People assuming you believe in a God

[Jesster]

Most people assume I believe in their god because most people I run into are Christians. It's just treated as the default here. I only correct them if they want to get into a conversation about religion with me or if they want me to participate in something.

[vorlon13]

If the price I pay for occasionally being mistaken for a theist is getting a church lady apple pie, I'll wait to start wringing my hands until after I have gorged myself upon the delectable appley cinnamony flaky goodness.

Now if the church ladies were smart, they'd check my file with God Inc, LLC and then lacing my next pie with strychnine.

If they were smart they wouldn't be church ladies.

as long as I get a pie once in awhile . . .


Lard crust please . . .

[Brian37]

Most people assume I believe in their god because most people I run into are Christians. It's just treated as the default here. I only correct them if they want to get into a conversation about religion with me or if they want me to participate in something.

I correct them quickly. To me this is no less rude than when a migrant comes here and we are assholes and get them to use a western nickname instead of their real name because we are too lazy to learn how to pronounce their name. 

Now again, I DO give them the benefit of the doubt the first time, but after you tell them you don't believe, and they keep doing it, they are doing it out of spite, not out of concern.

And I should not have to keep repeating, I DON'T stop them from saying it to others in front of me, I just don't want them saying it to me. If you have Jewish friends and invite them over for dinner do you offer them pork? There is no reason for them to continue saying that to you once they know. 

Yes they are going to assume, but so what. Letting it go long term sets up a false sense that they are entitled to a social pecking order. 

It seems small on an individual level, but on a wide societal level those small things add up. Now again, that is not advocating getting rid of any religion, but just the attitude that we should not coddle their sense of self entitlement. No they don't have to stop saying that to others, but if you want your own voice heard, you should not wait for them to stop assuming. 

It is the same problem as an atheist I have with death. When we as atheists have someone close to us die, they still assume we have no right to express our feelings on it when they offer up religious comfort to us. It is a double standard. When we go to their funerals, we rightfully shut up in person. But, even at my mom's memorial, the preacher didn't simply talk about God and her, the logic bothered me sure, but I bit my lip. What pissed me off however, was when he used my mom's death to emotionally blackmail me "you better find God before it is too late". And even then I still had to bite my lip.

No, I don't like it when people say "bless you" or "have a blessed day" or "I'll pray for you". It is not my thing. AGAIN I don't object when I hear it said in front of me to others, I just don't want them saying that to me. 

This is no different when I had a Pakistani co worker at a major pizza chain. The first time I met him I asked him his name, he said "Frank" but spoke broken English and could tell it was his second language. He was a really nice guy, I let it go a few days but after hearing others repeatedly call him Frank knowing that was not his real name, one day I pulled him over and asked him, "Why do you use Frank?" He said, "Because people cant pronounce my name". I said, "So what? How is that your problem? They need to learn how to pronounce it." I could tell that he agreed with me, and sure enough in less than a week everyone was calling him by his real name "Fozul" or pronounced "Fo zoo l".

I know people want to make this out to be a "pick your battles thing", and no, you don't always have to make it a battle. But it isn't good to always coddle other people's baggage. It is not our job to placate their insecurities. First time I am understanding, but after you know, and you know you will be in frequent contact with me, then stop repeating it.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

It gets galling at funerals when someone says, "they're in heaven now" and you have to clench your teeth and nod even though you really want to say "no they're not they're dead" and the person goes away thinking they've made you feel better even though all they've done is slightly annoy you.

The funny thing is that no major religion actually says that people go directly to heaven when they die.  I wonder why supposedly religious people think that they do?

[johan]

And? I agree they do assume, but so what. If minorities always bowed to assumptions blacks would still be slaves and women would not have the right to vote. 

Umm yeah, no. 

This discussion is about simple mindless polite social pleasantries that harm nor impede no one in any way shape or form. Ever. And you're disagreeing because of slavery? No. Not even close to a valid analogy. Sorry but no. Better luck next time.

[Brian37]

And? I agree they do assume, but so what. If minorities always bowed to assumptions blacks would still be slaves and women would not have the right to vote. 

Umm yeah, no. 

This discussion is about simple mindless polite social pleasantries that harm nor impede no one in any way shape or form. Ever. And you're disagreeing because of slavery? No. Not even close to a valid analogy. Sorry but no. Better luck next time.

You would be right if I were demanding nobody say it ever. Now go back and RE READ what I have REPEATED in every post.

I cannot, even if I wanted to, pragmatically force via law, nobody to ever exchange those "pleasantries". I don't want to. But please tell me why I should not have the right to request that others refrain from that with me? Nobody is arguing they cant do it with others. 

No, I don't want people saying "bless you" or "I'll pray for you" or "Have a blessed day".......

NOW again, I give everyone the benefit of the doubt the first time. But after I tell you I'd prefer you say something else instead, why is that an unreasonable request? 




None of what I said was a demand that nobody say those things to others in my presence. The only thing I am arguing is I'd prefer you not say that to me repeatedly.

It is harmful when you assume. Nobody is talking about censorship here. There is no harm in addressing people the way they request you to address them.

[johan]

You would be right if I were demanding nobody say it ever. Now go back and RE READ what I have REPEATED in every post.

I cannot, even if I wanted to, pragmatically force via law, nobody to ever exchange those "pleasantries". I don't want to. But please tell me why I should not have the right to request that others refrain from that with me? Nobody is arguing they cant do it with others. 

No, I don't want people saying "bless you" or "I'll pray for you" or "Have a blessed day".......

NOW again, I give everyone the benefit of the doubt the first time. But after I tell you I'd prefer you say something else instead, why is that an unreasonable request? 




None of what I said was a demand that nobody say those things to others in my presence. The only thing I am arguing is I'd prefer you not say that to me repeatedly.

It is harmful when you assume. Nobody is talking about censorship here. There is no harm in addressing people the way they request you to address them.

Wow. So many comments on things I didn't actually say. For review, here's what I said. Slavery, is a big fucking deal. Being offended because someone said god bless you, is not, and does not even begin to compare to slavery. That's all I said. nothing more, nothing less. Saying we gotta make a big deal out of this because slavery is just asinine. That's all I was saying.

If you wanna get your panties in a bunch if people say god bless you after you've asked them not to, that's fair I suppose. But I think it really depends on the nature of the relationship in question. If its someone you consider a close friend? Then yes its totally fair just as it would be totally fair to be upset if that friend said anything to you that you've specifically asked them not to. But someone who is not a close friend? Say a casual acquaintance? Someone who you interact with very rarely? Personally I think its a bit unreasonable to expect them to remember that you happen to get your buttons pushed when they say something that 99.9% of the rest of population is perfectly ok with.

I don't celebrate my birthday. I don't observe it, I really don't like a big deal being made out of it. Guess what? Almost everyone else does celebrate birthdays. So I don't freak out when my co-workers wish me a happy birthday and give me a card even though it bugs me and makes me uncomfortable. Because if I did, people would consider me to be what you'd call kind of an asshole and contrary to popular belief, I don't want to be an asshole.

Now my family and close friends? They know where I'm at with it and they respect it. But it would be very unreasonable of me to expect people that aren't that close to me to know and remember my stance on birthdays. And again to get back to only point I was making above, there have been literally millions of slaves throughout history andI pretty sure each and every last one of them would have gladly traded their lot in life for the opportunity to have strangers and casual acquaintances say god bless you or wish them a happy birthday against their will.

[Der/die AtheistIn]

It happend sometimes to me. Someone I just met for the first time tells me "God bless you" or "I fear God" or thinks like that. Are they assuming I'm a theist? 

You live in a country where over 92% of the population identifies as a member of a monotheistic religion and only 0.2% identifies as either atheist or agnostic. So yeah, they're assuming you're a theist. Not really surprising that they would do such a thing when you look at the numbers. 

If you want to be offended by that, then do as you wish I suppose. But I think many people, myself included, would consider getting offended under such circumstances a little... How shall I put this? A little bit ridiculous. 

God bless you is how theists say I wish you well. Same as saying have a nice day or something like that. Except they because they're theists, they've been conditioned to say god bless you instead of saying something like have nice day. Why get offended about that? They're just trying to wish you well. 

If you're going to choose to be offended by it, maybe you should at least be offended by the one thing that is at least marginally offensive in all this. And that is the fact that in vast majority of cases when people say god bless you or have a nice day or any other kind of pleasantry, they don't really mean it. No one or says have a nice day really gives a shit whether or not you actually have a nice day. No one who says god bless you really gives a shit whether or not god blesses you.

When you get right down to it, most them only care if god blesses them. So the only reason they say god bless you is because they think god is keeping score and will only bring them good things if they're sufficiently nice to other people. If you're going to get offended by any of this, maybe you should be offended by that.

But remember this. If you choose to be offended because you don't like the way people wish you well, the only person that loses in that scenario is you. Pick your battles and all that.

I'm not offended by wishing well, in fact I kind of appreciate it. But even if the majority of the population is theistic, that doesn't excuse them to assume that you believe in a God too. 
And you're right about the part about religious doing good deeds for reward. I heard sometimes people bringing the argument that you will make God mad if you're not moral. Even some christians who don't believe in Heaven or Hell bring this argument sometimes.

[Mister Agenda]

I have a relevant anecdote. My friend and I live in SC, which is about 90% Christian. He's in the post office one day and the line is slow, and an older gentleman starts exclaiming how wonderful Christ is and goes down the line prompting each person to proclaim their agreement that Christ is wonderful. He gets to my friend, who says 'actually, I'm an atheist'. The guy is a little taken aback but doesn't get mad or anything. He just asks the next person, a little old lady, how wonderful they think Christ is. Her reply is 'actually, I'm Jewish.'

Which just does to show that in an area that's 90% Christian, a group of 20 random people is likely to have a couple of non-Christians in it, so the odds aren't really in your favor that everyone is going to be a Christian in that situation. And when meeting strangers, you're likely to be wrong on about every tenth person. I wouldn't be comfortable making an assumption like that for every case if the chance of me be wrong is 10% every time. Maybe if it was .01%.

[Astonished]

At first I thought, nah, I've never been mistaken for a theist, but then I remembered one day at work a year or so ago, some older woman at my work was filling out a financial aid application and I was helping people with it when they had trouble, and when she finished, she asked me if I thought "god would come through for her" on it, and I said I don't believe in that kind of thing. She stared at me for a second, as if she couldn't even process the idea that there were such things as unbelievers, and she asked me, "Then who do you think put the breath in you?" Clearly not an evolutionary biologist, that one. It was irritating for me because I didn't have an opportunity to explain things to her and I really wanted to shake her worldview and introduce new concepts to her, but I would guess at her age it would never take.