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Have you publicly declared your atheism or agnosticism?
When the context arises, I will openly proclaim I'm an atheist. If
anybody asks, or if anybody starts doing something preachy, I tell them. (BTW, does anybody else have a problem with people just talking to you about god because they naturally assume that everybody else is xtian? I find it a bit annoying.) Usually, not much comes of it. I have been, though, to get into some pretty deep conversations with people, and even, on occasion, throw out some nasty flames. (I usually try to keep it
pretty respectful, in the hopes of destroying that evil atheist stereotype.)
So I guess my answer to your question is, "Yes." Hmm...that was much simpler. Oh well. :-) (Zarkov #951)
... There is a guy where I work who has a night job as a DJ at a Christian Rock station. He plays tapes of his show at his workbench. I did mention
to him that I found his persistant God-bothering at work offensive. That led to a pretty good God-debate. He did finally turn the tape player down, but I think he's still pissed at me. Oh well, I think you can imagine how little I care. (Derek Tattersall)
Even with my dad-in-law's funeral a month ago... He was an otherwise intelligent person who was sadly a Baptist minister, retired. There was never any question that there would be a religious funeral, and the family asked a cousin to do the eulogy while a local minister did the rest of the service. It was a disaster - the cousin seemed to have enough of a clue
to know we were all there to say goodbye, while the local yokel used his bully pulpit to bash atheists, and even tried to trot the argument by design crap and pretended it was a first person encounter between him and
a "zoology student" back in the dark ages when he went to school. I was all set to swallow my upset, but both the children and several of the grandchildren repeatedly expressed their anger and outrage as well. I ended up sending a pretty nasty letter to the yokel's boss minister, and pointed out that not only had the idiot lost track of what he was there for, but another minister _had_ been able to focus correctly.
Interestingly enough, without our prompting the widow decided that the funeral sermon was really bad and is looking for another church to attend. The only problem is that she keeps thinking I should be able to help her
to choose .. (Dewey Henize #119)
Just last week, I was having a business lunch with my boss (who is well aware of my non-belief) and three other people who are fairly recent associates. I am not sure how the conversation progressed to that point, but I was suddenly asked by one young man "How many souls will fit in
that coffee cup?"
I replied, "We'll never know," which I thought was extraordinarily diplomatic. (for me)
The young man persisted, "Wouldn't that be one of the first questions
that you would ask God when your dead?"
"I don't think that I will be in a position to ask anyone anything at
that point," I said. "I'll be dead."
At this point, a very surprised look appears on the young man's face. I
see my boss, who is sitting next to me, looking straight down at his
plate and trying to stifle his giggling. He has recognized the signs of incipient argument and harbors no doubt that of the two of us, I am the odds-on favorite.
I take a deep breathe, and suggest that possibly the young man and I
could discuss philosophy over a beer at some future time. Situation diffused. The young man stoically abstains from any further religion
based topics during his stay at our office. At least, he was a quick study.
(Liz Huth #658)
...the whole reason I started searching out atheist ngs and websites was due to unpleasant experiences (especially one thoroughly unexpected one ) that I'd had with believers in places online that had nothing to do with religion or philosophy. I've come to expect all the worst theistic head-cases to come crawling out from under their rocks to post here. We seem
to be magnetized for the ravings of the sickest and the saddest, who apparently believe we exist solely for their proselytizing pleasure.
What has struck me is the number of offensive and intolerant theists I've found all around the net. It surprised me until I thought about the amazingly high numbers of generally offensive and intolerant people I've run across. I think it's all related. The Internet is a medium that allows people to vent whatever they want to a faceless audience in complete annonymity. To certain types of people, those who are low in social skills and/or emotional/mental stability, this just encourages them to indulge their nastiest compulsions. No real life repercussions, after all. No
doors slammed in their faces, pamphlets dumped in trash cans, repremands from bosses (or police) for charges of harrassment or fear of getting a well-deserved kick in the ass. The worst they can get is flamed or killfiled. So, they fearlessly babble on, spewing insanity and invective wherever they go. I wish it was a phenomenon peculiar to the theists on this ng. Sadly, it's not.
second message
I find myself frequently having to put up with people who cheerfully
throw their religion around as if everybody in the Universe must share
in it, and those who don't are clearly less human than themselves. As for the unexpected experience, that came courtesy of a woman who I'd thought
of as a friend. She'd written a story which she was posting in segments
on the web and I'd e-mailed her to compliment her on her writing, which *was* excellent. We got to be friends over several months. Somewhere
along the line I learned she was Catholic, she learned I was atheist, it didn't seem like an issue either way. Until she pointedly asked me to preview a chapter before she posted it on her page. A chapter which revealed that a clerical character who was previously written as one of
the good guys, was actually AN EVIL ATHEIST IN DISGUISE!
This took me aback, to say the least. To make a long and increasingly
messy story short, I posted back to her asking what she meant by this,
and she posted back to me, alternately apologizing and driving the knife ever deeper. This culminated in a post wherein she declared that *of course* she didn't believe I was going to hell...no, I'd be going to *pergatory*! Cute, huh? She never could figure out why I was upset by
this "Simple Truth" and decided it must be because I failed to understand the finer nuances of what pergatory is. Anyway, I didn't tell her what I
really thought of her because she's friends with other friends of mine
and frequents the same 'net venues. But I *did* start actively looking
for other atheists on-line. Funny, I'm sure she was testing the waters
to see if I could be bullied into conversion, and instead she's turned
me from a very casual, passive atheist into a very vocal, not *quite* militant one. (Alikhat #757)
I declare my atheism all the time by the tshirts I wear in public. I have tshirts with the "DARWIN" fish emblem. I have tshirsts that I make myself with my computer saying things like the "Magellan quote", "Athist and Proud", etc.
Are there others like me who go out of there way to proclaim their atheism to the world are am I just a rare one? I just can't see how so many people can be so gullible as to believe in such nonsense as a deity. (James Hillburn)
When people assume that I am Jewish, I tell them that I am only ethnically Jewish. I don't
follow the religion and am an atheist and secular humanist. If they can't accept that, it's
their problem, not mine. (Michelle Malkin #1)
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