On 25 Jan 2013, at 05:43, Craig Weinberg wrote:
On Thursday, January 24, 2013 10:20:25 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote:
On 1/24/2013 6:28 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:
On Thursday, January 24, 2013 9:05:31 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote:
On 1/24/2013 5:14 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 25, 2013 at 4:55 AM, meekerdb<meek...@verizon.net>
wrote:
>
>> It's probably a lot simpler than that. In the U.S. if you're an
atheist it
>> may be hard to find a sympathetic ear. Depending a lot on where
you live,
>> you may be isolated and reviled.
> Is that really true? I was in the US recently for the first time,
> Scottsdale Arizona and NYC, and other than Christmas decorations I
> can't recall seeing much evidence of religion at all. This is
perhaps
> a superficial impression but I was a bit surprised nevertheless.
>
>
Scottsdale is pretty cosmopolitan - it's where airline pilots go to
retire. NYC of course
is as secular, diverse, and worldly as any place in the world. Try
visiting small towns
in Kentucky, South Carolina, Mississippi, Oklahoma,... It's not
called "the bible belt"
for nothing.
It would be more tedious than genuinely threatening to be an
atheist adult in redneck America - unless you insist upon being as
vocal as the Fundies. Yes, there's a lot of churches, and people
will ask you what church you go to, but they will also ask you what
sports team you support and think you are just as threatening if
you are unaffiliated that way.
I'd didn't say they'd be threatening. But if you were an atheist
looking for a friendly ear the only ones you'd find would probably
want to convert you.
I don't know that not being able to talk to others about your (non)
religious beliefs would be cause for suicide though. Especially now
that there's the internet... I can't remember the last time I had a
conversation with someone about religion IRL. If it was that
important to find a friendly ear in multiple neighbors and co-
workers specifically to listen to you talk about being an atheist,
then that makes me think about questioning the claim that atheism
isn't like a religion.
Atheism (at least the non agnostic strong form of it) is a (pseudo)
religion. The atheists believe religiously in a primary material
reality (the creation), and define God like the Christians (to not
believe in it). So they are ally with (strong) Christians to prevent
the coming back of seriousness, inquiries and deductive reasoning in
the theological field. Seen from the Plato/Aristotle difference
perspective, (strong) atheism is a slight variant of Christianism, and
that is even more palatable when you are aware of the atheist sects
(which are often secret and non transparent, practice communion, give
a name to a God, etc. and are largely ignored by the media).
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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