A Question to Atheistic People

1. Not sure by what you mean with "'proud' to be an atheist"

2. I talk about religion for several reasons. As you mentioned, it is being used as a tool against certain minorities. In some countries (the Mid East comes to mind) there's strict theocracies treating citizens horribly. These make it a social issue to talk about. There's also the culture behind it. I think of religions as a way to see what people and society were like back then. It's very deeply ingrained in society as a whole and that does interest me.

 

Um, I enjoy the art of debate. Mainly on the Internet, since I'm quite shy with people I don't know in person. Especially when it comes to topics like atheism, feminism and Islam, even if the views that I hold aren't very popular. But isn't that the fun part? How boring would this world be if everyone thought the same thing.

I can't speak for the USA, but being an atheist in Britain isn't that big of a deal. Most kids my age either are mildly religious, don't care, or are atheists. You get the odd very religious family though (I knew a Mormon one, they had so many kids!).

 

Well it's nice being right all the time! ;D
Just kidding, I'm not that narcissistic.

 

I'm an agnostic atheist, and I find religion to be an analogy in a lot of ways to a diet plan for me. What works for others may not work for me, but I am happy if others find plans that work for them that aren't also destructive to themselves and others. And while I am happy, denigrating me and pestering me about your diet will not make me want to go vegan.

I find talking about religion interesting in both a way of fables and in a philosophical sense that teach life lessons. I do not follow those religions but I can find their stories interesting and learn what I want from them. I have many Christian and Muslim friends in my social justice circles at University and it's very fulfilling hearing their interpretations of their holy books and how they command them to do good through their stories, as well as other friends I have from other religious minorities such as Hellenistic Pagans, Buddhists, Wiccans, and others. I also find it interesting to hear from nonbelievers talking about their cultural ties to their old religion. I know many ex Catholics who tell me about how they still want to see the church move forward and progress on social issues as well as do good around the world. My boyfriend is a Secular Humanist like myself, and hearing him talk about his ties to the United Methodist Church is interesting in the same way as well.

 

Well, I don't. I don't really talk about my atheism in public (since I don't talk much in public anyways). I like that I don't have to worry about a god watching over me or whether I'll go to heaven or hell (or whatever they're called in other religions).

By the way, I'm probably more agnostic in that I don't know there's no god but I'm very sure there isn't.

 

Well, I would say that I'm proud to be an atheist because t allows meto express my individualism. I have my own set of morals to follow, and I don't follow any others.

However, I want to touch onto the topic of religion in the U.S. Religion has taken on many forms throughout American history. There are debates over whether the U.S was built on secular or religious values. Our original colonists were devout Pilgrims or Puritans, escaping the Church of England for their perceived radical views. However, many thinkers began to express their religious beliefs in differing manners. Anne Hutchinson in the early 1600s began to express that you only need to believe in God to go to Heaven. Of course, that made a ton of people mad, so they exiled her and her adherents.

When the Enlightenment happened, a religious movement called Deism began to spread, and this was relatively popular among our Founding Fathers, men who have founded the U.S. This religious movement spread through all Protestant sects and in a way, encouraged some skepticism about Christianity. It was argued that human actions, not religion, determined one's beliefs. This drew from the free-thinking ideas of Isaac Newton and John Locke. Deists felt little to no need to get children baptized, go to Church, or participate in Communion.

Sadly, religion was used to condone one of our worst human rights abuses, slavery. This is because in numerous verses of the Bible, slavery was encouraged. However, a counterculture occurred where religion was also used to fuel the abolition movement, arguing that all men are equal in the eyes of God; man was created in the image of god. Fortunately, the abolition movement won.

In the end, I'm a proud atheist, but I'm fine with discussing religion.

 

How are you defining 'proud' in this context? I refuse to feel shame for being an atheist and being such to be a logical conclusion of being highly rational, which I suppose I'm proud of.

However, I'm not generally interested in discussing religion. In my experience, such discussions are usually a consequence of believers trying to convert me or impose their beliefs on me (this ends badly - for them - if they get too pushy about it). Outside of that, I have little or no interest in discussing religion, which is little more than empty white noise to me.

Todd

 

I also like that I don't have views based on the beliefs expressed in one book. There's things in the Bible (new testament) that I like but I believe them because I just believe them.

 

I'm usually pretty apathetic about religion in general. But I'm not going to lie. The fact that I live in a culture where Christianity is the default, where we've got God's name on our money, where a Boy Scout or Girl Scout has to declare that they'll "serve God" before every meeting- it pisses me off. And it's like if an atheist points out how weird it is that believing in a God is the assumed normality, we're now assholes.

Religion's just never given me any cause for benefit. Controlling how you feel, think, what you do with your life? All for the pretense of being moral or having a nice thing to look forward to when we're dead?

I'm not going to apologize for being atheist. I've been atheist since I was a kid and I'm not letting what frankly sounds like a cult tell me any different. So there.

 

I'm not particularly proud of being an atheist, nor do I enjoy discussing religion. I guess it's because when I was little people picked on me for being an atheist, which has lead me to feel uncomfortable talking about it. In my family we aren't religious and don't discuss religion with each other (except when my dad occasionally insults religion) so that's what I'm used to. I'm an atheist, which means that I don't believe in a religion, but for me, that's really all it means, and it's no more significant to me than having brown hair.

If I ever discuss religion, it's in a casual way and I don't like to make a big deal out of it. I dislike debate.

 

1) I currently self-identify as a Humanistic Pagan, who still abides by the philosophy of Satanism; so basically I see the deities as metaphors,symbols, and muses for their various meanings and not literal beings that I can carry out a conversation with.

So for me; back when I was a young teen, I took pride in being an atheist because I saw it as being liberated from the ties of the Christian/Catholic community I grew up in. We're one of those cities where for every bar there are at least two churches--and we're the drunkest city in America, so that should help to put things into perspective. It helped me form a community of like-minded individuals and I didn't feel this need to blindly conform to the status quo.

By the time I was 16, I took greater pride in being a Satanist (while having occasional glimmers of spirituality in the sense of naturalism and cosmology) after being ostracized and criticized by my religious peers after me and another friend got outed as being Satanists/Atheists one day. So I found escaping to secular spaces to be very comforting, especially after an incident that happened when I was about 14 when my Catholic grandmother snapped at me about being friends with agnostics and atheists. That was a lot to deal with.

But I will say that I'm not the same person I was when I was 13 when I took my anger out on others with the crap I put up with. That wasn't cool, and I've moved on from it--and I'm very critical of militant atheists who have a holier than thou mentality towards those of other paths. So for me at this point, I do take pride in where I am now, in that I feel more grounded and closer to the world around me--not so much that I think I'm better than someone who is say a Hindu or a Muslim by any means.

2) That's a question I remember getting a lot, especially when I was in the religious debate scene back on Stickam about eight years ago. For me, I find religion interesting from a historical standpoint, and it's something I've always been drawn to. Actually, ancient history in general has always fascinated me. I know for me, I can spend a good two hours just researching the pantheons of ancient Egypt and Greece and another on the history of the Abrahamic faiths.

I'm that person who feels like you can never learn or educate yourself enough on something; and philosophy, religion, and mythology are just some of those examples. Just because I don't believe the pantheons are tangible things you can have a one-on-one conversation with, doesn't mean I don't find them intriguing.

 

As an atheist I don't talk a lot about religion and religion to me is just a collection of some stories with specific characters and personalities. Like mythology of the ancient Greeks and Egyptians, some stories are better than others, I only talk about religion in terms if learning from history and how the Sunni and Shi'ite sects of Islam should have learned from the mistakes of Christianity especially in the medieval period. And that discussion is more related on the negative effects of religion on people.

 

No, no! I apologize if it sounded like that at all, I was just talking about religious people in general who talk down to me for being an atheist. The usage of "you" and "your" is probably what caused the misunderstanding. You and your in this sense is not referring to you, but the people who try to get me to convert to their religion whenever I say I'm an atheist.

 

Interesting topic!

I'm spiritual, but don't believe in any popular organized or biblical religion. I imagine because of that, I am pretty much an atheist. I wouldn't say I'm 'proud' to not believe in religion or a particular God or deity, it's just a conclusion that I came to and believe in from my understanding of how religion works, and how life works. Believing that way doesn't make me uncurious of the world and people and nature and how things work so perfectly or imperfectly sometimes. Life is certainly amazing and pretty impenetrable in terms of complete understanding, but can I thank one person for that? Or be mad at one person for causing all of the destruction and chaos there is? It doesn't seem logical, and I imagine that's how a lot of atheists look at life, through a purely scientific and logical lens, not that life is always logical.

I think if anyone claims to be harshly anything, it's a little odd and they can be seen as a bit looney. Religion is interesting to talk about, though - especially when looked at as literature that dates thousands of years ago, or laws to keep society stable and functional at that time. That's how I look at and understand religion as a whole.

It is frustrating when you come from a place, the US for example, that is ran off of Christian ideals. I'm not Christian, even before not believing in organized religion (not sure I ever did anyway), and I don't practice or believe what people who follow that religion do. So when political issues come up because someone in office is pro-life, anti-abortion, anti-women's health care rights, anti-LGBTQ+ rights because of their religion, it's really frustrating. I can't even stand to hear it because that's not the world we live in, and when someone has a power of creating laws, it's absurd not to take these issues into account because of something they don't believe in, and then hide behind religion because of it. Not everyone in this country is Christian, and I strongly advocate that there's no place for it in government. So you being from a country that honors diversity, and doesn't look at religion as a factual, end all be all way to live for an entire group of people, you are a little sheltered from that so curiosity about why it's so "bad" is usual and normal.

I don't know if you're looking to hear it's okay to be religious, but if that's something you want to participate in, then you should. There's nothing wrong with it. It's only a problem when people begin to push their beliefs on those who don't believe that way or want to participate. Religion can be a lovely thing, if it's understood correctly, and is used to keep a peaceful mind or get someone through things/have something to believe in. I don't push my thoughts about not believing in religion on others. If any atheists do that, they're just as bad as any religious person trying to push their views.

It's only wrong if it's being used to hurt others, especially when it's an invisible, theoretical practice. Like, I would never want to be told I can't marry another woman or get an abortion because a God of some sort views that as sinful, and I will go to hell for eternity as punishment because some passage somewhere indicates that in a metaphor that can be taken in a few different ways. That's not okay. At that point, I would probably become defensive, think someone's a quack, and ask them not to recite centuries old fictional stories as fact to me.

 

Yeah, this sums up my feelings and experience on this matter pretty well. :eusa_clap

 

*shrugs* I fall into the apathetic crowd despite living in the US.


I guess I can get pretty feisty with people using religion as a justification for bullshit though.

 

Invidia, it's why history is important, so we know what not to repeat. no one wants a world war again because of World War 2 and the death toll. The same applies to everything. The separation of two religions that hated each other led to a lot of dead and so learning from this, you can not have as much death because someone doesn't believe in what you believe