I find this hard to imagine - in the United Kingdom (apart from small backward parts like Northern Ireland) we are almost a secular country. It is almost the norm to be an atheist. I must admit, I don’t envy you having to be ‘in the closet’.

Good luck to you guys - never be ashamed of not believing the books of myths and all of the evil that they are responsible for.

While rowing a boat down a very beautiful river today, I marvelled at the sunshine, my beautiful wife before me, the rich foliage on the banks, the ducks quacking at us, and I thought: who needs miracles ? Life is already staggeringly miraculous enough - the mere fact that we exist at all is enough to blow your mind - why do religious people feel the need to enhance what is already marvellous ?

Shall we start our own religion ? The church of the miraculous conception - i.e. our own ?

The timing of this post is eerie, because I am working right now on a post about coming out as an atheist.  It was inspired by the new blog, Atheist Exposed.

(Too tired to think straight) Doh! hit “submit” too soon… of which the main point is that gays and atheists share certain challenges and are even sometimes lumped together in winger rhetoric.

I’m getting more and more forward about it. But as a parent, I fear for my children should the USA keep sinking towards a 2cd Dark Ages—I fear that atheists will be among the first against the wall!

But at the same time, I’m finding myself being more and more forthright about it.  I keep reminding myself “2/3rds of humanity are NOT Christian—*I’M normal!*” But in a nation which is 80% Christian, we are certainly the minority here.

However, thats if you are lumping together the Pentacostals, with the Catholics, with the Mormons, with the Jehovah’s Witnesses, with the Baptists . . . etc.  Many of whom don’t consider the OTHER groups to be legitimate Christians - when you take that into account, its a much less unified country.

Well, the USA is pretty clearly headed towards a pretty major economic, energy, social breakdown - maybe on the other side of it we’ll come out more truly open-minded?  I’d fight for peoples right to believe in any idiocy they want to—but they can’t have laws based on whatever the currently popular fairytail is that affect me. They can’t have my tax dollars used, and my fellow American’s die for - any specific beLIEf system.

Its a pretty scary time, either we teeter on the edge of a new world which could be better, or on the edge of a new Great Depression/Crusades/Dark-Ages.

Hey BelfastBoy, we Northern Irish aren’t all backwards! (I know at least 3 atheists there) :p

I thought I was gay once, but I think I was just a little too into Elton John.

I really wish I had that “Edit” feature. That last line of my post is completely irrelevant; I thought part of the post was talking about coming out as gay. *slaps head*

I thought part of the post was talking about coming out as gay.

Could be… only need to change one word.  And that may be Brock’s point.  Brock, did we get it?

Could be… only need to change one word.  And that may be Brock’s point.  Brock, did we get it?

Yes, of course you got it. TheBo$$, your last line wasn’t as irrelevant as you thought. It made me chuckle so it was worth saying.

It is eerie that you are writing about this too DOF. I look forward to checking out what you’re putting together.

Susan, I hope we’re moving toward a better world but I refuse to take any blame if we aren’t. I’m not being avant-garde for the hell of it: I carefully chose the irritant I would use to mess with society.

BelfastBoy, I had no idea you folks were such cleah thinkas. I do declare, y’all are positively scand-a-lous and I simply adore it!

Discrimination of any kind is still discrimination.  Even though we live in a small rural town, I have convinced my wife to be forthcoming as well.  One of her friends even joked about me when I sat next to a cross that was hanging on her wall.

DOF wrote:

...the main point is that gays and atheists share certain challenges and are even sometimes lumped together in winger rhetoric.

Try being both.

I’m intrigued, however, by the idea of being doubly damned. If eternity is forever, how does one go to Hell twice (I don’t even like Michigan)? Does Jeebus toss you down into the pit then snatch you back up, yell “I really mean it!” in your face and then hurl you back down again?

I’m intrigued, however, by the idea of being doubly damned. If eternity is forever, how does one go to Hell twice (I don’t even like Michigan)? Does Jeebus toss you down into the pit then snatch you back up, yell “I really mean it!� in your face and then hurl you back down again?

I’m sure that all all-knowing, omnipotent, all-powerful, LOVING deity will be able to come up with a way of Torturing you in even more horrible ways for daring to follow the destiny ‘’he’’ set you up for!

The idea of a second dark adges is an interesting idea. One of the points that sometimes comes up with nihilists(spelling?) is that humans cannot progress with out going back a little. Maybe a war that kills most of the human race, or america’s econimy crashing into nothingness. But, for certain, america is probably not going to change all that much in the way of getting more accepting any time soon(especially with the political leaders making judgements based on faith).

Aetheism it seems to me is one way of getting to a place of more acceptance. Or maybe some religion like quakerism. I Have a lot of experiance with quakerism(my school is a quaker school); they are absolutely against any sort of discrimination, killing, or any sort of hurting, physical or mental. I am an aetheist(or maybe agnostic) and my school, although being technically religios, puts up with it very well. They encourage thinking for one’s self. Even if it is somewhat against what they believe.

Cheers BunBun

Try being a left-handed atheist (like, umm, me). We should have a devout right-handed Christian live with a bunch of left-handed atheists for 30 days, like that new show.

Can you imagine being a black gay atheist left-handed Muslim-heritage woman in America?

Its too bad that aetheism is not more in the open. I think it represents some of the best of human thinking because aetheists are not going to blame every thing on god. They are forced to think for themselves, like it or not. Thinking for one’s self is the first step in becoming an inteligent person.

Another thing thats too bad: people who do think for themselves are labeled as geeks, losers, nerds, and any of a load of other insultingly toned words. However if it was not for those people then the “normal” people would still be living in wooden huts built in six inches of mud mixed with horse/cow crap. Could those “normal” people at least have the appreciation to just leave us “not normal” people alone. Well, I guess they need some sort of scape goat to heap there inadiquateness/stupidity/mindlessness on. Maybe that is a bit judgemental, I’m sure there are some nice normal people out there. I just wish more would of them be part of the government/media.

Cheers BunBun

Lovely piece, Brock, though I was thinking you were coming out as left-handed or something weird like that

So who’s for an Ath Pride march?

Hey TheBo$$, just letting you know there is another lefty atheist out here.  Growing up in a family of righties is tough enough!  At least I never had the religion thing to deal with.

A couple of weeks ago, I went to a 4th-of-July cookout at my aunts house.  It was just my immediate family and we managed to get into religion briefly.  I made sure people new what I was and noone was really surprised.  As a matter of fact, from what I could figure out, nobody in my family is particularly religious.  I would qualify them between agnostic and deist, but certainly not christian.

Keep on coming out people.  I’m still amazed at how many people are surprised to find out that there are ‘nice’ atheists.  I just have to shake my head at their ignorance.

Same here with an aetheist family. I never get any good reactions when I say i’m agnostic/aetheist. I have not really pissed any one of saying that in a long time, sometimes i will get into arguments where the other person says something like “You really dont believe in god? Or go to church? Wow”.

I like working people up into a mouth frothing state when it comes to religion. It is kind of fun to have a ... well paced… argument.

Cheers BunBun

Person to person, I have never gotten into an argument about the lack of my religious belief. I am an outspoken unbeliever, but I seem to have a knack to disinvite comment.

Actually it seems that face to face confrontations are rare. I certainly don’t hide the fact that I’m an atheist when the topic comes up and I think I’ve had maybe two real arguments about it with someone in a face to face situation.

I think this is due to two things:

1) In the face to face situations most folks have had a chance to get to know me a little already before the topic comes up so it’s a bit of a surprise for them. They end up spending most of their time trying to reconcile the fact that I’m a fairly nice and decent fellow with all the negative stuff they’ve heard about atheists and end up being too busy to argue with me about it.

2) On the Net it’s a lot easier to hide behind your perception of anonymity and say things that you would at least think twice about saying to someone who could punch you in the mouth if you’re standing in front of them.

That is likely true. I dont know about you lot but I go to a very liberal and open school. I find that people just dont care about other’s religious beliefes because there are so many different religions at my school...jewish, muslim, christian.... I suppose that the people at my school probably have the ability to look past what they have heard about aetheism. Not to mention people usually dont care as much about my out spoken religious beliefs as my long hair(and I am a boy). So to them, aetheism is the least of my problems.

Cheers BunBun

Les,

Actually it seems that face to face confrontations are rare.

I do agree with you and the reasons you mentioned.

Unless I have reason to suspect otherwise, I peg the rabid True Believers one encounters online as cowards. The amount of guts it takes for some atheists to come out of the closet is nothing they could ever muster.

I live in a rural area around twenty miles from a Baptist Church which still denounces interracial marriages. I have had those face to face arguments mostly with bible thumpers undeterred by my 100+ lbs. Rottweiler and “Beware of Dog” sign on the door. So much for that. Anyway, the face to face arguments bear no better results and are not any more a willingness to share ideas than they do/are online - such has been my experience (though I realize it is with people on a mission). However, the perceived possible inclination to let my dog go tends to end those arguments quicker.

Cowardice offset by a home court advantage and perhaps a martyr complex. Fine.

Wow.  For a bunch of atheists, you guys sure are eager to be up on a cross.

It sure is tough being an atheist here in the US.  Oh wait, no it isn’t.  I’ve been an atheist and a Christian in my life, and I can honestly say it’s easier to be an atheist. 

TheBo$$: That last line of my post is completely irrelevant; I thought part of the post was talking about coming out as gay.

Nope, Brock is just feeling “Left-Wing Shame” because he doesn’t belong to any of the well-defined victim groups.  Not to worry: look hard enough and you’ll be able to figure out some way The Man is supposedly keeping you down.

The underlying cause is something which psychologists call “cognitive dissonance”.  People on the left take it as an article of faith that the US is heading for disaster, that Theocracy is right around the corner, that everything is going wrong, etc.. But there’s a problem: how to reconcile all this pessimism with their day-to-day experiences?  Here they are in the US with their easy life, their vast wealth, and more personal freedoms than anywhere else in the world.  Something’s not right, they are supposed to be suffering!

And so we get lefties like Brock here, desperate to convince others people (and by extension, himself) that things are really hard.  It ain’t easy being a left-handed atheist, believe me!!!  Yeah right, you’ve got it tough: 90% of the world’s population would trade places with you in a heartbeat.

And so we get lefties like Brock here, desperate to convince others people (and by extension, himself) that things are really hard.  It ain’t easy being a left-handed atheist, believe me!!!  Yeah right, you’ve got it tough: 90% of the world’s population would trade places with you in a heartbeat.

That’s like saying that being raped once instead of twice is much better.

Why should we have to be raped at all?