Author Topic: Atheists: Come out, come out, wherever you are  (Read 69074 times)

Offline Shuggy

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Re: Atheists: Come out, come out, wherever you are
« Reply #30 on: May 30, 2006, 07:02:30 pm »
So I've decided I'm going to come out as an atheist, and have bought some T-shirts so that people will know my stance when I wear them.

The T's say

"Friendly Atheist" (my favorite, as it's the least "in your face")
"Lord, Protect Me From Your Followers"
"I Think, Therefore I'm Atheist."
About a week ago, before I read this thread, I created some images for T-shirts etc on anti-religious themes:
"Nobody knows - agnostics admit it"
"Monotheism - one god too many"
"Polythestis worship too many gods - so do monotheists"
"I believe in Intelligent Design by Jupiter!"
etc
They're at http://www.cafepress.com/wero/1440313
(I'm going to change those grey letters to yellow to make them more legible.)
I'm also tempted by "You don't pray in my school and I won't think in your church"

Offline delalluvia

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Re: Atheists: Come out, come out, wherever you are
« Reply #31 on: May 30, 2006, 07:30:14 pm »
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I respect those of you who are tolerant of others' religious beliefs very much.  I am, too, until they try to sell me on them.  I've always seen religious beliefs (or lack thereof) as being personal and private and nobody's business but our own.

Ah, if only those people who adhered to those religions believed in the same.

But they don't.

At the recent World Religious hoedown, some representatives of the Protestant/Catholic/Muslim religions all got together and decided it wasn't a good idea to kill anyone who wanted to convert, but hey, it was OK to try to covert people.

Go figure.

The two big religions totally believe in proselytizing because they are exclusivist by design.

You're either for them or against them.  There is no in-between.  So it's their duty to try to 'save' you.  It's their religious job to butt in, invade your privacy, brow beat you, just beat you, change your government, whatever it takes to get the 'right' religion in power.

Because if they do, the world will become a 'heaven on earth' and in the meantime you heathen sinners are the problem.   ::)

Yeah, I know.  Scary as shit.

Even though I am a theist myself, my religion doesn't proselytize and is all about maintaining a pax deorum through personal behavior, not through making everyone ELSE do the same.

Offline Impish

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Re: Atheists: Come out, come out, wherever you are
« Reply #32 on: May 30, 2006, 07:39:15 pm »
Still, I label myself 'agnostic' because I have this inherent resistance to telling other people that I think they are 'wrong'.  And anytime I say 'I don't believe in God' to someone I know does believe, I feel like I'm criticizing their own personal choice.

I know what you are trying to say, and "get" what you are feeling.  But, my dear Lynne,  if you examine your statment very carefully, you'll find that it doesn't hold up to scrutiny (I'm trying to say this in as non-confrontational way as possible..  not sure I'm succeeding....   :P).

When we make statements in general -- about anything -- we're always stating our personal truth as we know it, and I suppose if our statement conflicts with someone's else's truth, that other person could always choose to be offended by it, to take it as us saying "you're wrong."  But that's isn't our intent when we made our statement, and if we altered our statements (in a way, not telling our truth completely) for fear of offending others, then we have started down a slippery slope of mis-representing ourselves about everything.

We have to trust others to be able to distinguish between telling them they're wrong and telling them we disagree.  Vic, for example,  told us (above in this thread) that she believes in a god, and expected us to understand that she was disagreeing with us,  not insulting us.  And she was right to do so...  I didn't take offense, and I don't think anyone else did either.

After all, we all know how to tell someone their wrong if we DO want to offend them, right?  It's one thing to say "I'm an atheist" and another thing to say "you're wrong to be an deist."  If you stick to only making claims about your truth, then if the other person takes offense, it's not because of what we said, but because of some insecurity in the other person.

You're a sweetheart, Lynne, and I know you're just trying to avoid offending anyone.  But I do get a bit concerned when that effort leads  to modifying the statements you make; modifications that actually "bend" what you believe to be true.   Your opinion counts, and you shouldn't make it subservient to anyone else's.

Love ya,

Imp


 
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If you won't pray in my school, I won't think in your church.

Offline ednbarby

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Re: Atheists: Come out, come out, wherever you are
« Reply #33 on: May 30, 2006, 07:39:55 pm »
Even though I am a theist myself, my religion doesn't proselytize and is all about maintaining a pax deorum through personal behavior, not through making everyone ELSE do the same.

My mother had a faith very similar to your own.  She believed in God, but the God she believed in loved every human being unconditionally - even murderers and criminals.  Sure, they made him sad, but he loved them all just the same.  She saw him as the parent to us all, who forgave us all if we just were sorry when we did something wrong.  No baptism required.  Just a wee bit of remorse.  And the last thing she thought he wanted us to do was to impose our beliefs of any kind on anyone else.  Now, if everyone of faith believed like she believed, well, then it'd be a perfect world.  Or at least a far better one than what we've got now.
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Offline Ellemeno

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Re: Atheists: Come out, come out, wherever you are
« Reply #34 on: May 31, 2006, 03:11:41 am »
When churchies ask me where I go to church now,

Barb, I haven't been asked that since I left the South.  It sure was one of the first three questions people used to ask there.

Offline Ellemeno

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Re: Atheists: Come out, come out, wherever you are
« Reply #35 on: May 31, 2006, 04:53:00 am »
Have you all seen Julia Sweeney performing her one-woman play, "Letting Go of God: My Beautiful Loss of Faith Story?"  I was lucky to see her do it last year.  It's an amazing saga of her path from blindly-following lifelong Catholic to dawning awareness that there were a lot of things she felt uncomfortable with about her religion, then her quest through other religions, growing realization that all religions really bugged her, to fearful agnostic to now proud and lovely atheist.  It's really something.  Beautifully, cleverly written.  Here's her website url

http://juliasweeney.com/welcome.asp

On the bottom left is a reference to a CD of Letting Go of God coming out soon and a link to reviews of the play, and on the right is mention that she will be speaking at an International atheist Conference in Iceland in June.

I cringe to tell you where you probably would remember her from - She played androgynous Pat on SNL in the early 90s.  She is way more beautiful (inside and out) and intelligent than that would indicate.

Offline ednbarby

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Re: Atheists: Come out, come out, wherever you are
« Reply #36 on: May 31, 2006, 08:21:20 am »
Barb, I haven't been asked that since I left the South.  It sure was one of the first three questions people used to ask there.

Yep.  Doesn't take long for many here in Florida, either.  Generally the ones who ask are from the South.  And there seem to be more of them coming down here every day.  That may seem odd to you folks around the world, but though Florida contains the southernmost point of the United States - in Key West - it's not considered "the South."  People here, especially in South Florida, are from all over.  And even the natives are a more eclectic bunch than that.  You get up to north-central Florida - what we call "the I-4 corridor," you do get up into some real Deliverance-type locales.  :shudder:

But yes, I get asked that question down here much more often than I got asked it in New York or even Ohio, that's for sure.  I shoulda known I was in trouble when it was the first thing one of my new neighbors in the neighborhood we moved to two years ago asked me, and when someone who just moved in a few houses down a little while ago asked me in our first conversation.  Oh, and Big Surprise - they have a "Bush/Cheney 2004" bumper sticker, a fish emblem AND a "Choose Life" license plate on *both* their cars - the Trinity.

 :o

(They must all be pointing at my house and saying, "There goes the neighborhood."  Hehehehehehe...)
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Offline delalluvia

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Re: Atheists: Come out, come out, wherever you are
« Reply #37 on: May 31, 2006, 08:47:51 am »
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When churchies ask me where I go to church now

I live in Texas and the very very very few times I've been asked this is when I'm around rural or country people.  I've never been asked this question by anyone who was urban.

Offline ednbarby

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Re: Atheists: Come out, come out, wherever you are
« Reply #38 on: May 31, 2006, 09:29:10 am »
I live in Texas and the very very very few times I've been asked this is when I'm around rural or country people.  I've never been asked this question by anyone who was urban.

That's a good point.  Not only are the people who've asked me from one of the Carolinas or Mississippi or Texas originally - they're from particularly rural areas in those states.  Well, save for one, who's from the LA area originally but who lived in North Carolina for many years.  He's just a freak.  ;)  There have been six who've asked me since I've lived down here, come to think of it.  Which ain't all that many until you consider that's six more than ever asked me anywhere else.
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Offline nakymaton

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Re: Atheists: Come out, come out, wherever you are
« Reply #39 on: May 31, 2006, 09:33:21 am »
Yep.  Doesn't take long for many here in Florida, either.  Generally the ones who ask are from the South.  And there seem to be more of them coming down here every day.

This is only tangentially related to atheism, I think, but it seems as though that sort of demographic shift is really important for US politics, if it's real.

My perception of religion in the US is twisted because, although I've lived in small towns all around the US (except for one 4-year stint in suburbia, which I loathed), I've lived mostly in college towns. Small, but not typical of small towns in the US. So up until a year or so ago, one of my neighbors had a sign beside the road that quoted a couple Bible verses that, put together, seemed to say "you're going straight to Hell if you don't believe what I believe." And there are lots and lots and lots of fish on the backs of cars. But, on the other hand, nobody has ever asked me where I go to church. (But I've heard rumors that the high school biology teacher doesn't teach evolution because it's controversial.  ::) My high school teacher did the same thing... well, no. My high school biology teach didn't teach evolution because he was a young-earth creationist. Still makes me mad.)

But anyway, demographic shifts. In the Rockies (even outside college towns), I've noticed a lot of houses sprouting up in places that used to be open space. And I'm talking even in places like the road west of Pinedale, Wyoming, maybe two hours from Jackson and further from the nearest interstate. If there are views and open space, there are people who have dreamed about living somewhere near the mountains, who did their time in a city or suburb and made some money, and who want to live their dream now. Some of them are 2nd home buyers, but at least in my local area, most of them are moving here because they want to.

I don't know their religion or politics. Some of them, at least, seem to be more liberal than one would expect in a traditional ranching/mining/oil & gas community. But the trappings of traditional rural culture -- the religion, and also things like country music -- seem to be more and more a part of suburbia, too. (Though I haven't lived in suburbia in 13 years, so I could be wrong, but the mega-churches couldn't be based in small towns... there just aren't enough people to fill them.)
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