Militant atheism: Why it exists, and why we need it.

[kılıç_mehmet]

well i def. would not say athiesm is a religion, first of all

Well, it lacks the general characteristics of a religion.

and salvation is an interesting word choice not one i would use to describe what i am refering to. and to be clear i said "a more athiest america" not a totally athiest communist america.

Salvation is the only word that came to my mind, but obviously, it sounded rather ironic.
Besides, I'm already aware that a more atheistic America cannot ever equal a totally Atheist, communist America. But I'm not sure what a "more atheistic America" is supposed to be like...

are you american btw? not meant as an insult or anything, just wondering b/c you immedately went that route as if youve experienced communism first hand or something.( ledit-looking at your sig and name and whatnot i guess its pretty obvious you arent)

No, I am a Turk, from Turkey.
And yes, my family did experience communism first hand when they were robbed of their belongings after the Bolsheviks took power. My grandfather's grandfather emigrated to Turkey shortly after that.

a more athiest america would most definitely make america better.

Okay, but I'm not sure that you are really using the right words to describe what your "perfect" America is like.

our foriegn policy would make sense

Well, it makes complete sense to me, even though I'm not American.
Besides, I'm unsure how religious dogma is dictating your foreign policy.

our education system would shift gears to help make americans competetive instead of impeading science.

How? Describe me how you can make your already secular school system *more atheistic*. And of course, how it will contribute to the advance of science and the raising of future scientists.

shit just the advancement and empowerment of women in its self

So you think that women are not empowered enough in the US? What exactly is the reason you think it is so? I'm asking this due to my ignorance, I am not well aware of the literacy rates and the number of educated male/female ratios.

i am more concerned with the advancement of the human race.

Alright. But how is a more atheistic America going to aid this goal?

that includes tolerance, morality for the right reasons( i.e. not out of fear), scientific advancements, the list is long and religion gets in the way of pretty much all of them.

Well, I don't think that religion is in any position to get into the way of anything, as there are now secular nation states, where states are neutral towards schools of spiritual thought, may they be atheistic, or theistic.


Now to you, Creed of Heresy.

My house is sandwiched in between three churches that are all within a single block from me and they're all attended by all my neighbors who surround me with religious iconography over their houses, yards, and cars. I cannot leave my house without having to see no less than a half dozen crosses, and the city tells me they are all perfectly legal and allowed.

Well, you can always change the place you live in, yes? You obviously can't tell the three churches, which are attented by all your neighbors to move. And well, talking of crosses, I can't really go through the city I live in without seeing a handful of minarets each time I look into a direction, but why should I be bothered by them?
What really should drive me to be bothered by them? Maybe you aren't, but since you asked around whether these are legal or not, you must have been.

I live my daily life in a country whose entire political process kowtows to christian ideologies first over all others.

Well, I don't know how political representations are taken into consideration in the state you live in, but hey, it's democracy, yes?

I was subjected to a two-year barrage of creationist bullshit that saw me fail science class two years in a row because I refused to acknowledge it as a valid school of thought on the grounds that there is NOTHING scientific about it.

So much for militancy, I guess.

So in short: My reason for being loud? Because the cacophony of religion has been deafening me my entire life.

Really a poetic choice of words, I'll examine the rest of your post to see for myself.

what right do the religious have to whine about me flatly saying their baseless, unreasonable, unscientific, irrational beliefs are just that [despite my 'volume' on the forums, I am not so loudly spoken in person, in truth] when they not only wield far more political power than my far more rational ideologies and therefore technically have far more power over me than I have over them, but also that their ancestors in belief and the loudest of their own numbers commit murders, rape, and torture in the name of their beliefs??

You have ranted for an entire paragraph full of words. Now, I think that their baseless, unreasonable, unscientific, and irrational beliefs are theirs, and theirs alone. So they are accountable for themselves in that regard. Besides, the fact that they wield more political power in where you live, does not change the fact that people of your way of thinking may hold more power in some other place(state). Like for example, states in which gay-marriage is legal. They probably would go about ranting in the same way. This does not lead back to the christians, but to your stupid political system, actually. Not only that, it also expresses the general need for a more centralized government, probably, which could actually try to find a middle way that could work for everyone.

If I am example of the loudest among atheists and the most violent thing I do is yell at the evangelists to get the hell off of my doorstep and to stop coming around and waking me up in the morning, then what ground do they have to stand on to complain when their loudest bomb abortion clinics, kill doctors, blow themselves up in marketplaces and kill hundreds, torture women for the crime of being raped and so on and so forth?

Maybe you should go and be loud towards those whom you receive as lou d on the opposite side of your way of thinking. If you are loud towards a person who is not as loud as you, it will probably be considered little more than rude.
I personally think that you don't make much sense. You look at this from a very black&white point of view.

You respect peoples' choices? So if I chose to gut someone like a fish and danced around and chose to tell everyone how much I enjoyed it, would you respect that choice? It's an extreme analogy, mind you, but do you mean you respect peoples' right to decide for themselves? That makes far more sense, if that's the case.

Well, that is what it means, actually. They decide for themselves. I am a strong supporter of secularism. It personalizes the collective aspect of faith, to the point where it's collectiveness is within the walls of churches, mosques, synagogues and temples.

Somewhere along the way, I stopped caring about the differentiation between the quietly devout and the loudly devout. I started grouping them all together.

As what? As what, a single entity? Religious consciousness has never been so strong as to group a entire blocks of people for simply believing in the same faith. By your accord, devotees of a sect should not be hostile towards the devotees of another sect.

Looking back on my OP...I can see I was certainly speaking with a lot of rage. When I wrote it I'd just dealt with knowledge that because of the state governor pushing through a bill that was largely sponsored by conservative "family value"-centric christian organizations my room-mates and I are being kicked out of a home we've all become very comfortable in. It was sort of the final straw.

Final straw? I still think that you lack a true purpose in life.
How many final straws have I picked in my short life to tell about it?
Many, probably.

Still...clearly these are feelings that have been gnawing at me gradually over the years, and being quiet and civil and polite has only let them fester. I still maintain, however, that when someone starts screaming at you, you can be quiet for a while but eventually you're probably going to have to scream back, and louder.

If someone starts screaming at you, you scream back. But I think that this time it is you who wants to scream towards someone with hopes they will keep quiet. A very reasonable request indeed.