Becoming an angry atheist

[KevinM1]

So as time passes I find myself becoming less tolerant of religious BS and of religion in general. When I first came out I was around religious moderates and reasonable people. I told them I disagreed with them, but if they got something out of it whatever. It just wasn't for me. And they were all very understanding. And in my university, well it's a university. Such things are widely accepted there (even in oklahoma).

However recently some folks have been blathering on Facebook about the damn "war on Xmas" and how this should be a godly nation. And I try not to comment. Whatever. It's their page, they can believe what they want. But the oh-so-subtle attacks are starting to get to me.

I'm getting sick of hearing subtle jibes against me. I'm getting sick of people I care about thoughtlessly reposting and sharing such sentiments. And I'm nearly at the point of calling out some people publicly on it.

And I'm generally not an angry atheist. I love christmas. I like Easter. If you privately want a religious celebration on your personal property, or on church property, great! Go for it! I'm just sick of public officials subtly implying that to be a proper american I have to follow their beliefs.

Well, the good news is that you can block a lot of that crap on Facebook. I have a friend who posts hardly anything but religious nonsense, but since the vast majority of those posts are things she shared from another source, blocking that source eliminates it from my timeline. Doing that with most of her religious crap has really improved the signal-to-noise ratio. Now I mostly just see stuff from her that's about her and her family, which is the entire point.

Regarding the political nature of it, it's pandering pure and simple. The majority of America is one of the 31 Baskin-Robbins flavors of Christianity, with many (especially on the right) who feel that we're a Christian nation. There's a very vocal, very motivated group of people that get frothingly angry at politicians not wearing pins, or wearing them correctly, or saluting/not saluting/saluting wrong, etc. A lot of the overt and implicit religious stuff is, IMO, a defense mechanism against them. Voting for/against someone based on their policy decisions tends to be forgotten if a politician makes a perceived slight against patriotism or Jesus.

I'm not saying these politicians don't believe in the Christian god, just that a lot of the American exceptionalism bullshit they spew is purely to assuage those that need constant reminders of America (and Jesus), Fuck Yeah!

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And I'm generally not an angry atheist. I love christmas. I like Easter. If you privately want a religious celebration on your personal property, or on church property, great! Go for it! I'm just sick of public officials subtly implying that to be a proper american I have to follow their beliefs.

To be a proper american do you have to celebrate MLK day? I'm sure the KKK types are sick of public official implying that you do.

Did... did you just conflate atheists with a hate group?

To be a proper american do you have to celebrate Columbus Day? I'm sure some Native Americans types are sick of public officials implying that you do.

Funny you should mention that. Columbus Day is slowly changing: https://www.bing.com/search?setmkt=en-US...ay+changed

To be a proper American do you have to eat turkey on Thanksgiving? I'm sure the vegan types are sick of public officials implying that you do.

The vegans have a legit point, at least insofar as how industrialized farming treats its animals before they're slaughtered. Plus, a lot of the things done to the meat afterward (like turkeys being injected with saline to appear more plump than they actually are).

If American society should be sterilized of its religious/cultural heritage for the benefit of a fringe group like atheists....why shouldn't it be sterilized of other cultural beliefs for the sake of the other fringe groups?

Like everything else - it comes down to the merit of the ideas in play. Columbus Day is a farce. Thanksgiving doesn't need turkey, or any other meat (and, if you really want to talk cultural history, the first Thanksgiving was based more on venison and seafood; also: no potatoes), and, as a society, we should be more cognizant of where our food comes from and what it consists of. The KKK is a bigoted hate group, full stop. Their ideas hold no merit in modern society.

Large parts of the gay community exclude people who support the notion that marriage is between a man and woman or people who support the notion that homosexuality is a sin.

Did you ever stop to wonder why?