Conchobar

I just would like to have you see the balance in America from my side of the pond. You are part of the >85% Christian majority. Your Christian people elected every modern president since Madison. You have the Presidency, the vice-presidency, all of congress except for a couple of Jews, and the Supreme Court except for one Jew?

You have all of the state governors, and control all of the state legislators. (Maybe not Jesse Ventura, the lone possible exception.) The media, radio and TV, are filled with Christian theme shows and talk shows. Preachers are on several stations of the AM dial, and have one full time Christian TV channel, TBN.

You control the Boy Scouts of America which my son (if an American) could not join because he is an Atheist like me, his Atheistic UK war veteran of the Falklands War.

Every highway has God or Jesus on some sign or another. I realise some of it is a natural response to 9-11 with "God Bless" campaigns.

You have Christianity "in your faces" throughout all your culture. You hear a lot of "Atheists cannot be moral without belief in God." George Bush Sr. "Atheists cannot be considered citizens or even patriots." (This was paraphrased from a 1988 campaign speech). Televangelists, Falwell and Robertson, with millions of listeners blamed 9-11 on Atheists, not the devout religious fanatics who actually did it.

Atheists/agnostics are 8-10% of the general population and 10% of your US troops in WWII, and Vietnam. Probably Atheists and unbelievers are the same % in US troops fighting now in Iraq. But Atheists are only 0.2% of the incarcerated prison population of criminals.

Why are Atheists so HATED? Why are Atheists a threat? Why is it OK to proselytise Jesus, his divinity, his second return, defend the Bible, "God bless" everything, and "Jesus loves you?"

But if one Atheist states his/her reason for non-belief, it is regarded as wrong and “an attack on Christianity”. If Atheists debate our analysis of the Bible, it is regarded as an attack. Some Christians actually think that in spite of iron-clad control of the National and State governments, most organisations, and a huge popular majority; that a 10% largely academic, largely unarmed minority who are among the least likely to commit crime, are persecuting this powerful Christian Majority. Unbelievers are the group least likely to own a gun in America. Christian Fundamentalists are the most likely to own guns.

Is it that the very existence of Atheists is perceived as an affront to their need for uniformity of belief? I post this only to let you see my side of your culture, governmental policies, and drift toward Christian Theocracy. Hitler used the same method in Germany. He claimed that a small Jewish minority were a major threat to the racial purity and Christianity of the huge German Aryan majority.

My wish is that you could put aside prejudice. Your nation has gotten by anti-Catholicism, Anti-Semitism, partly past racism, partly past anti-gay bigotry, but Atheists remain the only widely hated minority. 49% of Americans hate Atheists or have very negative views of them. That means more than half of American Christians hate or dislike unbelievers.

But with your secular republic and Bill of Rights, and <10% unbelievers, the US is the most Christian country in the world after Vatican City.

You guys won back in the mid-1800s. You began the gradual re-establishment of religion in spite of Madison’s First Amendment. You just need to accept your victory and not fear an outnumbered defeated minority like Atheists, whose only threat is thinking.

Conchobar

Bumble Bee Tuna

I like your post, but just for a minor nitpick...

The H. W. Bush quote about atheists and citzenship was not from a campaign speech.
It is from an interview, which "took place at the Chicago airport between Robert I. Sherman of American Atheist Press and George Bush Sr., on August 27, 1988. Sherman is a fully accredited reporter, and was present by invitation as a member of the press corps. The Republican presidential nominee was there to announce federal disaster relief for Illinois. The discussion turned to the presidential primary"

RS (Rob Sherman): "What will you do to win the votes of Americans who are atheists?"

GB (George Bush): "I guess I'm pretty weak in the atheist community. Faith in God is important to me."

RS: "Surely you recognize the equal citizenship and patriotism of Americans who are atheists?"

GB: "No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God."

RS: "Do you support as a sound constitutional principle the separation of state and church?"

GB: "Yes, I support the separation of church and state. I'm just not very high on atheists."

These were GHWB's 3 comments made on the issue.

I have heard the exchange's veracity questioned, but I don't know why- the reporter in question has a clean record, and the exchange was published in the Boulder Daily Camera and Free Inquiry magazine.

-B

Proxima Centauri

Well, here in Europe there is a higher proportion of atheists and agnostics. We Europeans are reasonably moral and patriotic. Perhaps you Americans will eventually see that non believers can be OK. Perhaps American Fundies are too biassed to see beyond their crosses.

:banghead:

DamagedGoods

Jesus H. Christ's Squeezable Bacon! That's the first time I've ever heard that. I couldn't find any reference to it on snopes.com. Damn, and I voted for him, too. He was the last Republican presidential candidate that got my vote, though.

I like Conchobar's post, too; I've become more and more aware of the way Christians - even laid-back, non-fundie Christians - act when faced with the opinions of nonbelievers. Talk radio is especially funny. Tony Macrini, the host of a weekday morning show here in Norfolk, VA, is an agnostic or atheist libertarian on a station that is otherwise almost 24/7 Christian right-wing programming. All kinds of apoplectic Christians come out of the woodwork when he expresses some non-theistic opinions.

An atheist's opinion on the pledge of allegiance, ten-commandments-in-the-classroom-or-courthouse, and church/state separation topics seem to piss those people off for some reason, but it certainly is entertaining to listen to them make fallacious arguments.

Shake

First, thanks for your excellent post, Conchobar! Always nice to have an outside viewpoint.

Why are they afraid? Fear is indeed an accurate word. People generally are at least reluctant to change in general. Religion is personal, emotional, and changes to one's person are usually feared. We get frustrated when we try to reason with them. Why? Because reason is their antithesis. We ask the questions that they don't want to. They have a great emotional investment in their beliefs. So to question their beliefs, you question them, and it hurts their egos. They view it as a personal attack, and most people are afraid of being attacked. This prompts an emotional response. Emotional responses are almost by definition not rational (reasoned).

You brought up Hitler, and let me say that he is an excellent example. He spoke first to the Germans' emotions, to their pride. When he had convinced enough people that they had been wronged (somewhat justifiably), he then applied reason (flawed maybe), and since the people had accepted his premise, his conclusions seemed to follow naturally. The big step was the first one. It helped that he was an emotional and charismatic speaker. The scary thing is that so are some of these fundy preachers.

Zora

Seems to me there are several things going on, with no one simple answer.

First, the largest percentage of America's population (this can be said for ANY country), is not of the highest intelligence. 50% of the nation reads at or below an 8th grade level, and education for the masses is not of the highest priority in the Christian religion. In fact, it relies on ignorance as others have stated.

Business is attracting the best and the brightest, not politics. That leaves the corrupt and the mediocre in public office.

The Christian religion is one of victims. They are either being persecuted or reviled and if you try rational criticism, they do the mental equivalent of putting their fingers in their ears and shouting "la,la,la, la" to drown you out so "satan" doesn't get ahold of their minds.

It seems these people need to feel they know some big secret that smart people don't. They need to feel they will end up with a greater reward in the end than non-believers, who are often better off economically because of better education/higher intelligence.

Its easier to pray than to actually DO something. They have convinced themselves they are doing the hardest and most important part...without ever leaving their homes and churches!

They think atheism = communism (or anarchy) which equals loss of freedom and an unsafe society. They believe our American freedom was brought about by Christians. Our schools (before college level) do NOT teach that the people responsible for American freedom (Paine, Jefferson, Madison, Washington, Franklin..all our "heroes") were NOT Christian.

They refuse to critically examine the atrocities that have been committed in the name of Christianity in countries all over the globe.

And, additionally, everything that Shake said.

Shake

Here's one that just came to me after lunch:

Xians were once a persecuted minority themselves. Now look at where they are today. They fear the rise of a minority group that could eventually topple them from their dominant position.

Just something to think about.

safeinacell

The thought occors, that if we are right then the christians are'nt going to get the ol' eternal life and would have to face their own mortality."Immortality" is a lot to lose.

DamagedGoods

I see this one a lot; they will lock on to anything that 'proves' to them that smart people aren't actually smart. They take a lot of joy in the scriptures that talk about God confounding the wisdom of the wise and all that. They love to portray science as a flawed world view, because "it's been wrong in the past." I have learned to bite my tongue and just stay away from people once they demonstrate this kind of thinking on a regular basis.

For a while now, I have viewed prayer as a way to feel like you're doing something without actually doing anything. I suppose it's not always true that there's something they could do, but too often it seems that prayer is chosen when there are other options that involve work.

No doubt; this is a widespread assumption, often proclaimed as an undeniable fact on right-wing talk radio. But for some reason they shy away from identifying Hitler's Germany with Christianity.

Mageth

Because we're telling them Mommy and Daddy were wrong?