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Dislike and distrust of atheists?

fire

Member
Human society has long declared high rates of secular phobia the irrational dislike, distrust, fear, or hatred of nonreligious people within America.

Atheist parents have been denied custody rights in the wake of a divorce. It's illegal for an atheist to hold public office in seven states. Charity donations are rejected when offered by secularist organizations.There is no question that atheists, agnostics, secularists, and others who eschew religion are widely disliked.

Americans equate lack of religiosity in general with being immoral and un-American. People simply feel much more comfortable expressing their dislike for atheists than other minority groups.

Insecurity on the part of the religious. Faith believing claims without sufficient evidence, or claiming to know things that you don’t or can’t know is an increasingly shaky endeavor. In order for religions to survive, it requires a lot of social support: the more people who share it, the easier it is to maintain, and anyone who rejects faith, or calls it into question, is a threat. Atheists have no faith in God, and thus theists are threatened by the growing presence of atheists, as they call into question the very thing that is ever so shaky: religious faith.

How can secular folks contend with this disadvantageous position?
From my own experience there is no difference between the two. The Thiest supports their beliefs with convoluted dogma which has no tangible substance, and the Athiest does the exact same thing in reverse. Most Thiests stake their entire life upon the so called evidence of another person that lived thousands of years ago that cannot be proved using commonly accepted terms, but the Athiest does the same thing buy simply denying any proof ever existed. Neither one has a single ounce of substance to support their claim! An Athiest is like those who said it's impossible to reach the speed of sound because a horse cannot gallop fast enough.... how stupid is that! An optimist exceeded the speed of sound!
 

Simurgh

Atheist Triple Goddess
yep, there is discrimination in some quarters. a former colleague called me a devil worshiper. she is clearly too stupid to understand that if there is no god, then there cannot be a devil either. but whatever. i think the best defense is you study religions, get a degree or two in religious studies and then argue with the religious rightwing on their turf. quote scripture and marshal the facts of historical development of a given faith. helps when you are also versed in anthro, psychology and sociology.
seriously, they have myth and fantasy and we have science and evolution. no contest.
 
I think it is useful to sometimes be reminded that this is not a purely American forum, it is on the world wide web and hence encompasses people from many different cultures, societies and countries. The fact that Americans have accepted the 'In God we Trust' hogwash that is posted in every courtroom, on coins, in classrooms and feel disdain for atheists because they are somehow un-American is purely an American phenomena, not felt or experienced anywhere else in the world except in some Islamic countries where they have replaced God with Allah but otherwise structure their un-secular societies on the American model.
 

Evangelicalhumanist

"Truth" isn't a thing...
Premium Member
Oh please. What nonsense. All you need is evidence for your bizarre statements. Don't just spew opinion, if something is true, it isn't without evidence. You have a habit of venting your anti religious spleen by making outrageous statements that every reader must accept, just because you said it, you think
They're not actually bizarre statements. There's no secret that atheists are among the most disliked and distrusted people in America. Why not do a simple search and find out?

In 2012, for example, Scientific American published an article called "In Atheists We Distrust." In that article, researcher will Gervais (University of British Columbia) showed that in America only 45 percent of Americans say they would vote for a qualified atheist presidential candidate, and atheists are rated as the least desirable group for a potential son-in-law or daughter-in-law to belong to. His conclusion: It comes down to trust. You don't like us because you don't trust us. And you don't trust us because we don't believe the same bumpf that you do.

I might say, by the way, that the feeling is mutual. I would feel great angst in voting for (trusting) a fundamentalist Christian to high office in Canada. I would reason that his conviction that "God is on my side" would make him more -- not less -- likely to start conflicts that could get out of hand, or treat people with great cruelty out of a belief that "God wouldn't like them, anyway."
 

Jeremiahcp

Well-Known Jerk
I think it is useful to sometimes be reminded that this is not a purely American forum, it is on the world wide web and hence encompasses people from many different cultures, societies and countries. The fact that Americans have accepted the 'In God we Trust' hogwash that is posted in every courtroom, on coins, in classrooms and feel disdain for atheists because they are somehow un-American is purely an American phenomena, not felt or experienced anywhere else in the world except in some Islamic countries where they have replaced God with Allah but otherwise structure their un-secular societies on the American model.

We are renaming the world America one McDonalds at a time.
 

Simurgh

Atheist Triple Goddess
well, allah is just the arabic way of saying god. same as saying gott does not make a german anything else but a xtian. so no, muslims have not replaced god, they simply call the dude by his arabic name.
 

Jeremiahcp

Well-Known Jerk
yep, there is discrimination in some quarters. a former colleague called me a devil worshiper. she is clearly too stupid to understand that if there is no god, then there cannot be a devil either. but whatever. i think the best defense is you study religions, get a degree or two in religious studies and then argue with the religious rightwing on their turf. quote scripture and marshal the facts of historical development of a given faith. helps when you are also versed in anthro, psychology and sociology.
seriously, they have myth and fantasy and we have science and evolution. no contest.

Hard to believe out of the two she is the stupid one.
 

Jeremiahcp

Well-Known Jerk
ooh, you afraid of devils too? then don't invent them.

Me? Afraid of devils?

346cfad437812db95bf5a413c454bda107ccc09a64e07934520d68f9007b6e9c.jpg
 

lewisnotmiller

Grand Hat
Staff member
Premium Member
How can secular folks contend with this disadvantageous position?

There's no quick fixes. One thing would be to stop equating secularism and atheism. Secular theists are our friends.

Unless, as previously mentioned, you're an anti-theist. In which case, why would you expect a fair shake from theists, generally,?
 

Evie

Active Member
Human society has long declared high rates of secular phobia the irrational dislike, distrust, fear, or hatred of nonreligious people within America.

Atheist parents have been denied custody rights in the wake of a divorce. It's illegal for an atheist to hold public office in seven states. Charity donations are rejected when offered by secularist organizations.There is no question that atheists, agnostics, secularists, and others who eschew religion are widely disliked.

Americans equate lack of religiosity in general with being immoral and un-American. People simply feel much more comfortable expressing their dislike for atheists than other minority groups.

Insecurity on the part of the religious. Faith believing claims without sufficient evidence, or claiming to know things that you don’t or can’t know is an increasingly shaky endeavor. In order for religions to survive, it requires a lot of social support: the more people who share it, the easier it is to maintain, and anyone who rejects faith, or calls it into question, is a threat. Atheists have no faith in God, and thus theists are threatened by the growing presence of atheists, as they call into question the very thing that is ever so shaky: religious faith.

How can secular folks contend with this disadvantageous position?
I might disagree with what a person believes or doesn't believe BUT I absolutely believe in their right to believe or disbelieve anything.
 

Evie

Active Member
"Oh, woah is me! I'm an atheist who's demographic has historically been marginalized..."

I do not care about this line of argument because I see no future value from it. I don't think we should want pity or special treatment, for any reason. It's a good thing that we've had to claw for our place in society. I relish the scrutiny - it's what makes us better.
I may not believe what a person believes or doesn't believe BUT I will fight for their right to have their beliefs and disbeliefs.
 

lewisnotmiller

Grand Hat
Staff member
Premium Member
First, I'll just point out that not all atheists can be described as secular. Probably, very few.

Atheists have the same advantages afforded LGBQ, women, and people of colour. They can protest in the streets, blog about their experiences, and petition their government officials for change.

You will be shocked by this, but the smaller the minority, the more difficult it is for popularist actions to be effective.
 

jonathan180iq

Well-Known Member
I may not believe what a person believes or doesn't believe BUT I will fight for their right to have their beliefs and disbeliefs.
I respect that - but I will say that the things we are talking about in this thread are not the same as other movements. It makes us look a little pitiful when we attempt to equate them.

No one has ever kept me from believing what I believe. I've never been denied services or turned away from an establishment for maintaining a worldview different from the norm. I've never had to sit in a different place, drink out of a different fountain, nor have I been rejected on a loan application because of my personal philosophies. I've never been taxed differently, turned away from hospital visitation, been relegated to certain areas of a restaurant, or had violent school yard games named after beating up my "kind" of people... I have in no way suffered any real tangible affects of this "discrimination" other than having my feelings hurt, and that's on me because people are dicks and I should expect that; we all should. (I'm going to imagine that this is true for 99% of the other atheists out there.)

So I do not equate popular ideas regarding atheism as a "lesser" ideology to in any way be equal to the civil rights movements of any era...
 

Twilight Hue

Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
An Athiest is like those who said it's impossible to reach the speed of sound because a horse cannot gallop fast enough.... how stupid is that! An optimist exceeded the speed of sound!

Sound is hardly a comparable analogy alongside belief in a dieity that isn't there at all.

People already know and identity what sound is through experimentation and testing and aquiring results.

What's the equivalent by which this is even compared with? What exactly is "sound" for a theist by which this ideology can be tested and determined?

I'll tell you. Nothing.

Atheism is a plain and simple response to theism to illustrate where the idealistic stupidity actually lays and is accurate and reliable. Feet on the ground as it were.
 

A Vestigial Mote

Well-Known Member
More drivel. I discriminate against atheists ? How does that work ? When I had the responsibility of screening and hiring employee's did I inquire into their world view ? Uh, no. Before I use a service do I ask the rug cleaner or plumber about their world view, uh, no. Do I quizz my neighbors about their world view before I will speak or socialize with them ? uh, no. Do I care whether someone I come across or know is an atheist ? uh, no. I believe freedom to choose means just that. You have rampant paranoia, I think, focused on a particular faith, you have Christophobia. Here are some suggestions for you. 1. Begin petitioning Congress for affirmative action programs for atheists. 2. Organize an atheist lives matter group, then block traffic and start riots because of the sad, sad plight of atheists. 3. Get some psychological help, today it is Christians that you fear, tomorrow it may be spoons.
You're one guy. Try to remember that. One. I have had plenty of people treat me differently after they found out my lack of belief. Not that any of them have been openly hostile... but their smiles all become extremely patronizing. Changed. And believe me, I never was the one to tell them, and they never told me that they knew. I just knew that they knew at a certain point. It became extremely apparent in their body language and in the ways they attempted to cut conversation shorter, lose eye contact more quickly... find an exit strategy. Hell, I even had one family, the son of which liked to talk video games with my son and I... anyway, he started enjoying talking to me - kids gravitate to me for some reason - I think its because I don't pull any punches, don't underestimate them, and talk to them like they are peers. But whenever he was talking to me, specifically, and my son wasn't next to me, some member of his family would come rushing over - as if I they thought I were going to warp his mind or something. It was actually pretty comical. It never failed. If he and I ended up talking - no matter how big the group of other people in the room, or at the park - someone from the family would walk over and pretend to "casually" join the conversation. What was that you said about "paranoia?"

And this isn't everyone, obviously. There was a pastor once who was super-interested in me when he found out. He questioned me in all sorts of ways, and didn't bat an eye at anything I said. Never pressuring once, only questioning - he even once tried to beg off of his wife's pleas to get him to join the rest of the group once when he and I were off on our own, talking. He just wanted to know more.

So, obviously, not everyone. But there are plenty of others who are not like that pastor... not like you.
 
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Bill Van Fleet

Active Member
I don't find that definition of religion useful.
So the definition one is using is one that assists the user in doing what the user is trying to do, in the effort to communicate with those who are going to receive that communication. I agree that the definition should be useful for the context in which it is being used. So indeed the usefulness of the definition should be a factor in its choice. So I am attempting to point the recipients' attention to all those things that we currently point to, and have in the past pointed to, and labeled a "religion." So my definition would cover Unitarian Universalism, which is considered by almost everyone to be one of the religions, whereas your definition would not. But interestingly my definition would cover something like humanism, insofar as humanism is an adult effort to work on how we should live our lives.
"Religion" is a polysemic word, that is, one with multiple definitions that aren't necessarily distinct, but form a spectrum of overlapping ideas. We all seem to have a different definition, many defining religion as essentially any worldview.

People with a belief in a deity are different than other kinds of people. Their worldviews are very different from those with a humanistic worldview, for example. I find making the distinction more useful than grouping them together.
Yes, because you are trying to group people into those who do something called "believing in God" or things similar to that from those who don't do so. And why you are doing that, i.e., what you are trying to accomplish, is to advocate for one of those groups (yours) over another or others. I understand that. But my goal is something different. I am trying to help our species come together despite the differences that exist between some of its members, by virtue of overcoming those differences through rational discussion. I recognize that we humans have a lot of imperfections, and a lot of tendencies that cause behavior that leads to pain, suffering, disability, and early death (PSDED). I am trying to contribute to a process of improvement of us humans, and am wanting to refer to all of those efforts that we are making to improve, i.e., to do what we really should do if we want to reduce markedly our tendency to engage in behaviors that lead to PSDED.

There is an analogy that I find somewhat helpful. Children start out with a lot of behavioral tendencies that are not optimal. But they are able to improve. Helping them to improve is called "child rearing." We help them to become more "civilized." (We of course do not do a very good job, yet, but our child rearing methods are subject to improvement.)

Well, our religions (using my definition) have a lot of good and a lot of bad in them. Because of their having a lot of bad in them, some advocate that religion should be stamped out, rather than helped to improve. So an analogous approach to children would be to stamp them out rather than help them to improve. The analogy has a flaw of course, in that children are being helped by those that are no longer children, whereas it is we within our religions that have to work on improving ourselves, by using our observation and imagination to bring about optimal innovation within our religions, that is actually optimization that we are bringing about in ourselves. We have to help ourselves improve, by using observation, reasoning, and imagination. We have to rear ourselves. But the basic alternative is between stamping out "them" vs. working together for improvement (e.g., by sharing and comparing our ideas through discussions like these). I believe that our tendency toward tribalism is one of our greatest causes of PSDED. Our coming together, through social contracting based upon increasing understanding of each other, is the way I prefer.

That doesn't describe a humanist like me or my worldview at all. Grouping us all together isn't helpful to humanists, who benefit from accentuating the differences, but it is to the church, which benefits from blurring them, as it does by conflating two radically different meanings of faith - one unjustified belief, like religious faith, and one justified belief based on evidence, such as when I say that I have faith that my car will start again the next time I try to start it just like it has the last 200 times I've tried.

That would be another example of two distinct ideas that deserve two distinct words, and, of course, it benefits the church to blur and conflate them as if they are identical, equivalent, or interchangeable.

To avoid ambiguity and make the distinction clearer rather than blurrier, I don't use the word "religion" if there isn't a god belief.

I understand. Your approach has to do more with who is going to win out over whom, and is consistent with the way we usually think. Many, many more people will agree with you rather than me. I acknowledge that. But I look at how this natural tendency of ours to divide into competitive, conflicting groups has worked so far, and am advocating a different approach that I believe would help us better in an effort to become a more unified, understanding, and caring species in the future. But I agree that we have a long way to go, and that we may never get there because as our groups go to war with each other, with ever-increasing technological capability, we become precariously closer to eliminating ourselves completely.

For a clearer and more complete description of how I think about these things, I do invite you to take a look at the website: Humanianity

And please note that I believe that humanism is indeed a positive development in the emergence of Humanianity.

Bill Van Fleet
 

lostwanderingsoul

Well-Known Member
To answer the original post, I can only speak for myself but I do not dislike or distrust atheists. I do believe they are wrong but I accept their right to believe what they want. And I do think they sometimes push things a little too far. For example having a Christmas tree on public property is not forcing anyone to believe in any religion. I agree that religion should not be taught in public schools. So I think we should look for ways we can agree on things and not on how we differ.
 

1robin

Christian/Baptist
Human society has long declared high rates of secular phobia the irrational dislike, distrust, fear, or hatred of nonreligious people within America.
99% of human society has never seen the United States. The US is less than 300 years old. How does a species that goes back maybe 100,000 years judge what has occurred in one nation on one continent in 3 centuries?

Atheist parents have been denied custody rights in the wake of a divorce. It's illegal for an atheist to hold public office in seven states. Charity donations are rejected when offered by secularist organizations.There is no question that atheists, agnostics, secularists, and others who eschew religion are widely disliked.
Over 95% of the founders, and 90% of the framers of this country were theists (mostly Christian), of course that would influence the character of a young nation. Don't worry, since the secular hippies rebelled in the 50's the country is now too far in debt to ever get out, the greatest country in the history of mankind has committed liberal secular suicide.

Americans equate lack of religiosity in general with being immoral and un-American. People simply feel much more comfortable expressing their dislike for atheists than other minority groups.
Who speaks for Americans? Me, you, Lincoln, Jefferson, Franklin, the 300,000 Christians that died to free another race of men?

Insecurity on the part of the religious. Faith believing claims without sufficient evidence, or claiming to know things that you don’t or can’t know is an increasingly shaky endeavor. In order for religions to survive, it requires a lot of social support: the more people who share it, the easier it is to maintain, and anyone who rejects faith, or calls it into question, is a threat. Atheists have no faith in God, and thus theists are threatened by the growing presence of atheists, as they call into question the very thing that is ever so shaky: religious faith.
With the exception of a possible handful nothing is known to a certainty. Name anything you know for certain.

BTW Christianity grows by the equivalent population of Nevada every year, and perhaps as much as 90% of human kind has held to theological faith. It isn't our side of the fence that is shaky.

How can secular folks contend with this disadvantageous position?
The way they have been so far, buying votes, limiting free speech, demanding safe spaces, thinking they are snow flakes, howling about micro aggressions, yelling racism or sexism when someone disagrees with them,and packing courts with judges who defy the constitution.

Did you know that the debt piled up from the birth of the secular revolution has grown so large at present that all the money in existence couldn't pay it off?
 

shmogie

Well-Known Member
You're one guy. Try to remember that. One. I have had plenty of people treat me differently after they found out my lack of belief. Not that any of them have been openly hostile... but their smiles all become extremely patronizing. Changed. And believe me, I never was the one to tell them, and they never told me that they knew. I just knew that they knew at a certain point. It became extremely apparent in their body language and in the ways they attempted to cut conversation shorter, lose eye contact more quickly... find an exit strategy. Hell, I even had one family, the son of which liked to talk video games with my son and I... anyway, he started enjoying talking to me - kids gravitate to me for some reason - I think its because I don't pull any punches, don't underestimate them, and talk to them like they are peers. But whenever he was talking to me, specifically, and my son wasn't next to me, some member of his family would come rushing over - as if I they thought I were going to warp his mind or something. It was actually pretty comical. It never failed. If he and I ended up talking - no matter how big the group of other people in the room, or at the park - someone from the family would walk over and pretend to "casually" join the conversation. What was that you said about "paranoia?"

And this isn't everyone, obviously. There was a pastor once who was super-interested in me when he found out. He questioned me in all sorts of ways, and didn't bat an eye at anything I said. Never pressuring once, only questioning - he even once tried to beg off of his wife's pleas to get him to join the rest of the group once when he and I were off on our own, talking. He just wanted to know more.

So, obviously, not everyone. But there are plenty of others who are not like that pastor... not like you.
Truly, if they exist, I have not come across any
 
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