Wow, i never realised the usa was like that. It has freedom of religion, but not freedom from religion.
S
Why are there so few atheists in the USA?
by moshe 22 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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lovelylil
Could it be that in the beginning, the first white settlers established it as a Christian Nation? Also like it was brought out all the leaders have been Christians and our money states: "in God We Trust" I'm sure this is the same as other nations. If they were established by muslims and that is the generally accepted religion - then that is the one that is the most tolerated.
I agree with the poster who stated we will never see a gay or athiest in the presidency in this country. Deeply intrenched ways are hard to change and America will most likely always be a predominately Christian nation.
The question then really is this: Are we really a nation where you can have freedom of religion? If so then all the citizens of this country should be able to obtain any level or position they wish without a regard being made as to their beliefs. And that includes the presidency. If you will not be voted in unless you are a Christian - are we allowing you to excercise YOUR freedom of religion. How could we be if you are being penalized for it? Lilly
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Terry
The momentum behind belief of any kind is insuperable.
The history of mankind is the history of belief. With that belief often came certitude. Certitude in the hands of strong leaders becomes orthodoxy. With orthodoxy comes intolerance and reactionary backlash.
Conformity has been a tool of religions.
In primitive agrarian society there was absolutely no room for innovation or contrary points of view. Why? The very life of the agrarian society depended on planting at the right time, in the right way and harvesting successfully before the winter came.
An innovator, somebody with a better idea could not be permitted to exist in such an arrangement. Why? Fear. Fear of what? Fear that the "innovator" would screw the crop cycle up and everyone would starve.
Genius was driven out. Always.
Anybody different was driven out of the family, the society and the eco-system to test their innovations elsewhere.
This is the origin of the spread of mankind.
Each tribe or nation kicked people out with different ideas and they were forced to commence again testing their innovations elsewhere.
This is how new customs came to be, new speech, new technology and why there was a distrust and bad blood between neighbors.
The worst citizen of all would be the man (or woman) who insulted the local God and caused his retributions. Everyone could starve or suffer a flood or other natural calamity if the God of the harvest or the weather became enraged by disbelief. The non-believer was driven out.
And so it went and so it goes.
It is FEAR; cold, stark naked fear which keeps the population of non-believers so small and vulnerable to retailiation and mockery.
Witness in our own day and times how often a spokesman of authority will pronounce any disaster as the WRATH of God caused by non-believers!
It is a kind of Monday morning quarter-backing to declare a flood, a hurricaine, Nine-Eleven, etc. as the wrath of an angry god because of the disbelief of the few.
This strategy still works.
The non-believer seems to stand for a void and not a possibility.
The non-believer is seen as thinking themselves better than the majority and self-superior.
This disgusts and enrages the majority and they cannot tolerate it.
You can get away with a lot in America without being hated, but; you risk everything if you declare yourself a non-believer.
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kid-A
I think these polls hugely underestimate the number of "non-believers" in North America, or any other region of the world.
The problem is the questions inevitably are highly superficial "surface" questions like "do you believe in a higher power" or "do you believe in god".
Most people raised in a Western culture simply say "yes" as a means of conforming to what they percieve as a cultural norm. Dig deeper, and I would
estimate the overwhelming majority of those saying yes (with the exception of the hard-core religious) would not be able to elaborate on the purpose or meaning
of this cultural "belief" structure. These polls are about as meaningful as 99% percent of people answering "yes" to the question: do you believe the sky is blue?
The other major problem comes from trying to precisely define what "belief in god" actually means. I believe it is simply a default position most people in Western
society take, without seriously questioning or examining the meaning of the belief, simply because the concept of a "god" is an ancient social meme.
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freefly
- Theism - the belief that God exists.
- Weak atheism - the lack of belief in any deity.
- Strong atheism - the belief that no deity exists.
- Agnosticism - the belief that the existence or non-existence of God is not known or cannot be known
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_religion
"Do we have any good reason to think that God does (or does not) exist?", is equally important in the philosophy of religion. Listed above as the 4 main positions with regard to the existence of God that one might take.
Strong atheism is the belief that deities do not exist.
Weak atheism is the category including everyone who is neither a theist nor a strong atheist.
Strong atheists are necessarily explicit atheists: they consciously reject theism.
Weak atheists, however can be either explicit or implicit atheists. Implicit atheists don't have theistic beliefs, but they have not consciously rejected those beliefs (possibly because they haven't heard of them). Some people consider infants to be implicit atheists (and therefore weak atheists); others maintain that to be considered any kind of an atheist, one must must be old enough, (and otherwise have the mental capacity) to be able to believe or disbelieve in gods if the idea of gods should be presented.
Agnosticism is distinct from weak atheism, though most weak atheists may be agnostics, and most agnostics may be weak atheists.
freefly
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Seeker4
I'm very open about my atheism, and I get mixed reactions. From believers I get a sad look or an "oh, no" frequently accompanied by a gentle squeeze of my shoulder or a hand rubbing my back, as though to soothe me or something.
But then, like river of deceit, I live in New England, which is much more intellectually liberal than the rest of the country.
It would be a more violent reaction in other parts of the country, for sure!
It would be impossible for an atheist to be President of the US. This is a country where a Catholic had trouble getting elected and had to make statements about his religion affecting his actions in office. Every President and Presidential candidate in recent memory has had to state publicly that he has a "personal relationship with the Lord" or some such thing.
Remember, this is a country where people were taken seriously when they said that Hurricane Katrina was god's punishment on America for allowing gambling, abortions and gay marriage! This is a nation with the intellectual rigor of a doorknob. Where the majority of people doubt evolution and over 40 percent still believe Saddam Hussein was behind the WTC attack!! This is a country where the President opposes stem cell research - totally on fundamentalist Christian grounds.
If you claim to be a born again Christian, like our current President, you can get a loyal following of middle aged women who will support you no matter what morass of idiocy you lead us into, and they'll gladly supply their sons and daughters to die in an insane, unnecessary war.
America right now is run by a small cadre of men and women who are fundamentalist Christians and believe their every step is guided by god. We start getting rid of this motley crew in Tuesday's elections.
But it will still be impossible for an atheist to hold high office in this land unless he or she hides the fact.
America has a lot of energy, but seems to fall far behind other lands in intellectual rigor.
S4
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moshe
If we had atheists for Presidents we might be in better shape as a country. We would be taking care of our Country and planning a long term self-reliant model of existence- and with true equailty. We would forget about forcing our religious morals on the rest of the world,too. Those who try to rescue others, without seeing the pifalls often end up the victim in the end. People of poor character take advantage of religious charity and State welfare to get out of work and being a gainful member of society. Back in the old hunter-gatherer days the freeloaders were left by the side of the trail.
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parakeet
Seeker4: "If you claim to be a born again Christian, like our current President, you can get a loyal following of middle aged women who will support you no matter what morass of idiocy you lead us into...."
EXCUSE ME?????
To answer the original post, I live in what's called a "mini-Bible Belt" in Pennsylvania, so I keep a low profile on my atheism because there could be serious social and professional repercussions. Don't much like it, but that's the way it is. -
Satanus
I don't know, man. Americans tend to be more evangelical than the rest of the world. That seems to be their nature. Christianity encourages that, but, if they were mostly atheist, i suspect that they would be attempting to spread atheism to the rest of the world.
S
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GermanXJW
Many US-Americans are the decendants of people that left their homeland because of their religion so the belief in a god has been a tradition in their families. The funny thing is: as long as I was a JW I had the feeling that the rest of the world is atheist and looks down on me because of my belief. Now, I notice that a lot of people outside the JW DOES belief in a god.