Comments on: Young Atheist's Survival Guide

By: Historybuff

Historybuff — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 06:02:00 +0000

Since you’re nitpicking about word definitions, then no “A Secular Survival Guide” won’t work either.

I am a secularist. I am also a theist. I don’t want other people’s religions involved in my government just as much as I’m sure they wouldn’t want me imposing my beliefs on them.

I have a religious affiliation but I’m still a secularist.

By: garretn

garretn — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 17:47:00 +0000

I grew up atheist in a community that frowned on those with that “label.” Although I personally always understood it, due to being brought up with it being explained this way, that being atheist simply meant I didn’t believe in god, nothing more, nothing less. People attaching the anti-religion thing I always saw as people being ignorant, and otherwise having nothing to do with me. It didn’t occur to me until my teen years that people identified atheism as anti-theism instead of the correct a-theism. I personally identify atheism as a-theism, and anyone thinking otherwise as ignorant of what it really means or that they’re simply looking to insult/start a fight/whatever, in which case its a matter of bullying more then anything else.

Ignorant people are always going to use labels, intelligent people often do it too. Just follow what many parents tell their kids, “Never discuss religion or politics.”

By: Shinkuhadoken

Shinkuhadoken — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 08:34:00 +0000

The theory that States don’t have to honor the first amendment is laughable at best. The separation of “church and state” were Thomas Jefferson’s own words about what the first amendment meant. You might say he was a founder.

By: Cowicide

Cowicide — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 05:57:00 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWdd6_ZxX8c

By: Cowicide

Cowicide — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 05:55:00 +0000

I’m not an atheist. And, I enjoy using the phrase because I think it’s funny. I gave up a long time ago trying to appease conservatives, religious people, corporate types, party poopers, etc.

And, I’m happier for it. So there’s my CowTip for you.

By: class_enemy

class_enemy — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 05:01:00 +0000

” The people who actually founded the country were explicit in their desire to keep church and state federal government separate.”

Fixed it for ya. For many years after the federal Constitution was ratified, there were explicitly religious tests in place within the state constitutions, none of which apparently caused the founders to break a sweat.

By: class_enemy

class_enemy — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 03:09:00 +0000

One of my tips for getting along as an atheist in a non-atheist society: Using phrases like “invisible sky wizard” may give one a temporary frisson of “daring iconoclasm”, but in the long run really aren’t worth the trouble.

By: Marco Antonio Morales

Marco Antonio Morales — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 01:12:00 +0000

I’m talking politics, power and influence at institutional levels – not at personal levels. In Spain, the Roman Catholic Church is indeed monolithic when it comes to politics. Money from your taxes gets assigned to the Church by default unless you specifically opt-out. And so your name goes on a black list and you start realizing how much power the Church has. Opus Dei, the far right, the old money and power hierarchies have far reaching influence into education, health, finance…

There might be many ways of being a Christian, but the link Church-State still exists, no matter how many variations of christianity are contained within.

Therefore I stand by my initial comment: everybody is free to believe as they please – but some institutions have too much power and influence that goes unchecked unless an equal, opposing power rises. So for all the different flavours of god-loving people out there, there is an equal variety of non-god believers. But there is one Church that has power and influence, and no-one specifically to play the role of Opposition… and atheists are as close as it gets, for now.

By: J. Brad Hicks

J. Brad Hicks — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 00:48:00 +0000

I’m having trouble finding the case law citations (I don’t have access to a case law database), but when I was studying the subject, two court cases were given as examples. In the first, a college student, kidnapped by deprogrammers on behalf of her parents after joining a cult, tried to sue the deprogrammer and the kidnappers and the case was thrown out, citing the parents’ constitutional right to practice their religion. The more recent case involved a Baptist vacation bible school that recruited kids from the neighborhood without parental consent, and baptized them; the Jewish parents of one of the kids sued the church for interfering in their parental rights and won. I know of no US court case in which the religious belief or practice “rights” of the child were upheld over the competing religious belief or practice rights of the parent(s).

By: Girard

Girard — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 23:41:00 +0000

Well, to be honest, that’s a pretty boring metaphor.

By: Girard

Girard — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 23:39:00 +0000

Your false perception of Christianity as a uniform, monolithic cultural force seems to be leading you to knowingly lump yourself into a false uniform, monolithic category of Atheist. I suppose calcifying your worldview into a stark black/white one makes things easier, but it’s also symptomatic of exactly the type of thinking you probably find objectionable in religious types.

By: Girard

Girard — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 23:37:00 +0000

You’ll have to cite sources for the existence of a law that is so insane, impossible to enforce, and unconstitutional.

By: Jeremiah Cornelius

Jeremiah Cornelius — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 22:26:00 +0000

Theism is fluid. Most people are at different points of the spectrum, over the course of their lives. Otherwise completely rational and intelligent people are contemptuous and dismissive of a position about god, for which great thinkers like Godel and Wittgenstein were advocates. But “atheism” is often a psychologically motivated position, relating an individual’s relationship with perceived authority – and has little to do with real theology – or the vacation thereof…

It’s easy to be an atheist, when reducing all conceptions of the divine to an equivalent of Jupiter. It is also false argumentation – equivalent to a straw-man fallacy.

The funniest part of this book is its TITLE! “Young Atheist’s Survival Guide”.

No one here gets out of life, alive.

By: Donald Petersen

Donald Petersen — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 22:22:00 +0000

Yeah, but like most forms of intolerance, it varies wildly depending on who you are, where you live, and what kind of people surround you. I was brought up mildly Methodist (in the snoozing, Reverend Lovejoy ice-cream-social sense), and lost that faith in high school in the mid-80s. But I was in Southern California, and though nearly all of my friends and neighbors were Reagan Republicans, none of them ever seemed to feel that my faith (or lack thereof, which I didn’t exactly hide) was any of their concern. I was lucky. And back then I thought that large communities of extra-conservative Evangelical people, like the small town in Footloose, were kinda rare and getting rarer.

Hell, what did I know?

By: Donald Petersen

Donald Petersen — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 22:09:00 +0000

Could be Mr. Hicks is speaking to us via transdimensional teletypography from his Philadelphia basement in 1788. James Madison is e’en now peeping through his dusty window, goggle-eyed with horror.

By: ohbejoyful

ohbejoyful — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 21:30:00 +0000

>>In most countries, including the United States, it’s accepted common law that minor dependents don’t get to pick their own religion (or lack thereof)

I don’t think this is accurate. The 1st amendment specifically speaks to the *non* state-establishment of any religion. You also used the misleading phrase “common law”; there’s really no such thing.

By: Navin_Johnson

Navin_Johnson — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 19:18:00 +0000

*amen* (cough) to that, but I would say that admitting you don’t believe in God to somebody can still harm you in relationships, family, employment etc. etc. It is still unacceptable to a lot of people.

By: Navin_Johnson

Navin_Johnson — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 19:13:00 +0000

The current religious zealots: Evangelicals, would have been hung out to dry by a state religion at the time. It’s funny that they don’t get that. The separation allowed them the freedom to thrive and increase in number. We could have possibly been a lot less religious of a country now had there been an enforced state religion.

By: wysinwyg

wysinwyg — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 18:39:00 +0000

Maybe you should read the book before you jump to such conclusions.

By: dolo54

dolo54 — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 18:08:00 +0000

Harshest (or funniest in hindsight) experience as a young agnostic in middle school Latin class. Can’t remember the context, but our teacher asked if anyone in the class doubted the existence of God. I was the only student to raise my hand. His immediate response was of outright rage asking me what kind of sick person I was. He then tells me I should come to his farm and watch animals get born and then tell him I don’t believe in God. (Okaaaay???) Pretty sure my grade got lowered a point because of it. Back then (the 80s) you never felt comfortable admitting you were a non-believer to anyone except your closest friends. Glad that atheism is not some secret shame one must keep to themselves anymore.

By: Dave Lloyd

Dave Lloyd — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 17:43:00 +0000

Oops. So it did!

By: Sperel The Goose

Sperel The Goose — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 16:43:00 +0000

I’ve been an atheist since I was 11 or so (early 90s). I’ve also attended a Catholic school (as an atheist) and a school that was primarily evangelical. You know how much grief I got for it? None. The key to surviving as a minority opinion is to be respectful, articulate and overwhelming avoid being a dick. There’s sticking up for your beliefs and then there is calling people who believe in God dumb, uneducated, misled, etc. Granted telling most teens to avoid being dicks is next to impossible.

By: David

David — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 15:54:00 +0000

Satire seems to escape you.

By: David

David — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 15:52:00 +0000

True. Numerous people who made up the first colonies were escaping their own countries where the church & state were intertwined. Yea, there were some crazy zealots in the lot. But on the whole all of the different factions knew the dangers that occur when your king is also your church leader, etc. It’s sad that the history is trying to be rewritten by the current breed of religious zealot, focusing on the times god is mentioned in the founding documents vs. the founders hard effort to prevent ANY church from being part of the government.

By: wysinwyg

wysinwyg — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 15:52:00 +0000

? As far as I know, there are no laws requiring children to believe what their parents tell them.

By: wysinwyg

wysinwyg — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 15:51:00 +0000

You should probably let atheists decide what atheism means. To me it’s a straight-forward conclusion from everything else I know about the universe. It’s certainly not a crutch — since it’s a conclusion for me and not a premise it doesn’t actually do any work to support any other part of my worldview.

But yeah, casting aspersions on the beliefs of people you don’t know is more fun (something you have in common with a lot of atheists in fact). So go you.

By: wysinwyg

wysinwyg — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 15:46:00 +0000

Believe me when I say that Hemant Mehta is well aware of the statistics on religious identification among “nones” and it was not his intent to do this lumping.

By: Dave Lloyd

Dave Lloyd — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 15:07:00 +0000

I do know there is no evidence for the existence of any god. Particularly any of the gods as described in our species’ various mythical texts. Indeed many of those gods are most definitely do not exist given what we now know about physics and the cosmos. And that includes the Abrahamic god as desribed in the Bible. So, while you are strictly correct, you are also deeply wrong.

By: EeyoreX

EeyoreX — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 14:07:00 +0000

“You’d think opting out of religion wouldnt mean going straight into another one… Actually that’s exactly how it works. You often find that the most militant self-defined atheists are the ones who used to be religious zealots until they had to part with their previous cult for whatever reason. Opinions change, behavior stays the same. And then sometimes it’s really just about personal vengeance.

Meanwhile, us folks who have been raised with an agnostic worldview are just as dissassociated when an “atheist” claims to speak on our behalf as we were when the pope or an imam did.

By: class_enemy

class_enemy — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 13:13:00 +0000

I’m an atheist because I can no more accept the concept of a universe ruled by unseen supernatural powers than I can a universe where addition is not commutative.

That does not mean that I disparage the beliefs of those who do, unless they try to enact those beliefs into legislation which affects my life.

For example, the fact that my city’s official seal has had (since the early 1900′s) a cross as one of its elements bothers me not one iota. The sort of atheist who gets his panties in a wad over such things is the sort of atheist with which I don’t choose to associate.