The challenges facing atheists in the U.S.

Started by Unbeliever, July 26, 2018, 08:05:05 PM

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Unbeliever

QuoteFifty-three percent of Americans say they'd be less likely to support an atheist for president, and almost half say they'd be unhappy if a family member married an atheist. Mo Rocca reports on the many consequences that those who come out as non-believers suffer in a nation founded on religious tolerance.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQsdmwCFUL4


I don't personally experience any negative side effects of being an unbeliever, but too many people do. That's why so many of them are still in the closet, and are afraid to come out and be counted as atheists. They could lose jobs, friends, family, even their lives.
God Not Found
"There is a sucker born-again every minute." - C. Spellman

Baruch

I am 100% less likely now to support a Democrat or a Republican for President.  Is that an issue?  Wanna make something of it?

Would have no problem with an atheist.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Mousetrap

Quote from: Unbeliever on July 26, 2018, 08:05:05 PM

...


I don't personally experience any negative side effects of being an unbeliever, but too many people do. That's why so many of them are still in the closet, and are afraid to come out and be counted as atheists. They could lose jobs, friends, family, even their lives.

It seems as if Atheists think they are mistrusted by Americans out of Religious intolerance.
You guys are really misguided if you think it is unfair that the USA will not like an Atheist President.
It is not due to some phobia that we do not want atheists to rule a capitalist, Christian country!
On the contrary, we learned from history that it will be havoc!


Lenin, Stalin, tens of Millions Christians,  Jews  killed. Poverty, famine…
Halil Hoxha, Albania, churches destroyed, Christians killed. Poverty, Famine…
Cambodia, Pol Pot Khmer Rouge, Millions displaced, Millions Budists and Christians killed. Famine poverty…
China, Mau se Dong, Millions of Christians killed, Budists and Tauist temples and churches destroyed. Famine.. poverty.
Cuba, Fidel Castro. Destroyed Churches, arrested priests, deported priests...Poverty!
Previous communist states
Afghanistan, Angola, Benin, Bulgaria, Congo-Brazzaville, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Grenada, Hungary, Derg, Ethiopia, Kampuchea, Mongolia, Mozambique, North Vietnam, Poland, Romania, Somalia, South Yemen, Yugoslavia.
And Previously…Poverty, no human rights, continuous war, no economy.
French Revolution, Reign of Terror by the Revolutionary Tribunal, Robespierre.
Hundreds of thousands innocent people guillotined. Poverty, destruction of economy.
Mexico, Calles, churches destroyed, thousands of populace killed, priest killed, poverty…no economy.
Lets not forget old Nicola Ceaucesco!
The best example of an Atheist I can think of in Southern Africa, is Robert Mugabe!
What about Samorrah Machell who killed of the Portuguese by sawing them in half in front of their children, raping the wives and beheading her.
lets think about the Bombs that Nelson Mandella planted in SA and the weapons and ammunition he brought into the country and how He and his wife, Winny murdered their own people by burning them alive.
What about Julius Malema, that wants to kill every white person in South Africa?

No, My dear Atheist complainants, Atheism made its' mark on the world with the deaths of millions of people.
If you think the people of the USA should feel sorry for you because they dont like Atheists, you are right about they dont like you; but wrong about the need of empathy!

I regard it as a sign that anyone who dislikes Atheism, is an informed and educated person that dont want the same mistakes to happen in their country.

An idiot is someone who does the same thing over, wishing for a different result.
If an Atheist gets into power in the USA, onlt an Idiot will think there will be peace and prosperity.

The intelligent will immediately realize that destruction and famine will be the outcome as was so many times tested in the history of the world!

Evolution, the religion whereby one believes your children more human, and your parents more ape, than you!

The Human Mind, if it has nothing to do with Evolution...What an incredible entity...
If it does, what a waste!

Atheism, what a wonderful religion, where one believe to believe is erroneous.

Draconic Aiur

#3
Says the  theist with the death of billions, rape of billions, mutilation and torture of billions. Whom brainwashed trillions into bleving thy can get away with murder if its a holy cause.

Mermaid

Exactly why I am not "out". I don't see any glory in being vocal about it. The one thing I do is vote.
A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticise work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life’s realities â€" all these are marks, not as the possessor would fain to think, of superiority but of weakness. -TR

Unbeliever

I have no problem revealing my atheism whenever it comes up, but it seldom comes up. I don't exactly bandy it about, though.
God Not Found
"There is a sucker born-again every minute." - C. Spellman

Unbeliever

Quote from: Mousetrap on July 27, 2018, 07:54:53 AM
It seems as if Atheists think they are mistrusted by Americans out of Religious intolerance.
You guys are really misguided if you think it is unfair that the USA will not like an Atheist President.
It is not due to some phobia that we do not want atheists to rule a capitalist, Christian country!
On the contrary, we learned from history that it will be havoc!


Lenin, Stalin, tens of Millions Christians,  Jews  killed. Poverty, famine…
Halil Hoxha, Albania, churches destroyed, Christians killed. Poverty, Famine…
Cambodia, Pol Pot Khmer Rouge, Millions displaced, Millions Budists and Christians killed. Famine poverty…
China, Mau se Dong, Millions of Christians killed, Budists and Tauist temples and churches destroyed. Famine.. poverty.
Cuba, Fidel Castro. Destroyed Churches, arrested priests, deported priests...Poverty!
Previous communist states
Afghanistan, Angola, Benin, Bulgaria, Congo-Brazzaville, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Grenada, Hungary, Derg, Ethiopia, Kampuchea, Mongolia, Mozambique, North Vietnam, Poland, Romania, Somalia, South Yemen, Yugoslavia.
And Previously…Poverty, no human rights, continuous war, no economy.
French Revolution, Reign of Terror by the Revolutionary Tribunal, Robespierre.
Hundreds of thousands innocent people guillotined. Poverty, destruction of economy.
Mexico, Calles, churches destroyed, thousands of populace killed, priest killed, poverty…no economy.
Lets not forget old Nicola Ceaucesco!
The best example of an Atheist I can think of in Southern Africa, is Robert Mugabe!
What about Samorrah Machell who killed of the Portuguese by sawing them in half in front of their children, raping the wives and beheading her.
lets think about the Bombs that Nelson Mandella planted in SA and the weapons and ammunition he brought into the country and how He and his wife, Winny murdered their own people by burning them alive.
What about Julius Malema, that wants to kill every white person in South Africa?

No, My dear Atheist complainants, Atheism made its' mark on the world with the deaths of millions of people.
If you think the people of the USA should feel sorry for you because they dont like Atheists, you are right about they dont like you; but wrong about the need of empathy!

I regard it as a sign that anyone who dislikes Atheism, is an informed and educated person that dont want the same mistakes to happen in their country.

An idiot is someone who does the same thing over, wishing for a different result.
If an Atheist gets into power in the USA, onlt an Idiot will think there will be peace and prosperity.

The intelligent will immediately realize that destruction and famine will be the outcome as was so many times tested in the history of the world!




VICTIMS OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH
God Not Found
"There is a sucker born-again every minute." - C. Spellman

Mermaid

Quote from: Mousetrap on July 27, 2018, 07:54:53 AM
It seems as if Atheists think they are mistrusted by Americans out of Religious intolerance.
You guys are really misguided if you think it is unfair that the USA will not like an Atheist President.
It is not due to some phobia that we do not want atheists to rule a capitalist, Christian country!
On the contrary, we learned from history that it will be havoc!


Lenin, Stalin, tens of Millions Christians,  Jews  killed. Poverty, famine…
Halil Hoxha, Albania, churches destroyed, Christians killed. Poverty, Famine…
Cambodia, Pol Pot Khmer Rouge, Millions displaced, Millions Budists and Christians killed. Famine poverty…
China, Mau se Dong, Millions of Christians killed, Budists and Tauist temples and churches destroyed. Famine.. poverty.
Cuba, Fidel Castro. Destroyed Churches, arrested priests, deported priests...Poverty!
Previous communist states
Afghanistan, Angola, Benin, Bulgaria, Congo-Brazzaville, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Grenada, Hungary, Derg, Ethiopia, Kampuchea, Mongolia, Mozambique, North Vietnam, Poland, Romania, Somalia, South Yemen, Yugoslavia.
And Previously…Poverty, no human rights, continuous war, no economy.
French Revolution, Reign of Terror by the Revolutionary Tribunal, Robespierre.
Hundreds of thousands innocent people guillotined. Poverty, destruction of economy.
Mexico, Calles, churches destroyed, thousands of populace killed, priest killed, poverty…no economy.
Lets not forget old Nicola Ceaucesco!
The best example of an Atheist I can think of in Southern Africa, is Robert Mugabe!
What about Samorrah Machell who killed of the Portuguese by sawing them in half in front of their children, raping the wives and beheading her.
lets think about the Bombs that Nelson Mandella planted in SA and the weapons and ammunition he brought into the country and how He and his wife, Winny murdered their own people by burning them alive.
What about Julius Malema, that wants to kill every white person in South Africa?

No, My dear Atheist complainants, Atheism made its' mark on the world with the deaths of millions of people.
If you think the people of the USA should feel sorry for you because they dont like Atheists, you are right about they dont like you; but wrong about the need of empathy!

I regard it as a sign that anyone who dislikes Atheism, is an informed and educated person that dont want the same mistakes to happen in their country.

An idiot is someone who does the same thing over, wishing for a different result.
If an Atheist gets into power in the USA, onlt an Idiot will think there will be peace and prosperity.

The intelligent will immediately realize that destruction and famine will be the outcome as was so many times tested in the history of the world!


Oh for fuck's sake.
A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticise work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life’s realities â€" all these are marks, not as the possessor would fain to think, of superiority but of weakness. -TR

Blackleaf

Countries that are the most secular have the least violent crime. Hitler was a Christian, and cited that as justification for his atrocities several times. End of discussion. Ignore the ignoramus.
"Oh, wearisome condition of humanity,
Born under one law, to another bound;
Vainly begot, and yet forbidden vanity,
Created sick, commanded to be sound."
--Fulke Greville--

Munch

Quote from: Blackleaf on July 27, 2018, 09:54:01 PM
Countries that are the most secular have the least violent crime. Hitler was a Christian, and cited that as justification for his atrocities several times. End of discussion. Ignore the ignoramus.

It was a fair bit more complicated then that.

QuoteHistorians on Hitler's religious beliefs   Edit
Academic historians who specialize on the life and thought of Hitler have concluded he was irreligious and anti-Christian.

Alan Bullock was an early influential Hitler expert who wrote important biographies of the dictator in the 1950s and 1960s.[26] He wrote that Hitler had been raised Catholic, and though impressed by its organisational powers, Hitler repudiated Christianity on what he considered to be rational and moral grounds.[27] Bullock considered Hitler to be a rationalist and materialist, with no feeling for the spiritual or emotional side of human existence.[27] Bullock wrote that Hitler believed neither in "God nor conscience" but found both "justification and absolution" in a view of himself that echoed Hegel's that heroes were above conventional morality and the role of "world-historical individuals" as the agents by which the "Will of the World Spirit", the plan of Providence is carried out. Following his early military successes, Hitler "abandoned himself entirely to megalomania" and the "sin of hybris", an exaggerated self-pride, believing himself to be more than a man.[28][29] Once the war was over, wrote Bullock, Hitler wanted to root out and destroy the influence of the churches, though until then he would be circumspect for political reasons:[27]

In Hitler's eyes, Christianity was a religion fit only for slaves; he detested its ethics in particular. Its teaching, he declared, was a rebellion against the natural law of selection by struggle and the survival of the fittest.

â€" Alan Bullock, Hitler: a Study in Tyranny
At the turn of the century, leading Hitler expert[30] Ian Kershaw wrote an influential biography of Hitler which used new sources to expound on Hitler's religious views. He too concluded that Hitler was anti-Christian and irreligious, but noted how Hitler's religious policy was restrained by political considerations. Still, Hitler's hostility to Christianity contributed to the efforts of his underlings to suppress that religion in Nazi Germany: "However much Hitler on some occasions claimed to want a respite in the conflict [with the churches], his own inflammatory comments gave his underlings all the license they needed to turn up the heat on the 'Church Struggle', confident that they were working towards the Fuhrer" noted Kershaw:[31][32]

Hitler's impatience with the churches prompted frequent outbursts of hostility. In early 1937, he was declaring that 'Christianity was ripe for destruction' (Untergang), and that the churches must therefore yield to the 'primacy of the state', railing against 'the most horrible institution imaginable."

â€" Ian Kershaw, Hitler 1936-1945 Nemesis[31]
British historian Richard J. Evans, who writes primarily on Nazi Germany and World War II, believes that Hitler believed in the long run that National Socialism and religion would not be able to co-exist, and that he stressed repeatedly that Nazism was a secular ideology, founded on modern science: "Science, he declared, would easily destroy the last remaining vestiges of superstition' Germany could not tolerate the intervention of foreign influences such as the Pope and 'Priests', he said, were 'black bugs', 'abortions in black cassocks'."[33]

British historian Richard Overy, biographer of Hitler, sees Hitler as having been neither a practising Christian, nor a thorough atheist, but also notes the sentiment that Nazism and religion could not co-exist long term: "Both Stalin and Hitler wanted a neutered religion, subservient to the state, while the slow programme of scientific revelation destroyed the foundation of religious myth."[34] Overy writes of Hitler as skeptical of all religious belief, but politically prudent enough not to "trumpet his scientific views publicly", partly in order to maintain the distinction between his own movement and the godlessness of Soviet Communism .[35] In 2004, he wrote:[36]

He was not a practising Christian but had somehow succeeded in masking his own religious scepticism from millions of German voters. Though Hitler has often been portrayed as a neo-pagan, or the centrepiece of a political religion in which he played the Godhead, his views had much more in common with the revolutionary iconoclasm of the Bolshevik enemy. His few private remarks on Christianity betray a profound contempt and indifference... Hitler believed that all religions were now 'decadent'; in Europe it was the 'collapse of Christianity that we are now experiencing'. The reason for the crisis was science. Hitler, like Stalin took a very modern view of the incompatibility of religious and scientific explanation.

â€" Richard Overy, The Dictators: Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia
Historian Percy Ernst Schramm, describes Hitler's personal religious creed, after his rejection of the Christian beliefs of his youth, as "a variant of the monism so common before the First World War."[4] According to Schramm, These views were indirectly influenced by the work of Ernst Haeckel and his disciple, Wilhelm Bölsche.[14]

Schramm quotes Dr. Hanskarl von Hasselbach, one of Hitler's personal physicians, as saying that Hitler was a "religious person, or at least one who was struggling with religious clarity." According to von Hasselbach, Hitler did not share Martin Bormann's conception that Nazi ceremonies could become a substitute for church ceremonies, and was aware of the religious needs of the masses. "He went on for hours discussing the possibility of bridging the confessional division of the German people and helping them find a religion appropriate to their character and modern man's understanding of the world."[14]

Hitler's personal conception of God was as "Providence" (divine providence). For instance, when he survived the assassination attempt of July 20, 1944, he ascribed it to Providence saving him to pursue his tasks. In fact, as time went on, Hitler's conception of Providence became more and more intertwined with his belief in his own inability to make an error of judgment. Alfred Jodl stated at Nuremberg that Hitler had "an almost mystical conviction of his infallibility as leader of the nation and of the war." Another of his physicians, Dr. Karl Brandt, said that Hitler saw himself as a "tool of Providence. He was ... consumed by the desire to give the German people everything and to help them out of their distress. He was possessed by the thought that this was his task and that only he could fulfill it."[14]

BBC historian Laurence Rees characterises Hitler's relationship to religion as one of opportunism and pragmatism: "his relationship in public to Christianityâ€"indeed his relationship to religion in generalâ€"was opportunistic. There is no evidence that Hitler himself, in his personal life, ever expressed any individual belief in the basic tenets of the Christian church".[37][38] Considering the religious allusions found in Mein Kampf, Rees writes that "the most coherent reading of Mein Kampf" is that Hitler was prepared to believe in an initial creator God, but did "not accept the conventional Christian vision of heaven and hell, nor the survival of an individual 'soul'."[39]

Max Domarus has written that Hitler replaced belief in the Judeo-Christian God with belief in a peculiarly German "god".[40] He promoted the idea of this god as the creator of Germany, but Hitler "was not a Christian in any accepted meaning of that word."[41] Domarus writes that Hitler neither believed in organized religion nor saw himself as a religious reformer.[41] Hitler had fully discarded belief in the Judeo-Christian conception of God by 1937, writes Domarus, but continued to use the word "God" in speeches â€" but it was not the God "who has been worshiped for millennia", but a new and peculiarly German "god" who "let iron grow". Thus Hitler told the British journalist Ward Price in 1937: "I believe in God, and I am convinced that He will not desert 67 million Germans who have worked so hard to regain their rightful position in the world."[40]

Although Hitler did not "abide by its commandments", Domarus believed that he retained elements of the Catholic thinking of his upbringing even into the initial years of his rule: "As late as 1933, he still described himself publicly as a Catholic. Only the spreading poison of his lust for power and self idolatry finally crowded out the memories of childhood beliefs and in 1937 he jettisoned the last of his personal religious convictions, declaring to comrades, 'Now I feel as fresh as a colt in the pasture'".[40] Author Konrad Heiden has quoted Hitler as stating, "We do not want any other god than Germany itself. It is essential to have fanatical faith and hope and love in and for Germany."[42] Derek Hastings considers it "eminently plausible" that Hitler was a believing Catholic as late as his trial in 1924, but writes that "there is little doubt that Hitler was a staunch opponent of Christianity throughout the duration of the Third Reich."[43]

The biographer John Toland, recounts that in the aftermath of an attempted assassination in 1939, Hitler told dinner guests that Pope Pius XII would rather have seen the "plot succeed" and "was no friend of mine", but also writes that in 1941 Hitler was still "a member in good standing of the Church of Rome despite his detestation of its hierarchy"[44] According to Guenter Lewy, Hitler was not excommunicated from the Catholic Church prior to his death.[45] Yet, these authors seem to have missed the fact that Hitler was in fact excommunicated, along with all other Nazi leaders, in 1931.[46] Although he had received the Catholic sacraments of Baptism, and Confirmation as an infant, there is little evidence he considered himself subject to the teaching of the Church from adolescence onward, whatever cultural affiliation he claimed, and the excommunication would have meant nothing to him.

Samuel Koehne of Deakin University wrote in 2012: "Was Hitler an atheist? Probably not. But it remains very difficult to ascertain his personal religious beliefs, and the debate rages on." While Hitler was emphatically not "Christian" by the traditional or orthodox notion of the term, he did speak of a deity whose work was nature and natural laws, "conflating God and nature to the extent that they became one and the same thing..." and that "For this reason, some recent works have argued Hitler was a Deist".[47] In his writings on Hitler's recurrent religious images and symbols, Kenneth Burke concluded that "Hitler's modes of thought are nothing more than perverted or caricatured forms of religious thought".[48]

Richard Steigmann-Gall represents a small minority view, that Hitler was indeed a Christian. He wrote in 2003 that even after Hitler's rupture with institutional Christianity (which he dated to around 1937), he sees evidence that he continued to hold Jesus in high esteem,[49] and never directed his attacks on Jesus himself.[50] Use of the term "positive Christianity" in the Nazi Party Program of the 1920s is commonly regarded as a tactical measure, but Steigmann-Gall believes it may have had an "inner logic" and been "more than a political ploy".[51] He considers that Hitler was religious at least in the 1920s and early 1930s, and that he saw Jesus as an Aryan opponent of the Jews.[52]
'Political correctness is fascism pretending to be manners' - George Carlin

Baruch

#10
Quote from: Unbeliever on July 27, 2018, 06:21:20 PM
I have no problem revealing my atheism whenever it comes up, but it seldom comes up. I don't exactly bandy it about, though.

If you have been drinking, do you brandy it about? ;-)

History is complicated indeed, that is why historians can't agree on it ;-)  Some people think that Churchill was responsible for WW II.

Actual Germans at the time, regarded Hitler as the second coming of Jesus (in wrath).  Stalin initially would have been more religious, being a failed seminary student ... but became embittered by the death of his first wife.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Mousetrap

Quote from: Unbeliever on July 27, 2018, 06:33:26 PM

VICTIMS OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH
I know that there was terrible persecution done by "Christians" in the past.
I also know that there are terrible things done by Muslims Today.
Just as you should admit that Atheism is the number one killer on this Earth when we consider the age of this religion, and in what a short time they managed to kill the amount of innocent people they did!

But, lets see if you can get past this one.
Those Christians you are referring to murdered on what grounds?
Only because of politics when the reformation occurred between Catholic and protestant.
Or, If we want to look at the Crusades, only because kings and popes wanted to regain the Holy land from the Muslims after continuous attacks against the pilgrims to Jerusalem.

Totally political!

The Atheists then again, killed due to politics, power and greed!

The Muslims?
also, to take over the world Pinkey!
To make it all a Muslim Caliphate!

Ok, so where does the Christian stand today?
They do not further violence.
The Atheist?
Dont dare to speak about their attitude against Christianity, they have the right to demand decimation of all religions in schools, universities, and the professional world.

And where is Islam?
Still trying to takeover the world, Brain!

Now, why?
The Atheist are still caught up in communism, socialism, and think like Marx.
They will still kill if they get the chance.
The Muslims, they are instructed by their holy book to kill until only Islam remains.
The Christians?
They are instructed NOT TO FURTHER WAR AND VIOLENCE, AND ANY ONE WHO DOES SO, ARE NOT DOING WHAT JESUS INSTRUCTED THEM AND IT IS RECORDED IN THE BIBLE.

Therefore, I will anytime live in a country where they call themself Christian.
Never in a socialist or Communist country, and definately never under shariah law.

Only a fool would think that an Atheist will have freedom in an atheist or Muslim country.
and the so called Christian countries of the world are the safehaven for Atheists, Jews, and Muslims

Get your priorities correct pal.

Evolution, the religion whereby one believes your children more human, and your parents more ape, than you!

The Human Mind, if it has nothing to do with Evolution...What an incredible entity...
If it does, what a waste!

Atheism, what a wonderful religion, where one believe to believe is erroneous.

ferdmonger

First, they didn't allow forced Christian prayer in the classroom, and I said nothing.

Then, they disallowed Christian public prayer on the public address system before the big football game and I said nothing.

Then they banned Christians from entering the United States and I said nothing.

Then, they closed all of the churches and made Christianity illegal and I said nothing.

I've frankly had enough of Christians proclaiming they are being picked on in this country

That's enough of this shit.

Baruch

Quote from: ferdmonger on July 30, 2018, 06:12:28 PM
First, they didn't allow forced Christian prayer in the classroom, and I said nothing.

Then, they disallowed Christian public prayer on the public address system before the big football game and I said nothing.

Then they banned Christians from entering the United States and I said nothing.

Then, they closed all of the churches and made Christianity illegal and I said nothing.

I've frankly had enough of Christians proclaiming they are being picked on in this country

That's enough of this shit.

It's OK here to be anti-Christian BTW.  Anti-Muslim etc as well.  So you are preaching to the choir ;-)

In small town America ... they aren't listening to the Californicators or the E Coast city slickers.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

ferdmonger

Get your priorities correct pal.

Indeed Mousetrap.  Indeed.