Ab_Normal

I definitely concur! Eastern Washington is like one of the suspenders for the bible belt... I told my family that Washington was one of the least religious states, according to the ARIS study, and they looked at me funny.

On the plus side, my cost of living is lower, and it's only a 6-hour drive to visit some civilization.

Starboy

Oops Hovid is in Pensacola, not Panama City. It always get those two mixed up.

Godless Dave

Nope, they emigrated from Scandinavia in the 19th century, before it was a secular society. Lots of practicing Catholics and Lutherans, including Missouri-synod and Wisconsin Lutherans. Huge anti-abortion rights movement here. Not a whole lot of creationism, but some. A few fundy Baptists too - one of the state legistlators urged his fellow representatives not to attend a speech by the Dalai Lama because Buddhism is an evil cult. The Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area is much more liberal as far as gay rights, abortion, etc., but there's still a lot of god-talk. And earlier this year two Planned Parenthood clinics got shot up (even though they don't do abortions at those locations).

[ November 14, 2002: Message edited by: Godless Dave ]</p>

Vesica

I must be missing the connection that makes Godless and reasonable synonymous......I have met many godless and 'god-ed (?)' individuals who could not logic thier way out of a paper bag!

Starboy

Vesica, I guess the point of the question wasn't are there places where few of the population are ignorant and stupid. The question was are there places where few of the population are in your face intolerant religious type people.

Starboy

SanDiegoAtheist

LOL. I probably live in the same complex you moved out of. There's only 3 complexes that you mention that could fit, and I'm in one of them.

But as far as the town being secular on the whole - nah - you probably just didn't get to the east county very much. El Cajon, La Mesa, etc. are all pretty religious areas (although nothing near what you'd see in small town Texas I'd guess). The Grossmont School District was just fundified during this recent election. They reelected the buffoons who nixed a project to show a tolerance video to all the students in the area based on the fact that it 'presented positive homosexual role models' (they had a gay firefighter discussing his experiences with discrimination in school). To add icing on the cake, they then threw out all the moderates on the board, and voted in more fundies.

I expect an evo/cre fight to erupt there any time now.

Bear in mind, this is a school district that had 2 school shooting incidents, and a narrowly prevented third one, in the past 4 years - and in all the cases (and probably the majority of school shootings nationwide), the reason for the student going off the deep end (not that the shootings were justified in any way) was due to harassment.

Cheers,

The San Diego Atheist

[ November 12, 2002: Message edited by: SanDiegoAtheist ]</p>

SanDiegoAtheist

Go right ahead - it's become one of my favorite words. Don't remember though if I coined it or stole it, so you may need to stick an 'ibid' after it lol.

Cheers,

The San Diego Atheist

I ate Pascal's Wafer

Hey, thanks! Of course I could claim that I don't remember if I coined the word or stole it, and thus avoid the whole issue.

-Nick