pushing their religious beliefs over a systematic curtailment of political and civil liberties.
Why can we logically exclude others who don’t care whether we are murdered, and not logically include others who do care whether we are murdered?
Or do you mean you’d logically exclude those who don’t care whether they themselves are murdered? As many people who commit murder don’t want to be murdered themselves, I don’t see how that would help, as following your logic it seems those murderers would have to be included in your group.
Why can we forbid others from doing things we don’t want to have happen to ourselves, and not forbid others from doing things we don’t want to have happen to others?
People do have religious experiences. So those who have them would disagree with you that they believe in something they haven’t experienced.
And my experience of my keyboard might be a delusion.
No, I do not agree with this. That it would harm other people is sufficient reason.
I lived 20 years in greater St. Louis MO. Both down in the older urban part and out in the far-fringe newly built exurbs. And spent a non-trivial amount of time farther out in the out-counties nearby in both IL & MO. Separately I lived a year in a 50K population county seat mini-city in OK.
I’m very pleased you and your son are enjoying a bubble of tolerance where you are. Which might have something to do with having a state Uni nearby. Such was certainly not my experience where I was.
Overt hostility to overt atheism was well entrenched even in the big city. The greatest advantage to the larger cities was the anonymity. In the smaller places once you were outed everyone knew. In the bigger places not so much. Cultural unanimity also plays more strongly in smaller places; it’s inherent in small group dynamics.
The trouble of course comes when the religious beliefs become the civil law and take over the political and civil liberties - the subjugation of women in particular in many well-known theocracies.
Population of Dresden, NY: 289. (2018. Probably hasn’t changed much.)
Population of Yates County, NY: (2019.) 24,193.
Interesting. Makes me want to visit Dresden, NY. Thank you bringing it to my attention.
I live where William Jennings Bryan based his career arguing against teaching evolution-not my hero.
I get the feeling that this is far more of an issue in the Yew Ess of Ay. Outside the Muslim world, religion is by and large treated as a private matter. Some sects are notorious for feeling a strong need to propound their views. I just ignore them.
However, on another level, the USA is a still a society in which religion is important, but not necessarily a religious society. By which I mean that the religion sometimes seems to be unrelated to the actual deity and more a machine for control or making money. Now that is something, up with which we should not put.
This really is one of the most cheap and distasteful ways to criticize a shared reality. It literally says there is not common ground on which to stand. From there, it’s a short walk to solipsism and madness.
That’s not what I’m saying at all. I’m saying that, somewhere in everybody’s belief system, there’s a leap of faith.
Part of mine is that we do have common ground on which to stand: that other people, and the world as I perceive it, may not be exactly as I think they are, but are real. I’m not saying I don’t believe that. I’m only saying that I can’t prove it with logic alone.
Well, let’s see: if you think a cashier telling you to “have a blessed day” is imposing on you? Then yeah, I’m going to “punch”, or whatever. (If you consider it punching at all!) It’s such a mild expression – it doesn’t even necessarily mean the person is religious, they just might use the phrase out of habit, or whatever. Like saying, “good luck”, or “I hope to God this works.”
Sometimes, people don’t even mean them literally. It’s just an expression. Maybe because I never encountered the idea of Biblical literalism until I was in high school (when we read “Inherit the Wind”), and I don’t really know any fundies outside of the internet. There just aren’t that many around here. I went to a Catholic college, and even there the professors were really liberal ones.
And as Catholicism isn’t really a major proselytizing religion, the whole, “have you been saved yet” is generally foreign to me, and there aren’t a lot of churches like that around here. I’ve never once encountered a Chick tract (to my disappointment), maybe just some mild “Jesus Loves You” pamphlet here and there.
The Rust Belt isn’t the Bible Belt.
The thing is, these “just expressions”, cumulatively reinforce and support a theistic culture.
I’m not going to argue for or against the punching up/punching down metaphor in this case, but it should be obvious to anyone paying attention these days that small cultural tics and traditions are in fact powerful ways that societies maintain the status quo.
Insisting that the traditions are innocuous, just habit, or that people probably don’t even mean them literally is a way to avoid deep questioning. You claim that people don’t even mean them, but I think it’s more fair to say that probably people don’t think about whether or not they mean them.
A stranger saying “have a blessed day” as opposed to “have a nice day” is, bare minimum, choosing a religious-feeling platitude because it makes them feel warm and fuzzy (and they assume it’ll make you feel the same way), and at most are taking advantage of the social contract that dictates pleasant exchange of farewells to subject strangers to religious thought when it would be rude for them to object.
Agreed and seconded. Also adding Allah to common greetings in the Arab/Muslim world like : Allah Hafiz (for goodbye), Insha Allah (Allah Willing)… etc all fall in the same category.
This is were the freedom to religious practice gets in the grey idea. Should “Freedom to proselytize” be a fundamental right or Not.
A lot of that is simply because religion has been dominant culturally for thousand+ years, therefore some of the phrases are going to be embedded in the language. It is similar for English phrases that originated from Shakespeare’s plays. They were so culturally important in English that they became embedded in the language. So I don’t think people always think about prosyltizing when they say “Insha’Allah” or “Oh God” or “Jesus Christ!” in the same way they aren’t thinking about Shakespeare when they say “All that Glitters is Gold” or “breaking the ice” or “it’s all Greek to me”.
Now, “Have a Blessed Day” is likely more intentionally religious.
Seems like “have a blessed day” could come across as something of a microaggression to some atheists.
So you’d rather prohibit people from publicly mentioning Allah, or God, or “blessed,” or “That piece of halibut was good enough for Jehovah”?
That’s not Freedom to Proselytize; that’s Freedom of Speech.
ETA: @Velocity 2 above:
Not “could”. Does.
It might be fun to come up with an equally crazy rejoinder: “And may the greatest god Zeus light your way” or “Xenu smiles upon you despite your error. For now.” A cheery “Insha’Allah” might do the trick.
And if you get any pushback get right in their face about the patent inferiority of their chosen religion versus yours.
That’s not true to my beliefs which are the problem is religion, not which religion. But it’s putting the objection into terms the unthinking religion-besotted person might, just might, be able to understand if certainly not agree with.
I would not prohibit people from anything Religious. I was adding to the list … “ should be obvious to anyone paying attention these days that small cultural tics and traditions are in fact powerful ways that societies maintain the status quo.”
Religions evolve on their own. For example the Pope stopped condemning condoms for Catholics. If Christians, in the long run feel that these cultural tics are no longer necessary, they will perhaps drop them or not. Many Christians have indeed dropped them.
Missed the edit window. I live in the south and we have blue laws. For example on Sunday (the day of Christian worship) people cannot buy beer or wine until noon. There’s restrictions on Car sales too.
There are other Christians who have found these laws utterly unnecessary and other states do not have this law. So maybe this religious practice will evolve too.
Even here in Illinois, we still have some remnants of the blue laws here. At least here in Cook County, you can’t buy liquor before noon on Sunday. Car dealerships in Illinois are, by law, closed on Sundays, and while that was originally apparently a blue law, the reason it’s remained is that the dealerships, themselves, are opposed to a change in the law (believing that the increased cost for operating on Sundays would not be worth it).