The numbers of those who don't affiliate with any religion are surging in the U.S., but only 4% of Americans self-identify as "atheist." And while we may not have an official national religion, Christianity is largely baked into many aspects of our culture. With it comes stigma attached to atheism, which makes many reluctant to embrace it.
@georgetakei Most Atheists seem to identify as ex-religious folks that left a religion in anger. While folk that have never been religious tend to be agnostic, having no solid opinion nor care about the subject.
@georgetakei
What i find interesting is that campaigning on a religious stance is a vote winner in the US (or so it seems) while here in the UK it is a definite vote loser. Religion is culturally large here (see all the fanfare around the coronation) but in terms of practice quite small.
@georgetakei I understand the need for the need for others to use labels to help gain better kinship with the people we know and want to know. and
However, the labels that we currently have, as others have mentioned, carry too many negative connotations (baggage), to the extent that those connotations begin to contradict the intended definitions.
The two closest labels I choose are pantheist and agnostic.
We should acknowledge the unknowable, and respect that we don't know, or, can not know more about it, at this time.
Many classic metaphysical philosophies now have very reasonable answers.
Many more studies have demonstrated that the dualism isn't really much of a thing anymore.
But I do not feel right believing religious mythos can describe the unknowable. A religion can't be right if all other religions are contradictorially also right.
But as for atheism, that is a line I don't cross, because it explicitly rejects the unknowable, and I do not reject it, I just don't know.
@georgetakei Being an agnostic, I really don't care. Organized religion, like politics, is just another social construct meant to include some and exclude others.
@georgetakei I will definitely say that I wouldn't admit to being atheist in most public settings. While it isn't the case everywhere in the US, in many places people are virtually militant about it and admitting you don't believe the same thing they do can potentially result in actual violence.
@georgetakei
"Oh, you think you know better than all these brilliant people throughout history who believed in God?”
Right, because those brilliant people would have been burned at the stake had they not believed in "god". Weird flex indeed.
@georgetakei I went to school in the 1980’s in Spain, which was very much 100% Catholic at the time. My parents got me out of Bible class, so it was known that me and my sister were /the/ atheists in school.
The school priest would occasionally invite one of us to his office and drill us about our life at home. He didn’t believe that atheists could be such good kids as we both were. I guess he wondered why anyone would behave well without the threat of hell?
Add comment