Religious prejudices

[DIRTY_DEEDS_93]

I'm sure as an Atheist you've had something like this happen.

You are talking to someone. Having a very good open conversation about nothing in particular. All of the sudden religion comes up. You state you are an Atheist. The person no longer wishes to talk/associate with you based on the fact that you're an Atheist.

or

You have a very good friend (we'll call him Mike). You and Mike have known each other for a couple years. You see each other weekly and watch your favorite sport together. Mike knows you're an Atheist and is perfectly fine with it. One day, Mike's girlfriend asks Mike to tell her about you. She hears you're an Atheist an immediately forbids Mike from being friends with you. You never talk to Mike again.


The reason I give these two examples is because I'm starting to notice a lot of people are prejudice assholes to Atheists. The same way some people do the same with gays or certain minorities (I'm not gay or a minority, but it pisses me off when people treat gays and minorities like they aren't humans). Maybe this is just because I'm starting to be more comfortable telling people I'm an Atheist and people are doing it to me. Maybe it's just because I'm older and have a better understanding of whats going on. But, it's starting to bother me a little bit.

Now I'm not saying everybody does it and I'm not asking why people do it. I'm asking of your thought on the subject?

[Chad32]

I have been fortunate enough that whenever I tell someone I'm an atheist, they don't bug out on me about it. I have heard some bad stories, and this is part of the reason the excuse that "religion doesn't hurt anyone" is a bad one. It tears families apart. Jesus even knew it would, and was fine with it. Preferred it, possibly. I'm not sure how a group can claim to have the moral high ground, while being willing to completely shut someone out because they're different. "Loving the sinner and hating the sin" doesn't really work out, because that would require a bit of tolerance that the bible speaks against in some places.

[abaris]

Believe it or not, I didn't experience one of these.

As I often said, religion isn't on the agenda where I live. In my whole life I had maybe two or three conversations about religion. Otherwise noone gives a shit. I'm sure, you can actively seek out people like these in my corner of the world too, but you don't just randomly run into them.

I don't even know if my brother and his family are religious. They certainly aren't in the sense of going to church on sunday, but that's all I know and that's all I need to know to tell the truth.

We even have an openly atheist president. Elected twice in a row. One of the very few politicians I voted for and not against the other guy.

[Aroura]

I don't tell people I'm an atheist for just this reason. People I'm close to or feel I can handle it I tell, but not new friends or aquaintences. I generally say "I'm not Christian" if it comes up, and many will assume I'm jewish. If they press and ask what I am, I'll say Taoist, which isn't a TOTAL lie. I don't practice any superstitious crap or even belong to any groups, but I do like to read the Tao....lol. This usually confuses them, but the think, well, she's still religious so I get a lot less backlash than if I use that hated word "atheist".

People can be jerks, it's a monkey sphere thing

[Angrboda]

I don't have a lot of people in my life, so this doesn't happen to me. What does happen is strangers come up to me in public and ask if they can pray for me and shit because I'm handicapped. That bugs the shit out of me.

[Salacious B. Crumb]

I usually keep my atheism to myself around my family for the reasons you have mentioned. If I’m around any one else, I’m happy to be open about it. I feel there would be some repercussions if I just told everyone in my family that I was an atheist, which, most likely, would include strained/awkward relationships. I know for sure that many religious folks, would happily cut ties for good with the atheist in there family (possibly thinking they were possessed by the devil), and in some cultures, put them to death.

[zebo-the-fat]

Never been a problem, but religion is not an important topic here in the UK.,

[cocunningham]

Living in the bible belt I experience this regularly. I don't wear a sign that says atheist but if someone brings up the topic I'll openly share my theories. I agree I hate it when someone uses their faith as a weapon either physically or verbally, but I have found those are the minority of theists. They are just the most vocal and most likely to bring up the subject. I have found it is getting better though. 10 years ago I had property vandalized multiple times and one instance had a disagreement become physical. Now the worst I get is "It breaks my heart to think you'll burn in hell for that" and excessive visitors from the local Baptist church trying to"save" me.

[Saxmoof]

Never been a problem, but religion is not an important topic here in the UK.,

This.

I'm very happy to live somewhere this doesn't happen, if anything it's more acceptable than being religious

[TheRealJoeFish]

I'll first say, generally, "I'm not religious." If pressed, I'll say "I'm an atheist." It really hasn't come up often. In my close group of friends, I think 2 (in addition to myself) are atheists, 3 describe themselves as agnostic, and two don't go to church and don't even care enough to discuss it (I think they're roughly deists of the "I think there's something but I don't know what" variety).

Otherwise, the only people it's really come up with are my family (who are not atheists but don't have a big problem that I am) and a few coworkers who are christians but seem to be so more for the community rather than the faith. In fact, that's another thing I see a lot - parents who don't really believe themselves but think they'd be bad parents (or that others will call them bad parents) if they don't indoctrinate their children into something they themselves would have otherwise moved away from.