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Probably, but how real are their fears. There are certainly a lot of
"practicing atheists"
(i.e people who live as if they believed nothing) who don't see to be
especially "discriminated
against". I have a friend who is definitely an atheist and makes no
secret of it. He claims to
be discriminated against, but I've seen no sign of it. The best concrete
evidence he has been
able to give me is that people invite him to church or try to "convert"
him. He believes in, or claims
to believe in, all sorts of "Christian" conspiracies from the White
House under Bush to the
management where he works, though he seems to have been above average in
receiving the
credit, honor, and promotion due him for his excellent work.
It quite possible that if he lived in a small less educated community,
his fears might be more realized,
but I think not -- or if he had an offensive personality.
David
Warp wrote:
> Not directly related but:
>
> Is it true that there are "closet atheists" in many parts of the US?
> In other words, atheists who pretend to be believers because else they
> would be discriminated against in the community they live in.
>
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Warp wrote:
> Is it true that there are "closet atheists" in many parts of the US?
Yes. Lots of places, especially in the south (known as the "bible belt")
there will be tremendous discrimination against atheists, to the point of
being harassed out of town. (I don't know about "many parts," mind. Just the
very religious parts.)
And of course many young adults who are atheist but don't want to cause a
problem with their family.
Of course, most places aren't like that, but when the evangelicals wind up
being 75% of the population, you wind up having nobody in authority who will
stand up for you, which is really the problem. I.e., when the school board,
most of the police force, all the judges, and all the teachers think atheism
is a sign of the devil, it's hard for a kid to complain they shouldn't be
praying in grade school.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
"We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
back to version 1.0."
"We've done that already. We call it 2.0."
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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> > Is it true that there are "closet atheists" in many parts of the US?
> Yes. Lots of places, especially in the south (known as the "bible belt")
> there will be tremendous discrimination against atheists, to the point of
> being harassed out of town. (I don't know about "many parts," mind. Just the
> very religious parts.)
> And of course many young adults who are atheist but don't want to cause a
> problem with their family.
> Of course, most places aren't like that, but when the evangelicals wind up
> being 75% of the population, you wind up having nobody in authority who will
> stand up for you, which is really the problem. I.e., when the school board,
> most of the police force, all the judges, and all the teachers think atheism
> is a sign of the devil, it's hard for a kid to complain they shouldn't be
> praying in grade school.
And nothing is being done about this clear constitutional violation?
That kind of situation feels somehow foreign to me. Here people are more
or less by default considered atheists, and someone telling they are actually
a christian believer is more an exception than the rule. (Usually people don't
discriminate christians in any way, but they often get questioned a lot. "Why
do you believe that?" etc.)
--
- Warp
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Warp wrote:
> And nothing is being done about this clear constitutional violation?
That's the problem. When everyone involved in enforcing the laws disagree
with the laws, it's hard to change things. You have to take the complaints
so high that you're outside your own little town, so you get someone
interested in making a change to the situation, and for most people it's
easier to not say anything than to fight such all the way up to the supreme
court.
Kind of like when southerners were harassing blacks. When all the cops and
judges are white former slave-owners, you get a lot of nasty stuff going on.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Panther_Party
That's the source of a lot of America's more oppressive gun laws, I
understand. The "ban on weapons" they protested was passed because blacks
were openly carrying shotguns on their motorcycles because the police were
arresting them and beating the crap out of them.
I don't think it's *quite* that bad with atheists, but it's also I think the
case that there are far more evangelical Christians willing to do persistent
low-level harassment (like graffiti on your house and beating up your kids
at school, rather than burning your house down) than there were
average-citizen people willing to try to beat up a gang of black folks on
motorcycles. :-)
I think atheists can probably get along 99% even in the worst areas if they
just STFU and let the majority have their way, instead of complaining about
prayer in school and "In God We Trust" on government buildings and such.
> That kind of situation feels somehow foreign to me.
Me too. It's only in certain very provincial areas. The same kinds of areas
where you hear jokes about people holding up the Bible and saying "If
English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me."
> discriminate christians in any way, but they often get questioned a lot. "Why
> do you believe that?" etc.)
A can understand that, if most people around you while you were growing up
are atheist.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
"We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
back to version 1.0."
"We've done that already. We call it 2.0."
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Darren New wrote:
> Warp wrote:
>> Is it true that there are "closet atheists" in many parts of the US?
>
> Yes. Lots of places, especially in the south (known as the "bible belt")
> there will be tremendous discrimination against atheists, to the point
> of being harassed out of town. (I don't know about "many parts," mind.
> Just the very religious parts.)
Yes the "south" is swamp of hatred, ignorance, stupidity, peopled by
benighted morons
who are capable of the most heinous crimes for religion or any other
reason. Why don't y'all
enlightened, rational, and wise folk who know us so well just flood us
with nerve gas and
improve the human race!
(No icon I know is applicable here.)
David
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David H. Burns wrote:
>
> (No icon I know is applicable here.)
On second thought is there one, for complete disgust?
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David H. Burns wrote:
> Probably, but how real are their fears. There are certainly a lot of
> "practicing atheists"
> (i.e people who live as if they believed nothing) who don't see to be
> especially "discriminated
> against". I have a friend who is definitely an atheist and makes no
> secret of it. He claims to
> be discriminated against, but I've seen no sign of it. The best concrete
> evidence he has been
> able to give me is that people invite him to church or try to "convert"
> him. He believes in, or claims
> to believe in, all sorts of "Christian" conspiracies from the White
> House under Bush to the
> management where he works, though he seems to have been above average in
> receiving the
> credit, honor, and promotion due him for his excellent work.
>
Your friend may be somewhat correct about some of it too, but no, sounds
like he is just worried about the cases he knows about in other parts of
the US. There is a reason why the ranks have doubled in the past 5-6
years, and its not because twice as many people just "happened" to
deconvert. Its because there is a perception, often fairly correct, that
you *will* run into problems if people know. In point of fact, I would
say that maybe 2-3 people at my job may suspect, my family knows, maybe
1-2 friends, but this is a city that, the years I moved here, actually
had a book burning planned. I have no idea what effect it would have,
but given that I have seen all of two cars, out of hundreds, showing
anything not overtly Christian, and one of those was a Californian on
vacation, I don't think the result would be positive. And, this is in
Arizona. There are states in the US that, in contradiction to the US
constitution, deny atheists the run for public office. There are some
schools that have tried, and succeeded, at running the local *known*
atheist family out of town, when it was merely "suspected" that they
where not Christian, due to a refusal to pray before a ball game. There
are top level people in the government, who in candid moments, have all
but declared that they would prefer a Satanist over and atheist, because
it least the former admitted god was real, and Bush, who ordered some
things removed from things like public health sites, and replaced with
abstinence links, who created new, and imho, illegal means to support
"faith based", which means almost entirely Christian, programs, and in a
speech actually went as far as suggesting that *maybe* atheists should
lose citizenship rights. This isn't Europe. Some people here are not
merely annoyed by, or uncomfortable with, atheism, they **hate** it,
would like to see it banned, if they could, and people *have* lost jobs,
friends, etc. over the discovery that they where one.
We are the new "gay movement". Everything wrong with society is our
fault, supposedly, even when its the religious people that came up with
the ideas that screwed things up, and we are all plotting, according to
entire counties, in some cases, to erase religion, somehow. They want
us, out of sight, out of mind, unwilling to speak, and accommodating to
everyone, and there are entire books being written by various clowns in
the US about how it "hurts our cause", to actually point out that we
don't believe religion, why, and by being *willing* to express anger at
certain ideas, and actions, instead of playing nice with the liberal
Christians, in the hope they all grow back bones, and actually stop
voting for dishonest, ignorant, superstitious, or just plain stupid,
people all the time, because they claim high levels of piety.
Hell yes there are "closet" atheists in the US. Its 90% of the people in
that category, including the "accomidationists", who think, despite 200
years of evidence otherwise, that you can make progress, by quietly
sitting at the side lines, mouthing prayers you don't believe in, (like
I do every time I have to attend some family gathering with the god
botherers in my own near relatives), and not saying anything about how
silly the whole mess is, or pointing out when some idea, generated from
it, is dumb, counter productive, or actually likely to have the
*opposite* results, and you have clear facts to prove it. Most of us
will either a) not attend things that we *have to* pretend at, b)
pretend, to play nice to people we don't want to hurt, or c) pretend all
the time, because we know that there *are* people in our lives that
would ruin us, if they knew about it. Which one you are, and often even,
to what degree, and when, depends on if you recognize there *are* others
that can support you, whether those people are any where near you at all
(i.e., don't move to most of the south eastern states), and how big a
risk you think it is to admit it. Some places, its almost no risk at
all, others... there are still places you might not make it out alive,
if you also make the mistake of pissing off the local wackos while
admitting it.
Nah.. The one guy a while back that was found beat to death by rednecks
in one of those states was obviously a total coincidence, never mind the
fact that he had *recently* annoyed the local city council by admitting
being an atheist, and the last recorded case of such a beating in the
area was 50 years or more ago, to a black man... Total coincidence...
--
void main () {
if version = "Vista" {
call slow_by_half();
call DRM_everything();
}
call functional_code();
}
else
call crash_windows();
}
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Darren New wrote:
> Warp wrote:
>> Is it true that there are "closet atheists" in many parts of the US?
>
> Yes. Lots of places, especially in the south (known as the "bible belt")
> there will be tremendous discrimination against atheists, to the point
> of being harassed out of town. (I don't know about "many parts," mind.
> Just the very religious parts.)
>
> And of course many young adults who are atheist but don't want to cause
> a problem with their family.
>
> Of course, most places aren't like that, but when the evangelicals wind
> up being 75% of the population, you wind up having nobody in authority
> who will stand up for you, which is really the problem. I.e., when the
> school board, most of the police force, all the judges, and all the
> teachers think atheism is a sign of the devil, it's hard for a kid to
> complain they shouldn't be praying in grade school.
>
They are not 75% of the population, well.. except in the south. The
problem is, they are 75% of the electorate. :( For some reason,
religious people will ignore "everything" about a candidate, as long as
they babble about how faithful and "family values" they are... Drives me
nuts.
--
void main () {
If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
if version = "Vista" {
call slow_by_half();
call DRM_everything();
}
call functional_code();
}
else
call crash_windows();
}
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Darren New wrote:
> I think atheists can probably get along 99% even in the worst areas if
> they just STFU and let the majority have their way, instead of
> complaining about prayer in school and "In God We Trust" on government
> buildings and such.
>
Ah, yes. Jews should do the same, and Pagans, and well.. pretty much any
and all non-Christians that have been attacked, slandered, defamed,
driven out of town, or otherwise harassed, for pointing out "exactly"
the same things. The problem is, its a damn simplistic bit of advice,
given that none of these things are being posted to show off how
Christian the locals are, its being done to promote revisionist history,
distort the playing field, so people are more likely to allow more
extreme things, and, when successful, is pointed to as an example of our
"Christian nation, which therefor means that gay marriage, real sex
education, evolution, fact based medicines, secular programs, secular
education, which doesn't have a specific religious agenda, and just
about everything else, is the 'true way things should work'". Its real
simple, if you can't conquer some place, then rewrite the history, just
rewrite the history, and be as loud as possible, in hopes that you can
win, before the ones that are not falling for it react to the problem.
You do know, BTW, that, "In God We Trust", was invented by "precisely"
the sort of ignorant twit that we currently have trying to claim that
the public education system, which is mandated in the constitution under
the rights and requirements of a state, to enter the union, i.e., not
even an amendment, but the original document, is unconstitutional?
Seems, some overly pious guy working for the mint was unaware that "E
Pluribus Unum" was **already** the national motto, so opted to make up
his own, and some other equally clueless fool went, "Ah, OK, sounds
good, lets start putting it on all the money!" Joked a while back on a
blog, "So, when is it they are going to finally replace the original EPU
motto, and replace it with, 'Yo Football!', again?", in response to some
of this wonderful revisionism they love to do. They claim to be
protecting the nation. Their real goal is to do everything possible to
reinvent it, and its history, to create a defacto state religion,
legally, without having to break the law, by declaring it directly.
If this wasn't their goal, and some of them where not stupid enough to
actually admit it to their followers, because they know those followers
want such a thing, no one would have a single problem with this sort of
things. But.. its telling that they back down 90% of the time, when its
suggested that "other" documents should stand beside the ten
commandments, or someone suggests that a comparative religion course in
a school would be OK, but not one slanted in favor of Christianity, or,
anything else that would let them do these things, without implying,
suggesting, or demanding acceptance, of the idea that Christianity *is*
the national religion for some reason other than its unfortunate popularity.
And, your right, we spent 200 years "not" challenging such things. In
that time we went from a nation with where 90% of the population
couldn't read, but the ones that did *knew* their Bibles, and most of
them where heavily invested in religion (accept for some of the ones
that read it), to one where everyone can read, but 90% of the country
doesn't bother to understand anything past what the preacher tells them,
most don't read anything challenging, even the well educated people are
dumb as bricks, too often, outside their own narrow expertise, and
people are **actually** claiming that the facts taught in Civics classes
for the last 200 years, about the founders, their ideals, the meaning of
the constitution, and its intent, and even, sometimes, like the case of
the moron in Texas claiming that public education isn't constitutional,
confusing documents, or insisting that the ones they obviously
***haven't even read***, say the complete opposite of what they do say.
We kept quiet, watched the march of progress, oohed and awed over all
the discoveries and advances made in our technology and skill at making
things, and spent a lot of time telling the few of our number that spoke
up and said, "But... look at how stupid some of these people are!", to
shut the hell up, because it would upset the magic Utopia that was just
around the corner, where everyone had equal access to all information,
and the time and means to get at it. Its not *almost* that universal.
And the result... Instead of unlimited access to things that can tell
people how the real world works, you get pure idiocy like timecube.com,
conservapedia.com, and an **endless** collecting of religious sites, all
babbling stuff that neither the founders, nor a half dead goat herder,
sitting 5 miles away, during one of their Jesus' supposed speeches,
would have believed.
We tried being nice. We are not the **worst education** people on the
planet, outside of the Middle East, and even then, some of the places
over there may be better off, our colleges can't admit 90% of the high
school graduates without remedial courses, and even the ones that pass
those, can't afford the rest, in most cases, or graduate *still*
believing things that are completely *wrong* based on the courses they
just took. You don't need to rent the movie Idiocracy, all you have to
do is go to the nearest Bible thumper neighborhood, and listen to the
gibberish they say about how everything around them works, including, in
some cases, the nearly paranormal, and insane theories about how stuff
they *buy* in stores work, or get made.
And, there are people, who have used the, "be nice, play friendly, and
kiss ass at every opportunity, even if you have to lie 90% of the time
to do it", crowd, who have gotten elected to 80% of the positions in one
political party, and too many in the other as well, especially in
*local* areas, who actually believe that the solution to every problem
in the US is to get rid of more of the fact based 'atheist' education,
programs and laws (everything that isn't theologically driven is atheist
to them), and replace them with stuff that even liberal Christians know
is total bullshit (but, of course, according to these same people, such
Christians are not *real* Christians, so their opinion doesn't count,
except when they need to kiss ass, to get reelected).
--
void main () {
If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
if version = "Vista" {
call slow_by_half();
call DRM_everything();
}
call functional_code();
}
else
call crash_windows();
}
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David H. Burns wrote:
> Darren New wrote:
>> Warp wrote:
>>> Is it true that there are "closet atheists" in many parts of the US?
>>
>> Yes. Lots of places, especially in the south (known as the "bible
>> belt") there will be tremendous discrimination against atheists, to
>> the point of being harassed out of town. (I don't know about "many
>> parts," mind. Just the very religious parts.)
>
> Yes the "south" is swamp of hatred, ignorance, stupidity, peopled by
> benighted morons
> who are capable of the most heinous crimes for religion or any other
> reason. Why don't y'all
> enlightened, rational, and wise folk who know us so well just flood us
> with nerve gas and
> improve the human race!
>
Much simpler. You can just succeed again. I understand someone in Texas
actually suggested this recently, but.. They seem to recently be
importing some of their real kooks from Nebraska, or some place. Latest
one is a global warming denier, who basis this on a 500 year old map,
showing Antarctica as the size of Africa, or bigger, complete with
rivers and lakes. Those of us getting a good laugh at it wondered if he
also found proof of "dragons" or "sea monsters" when examining it. lol
But, no. There are small pockets of sane in those states. And, sadly,
most of the people in them seem to be in general denial of how screwed
up and backward the rest of the state *actually* is, based on
descriptions from people that lived/live in them and don't share the
local predilection for shear crazy.
--
void main () {
If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
if version = "Vista" {
call slow_by_half();
call DRM_everything();
}
call functional_code();
}
else
call crash_windows();
}
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