People assuming you believe in a God

[vorlon13]

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%.

LOL, the little old lady as a Jew, probably is holding closer to, and practicing a form of religion more familiar to Jesus than ANY of the Christians.

[vorlon13]

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%.

LOL, the little old lady as a Jew, probably is holding closer to, and practicing a form of religion more familiar to Jesus than ANY of the Christians.

I find it odd, continuingly odd, that items like that never seem to give Christians pause.  Knowing the historical propensity for schisms, there still does not seem to be much enthusiasm for worshipping God in a manner clearly prescribed by Jesus, that is, His perfected form of Judaism, rather instead, it's Paul's rewrite that is spawning all the fealty and religious fervor.  And Scripture amazingly doesn't record anything like Jesus giving a heads up about Apostle Paul coming in to fix everything His 12 Jewish disciples are going to screw up either.  It's just Paul coming in, hijacking the movement, revising and even contradicting Jesus, and there we are:

Judaism, the religion Jesus practiced and died to perfect

-and-

Christianity, a religion all about Jesus, but a religion unrecognizable to Jesus and one He was not practicing or promoting.  He didn't die to advance Christianity either.

[Mr.Obvious]

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? They don't know me. Don't they know that atheists, agnostics, ignostics, aphatheists, deists and other beliefs exist? Theists who do that, how would you feel if an atheist who doesn't know you would tell you without your permission that there is no God?

I don't need permission to tell strangers there's no god, though. I just don't go around doing it because I am not weird Like that.

[Astonished]

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? They don't know me. Don't they know that atheists, agnostics, ignostics, aphatheists, deists and other beliefs exist? Theists who do that, how would you feel if an atheist who doesn't know you would tell you without your permission that there is no God?

I don't need permission to tell strangers there's no god, though. I just don't go around doing it because I am not weird Like that.

Well to be fair it's not outlandish to say that someone assuming you're a theist means they're inadvertently insulting your intelligence and moral capacity.

[Der/die AtheistIn]

I don't need permission to tell strangers there's no god, though. I just don't go around doing it because I am not weird Like that.

Well to be fair it's not outlandish to say that someone assuming you're a theist means they're inadvertently insulting your intelligence and moral capacity.

Maybe not, but it's still wrong to make claims about people you don't know with no evidence.

[Astonished]

Well to be fair it's not outlandish to say that someone assuming you're a theist means they're inadvertently insulting your intelligence and moral capacity.

Maybe not, but it's still wrong to make claims about people you don't know with no evidence.

But them making that assumption means they've got no evidence nor even any to support their own presupposition about their position. Whether they realize it or not, whether intentionally or not, they're projecting something onto others because of that lack of information and judgment.