Of course, the sentence "I'm an atheist" does tend to be translated as "I believe that everything you believe is wrong and you're stupid for believing it".

I can't imagine that helps.

Wow. You'd think that before you had any sort of on-air debate, you'd want to make sure your panelists didn't all agree.

seriously! what the hell!?

-'well, i think atheists are terrible. what about you?'

-'yes, yes i do...'

-'me too.'

-'yeah they pretty much are... terrible'

what the hell kind of "debate" is that?

I think the idea was that they would argue about the extent to which each of them hates atheists.

I see maybe 5% of cars with the flag (hell, the confederate flag used to be part of the GA flag before they changed it), and maybe 20% religious stickers.

I have never seen a cross on top of any public school here.

Hmm

But couldn't you argue the same for any religious group? I've seen many a times where it seems as it's the norm to attack Christianity, Jewish, Muslim, or any other religion. Where once someone says it, people will attack them because of believing in 'made-up things'.

I think there's going to be people that discriminate/oppose (whichever extent you feel) people of other beliefs. That's how it has always been, that's how it always will be. In a perfect world, maybe everyone would accept everyone. But I like to work in a world that plausible, not impossible.

For instance, part of the bad stereotype of an atheist comes from how it always seems like something is happening that is 'threatening' what other religions desire (whether 10 commandments, prayer in school, etc). Just as lots of people, even on this forum, dislike the radical Christians who try jamming it in your face. Thus both Christians and Atheists get labeled falsely many times over, just because of the acts of a few.

Haha, that was funny. Way to be open to different viewpoints when you say something like "Athiests need to shut up!".

This is the story of Hezekiah Jones...

Hezekiah Jones lived in a place... in Arkansas.
He never had too much, except he had some land,
An' he had a couple of hogs and things like that.
He never had much money
But he'd spend what he did make as fast as he made it,
So it never really mattered that he had much money.
But in a cupboard there, He kept in the cupboard... he kept in the cupboard books,
He called the books his "rainy season."

The white folks around the county there talked about Hezekiah...
They... said, "Well... old Hezekiah, he's harmless enough,
but the way I see it he better put down them goddam books,
Readin' ain't no good, for ****** is ******."

One day the white man's preacher came around
Knockin' on doors, knockin' on all the doors in the county,
He knocked on Hezekiah's door.
He says, "Hezekiah, you believe in the Lord?"
Hezekiah says, "Well, I don't know, I never really SEEN the Lord,
I can't say, yes, I do..."

He says, "Hezekiah, you believe in the Church?"
Hezekiah says, "Well, the Church is divided, ain't they,
And... they can't make up their minds.
I'm just like them, I can't make up mine either."

He says, "Hezekiah, you believe that if a man is good Heaven is his last reward?"
Hezekiah says, "I'm good... good as my neighbor."

"You don't believe in nothin'," said the white man's preacher,
You don't believe in nothin'!"
"Oh yes, I do," says Hezekiah,
"I believe that a man should be indebted to his neighbors
Not for the reward of Heaven or fear of hellfire."

"But you don't understand," said the white man's preacher,
"There's a lot of good ways for a man to be wicked..."

Then they hung Hezekiah high as a pigeon.
White folks around there said, "Well... he had it comin'
'Cause the son-of-a-***** never had no religion!"

They don't all hate atheists equally. It's more of a "they should all be shot vs. 'well, they're going to hell anyway, so let's leave them be'" debate.

Where? In a monastery? I went to a charter school in Oklahoma, where a much higher that normal percentage of the student body where Christian, and many of the teachers were openly Christian, and got a way with a lot more than they would have at a public school. A there were a decent amount of agnostics and atheists in the student body, and they faced no social stigma.

I mean, obviously if a person hangs around with a bunch of Christians and one day announces he's an atheist, it will be a bit awkward, but the same thing would happen with a new Christian in who hung out with atheists. Probably even more so, because many of the atheist I've met are rather arrogant about their views.

I promise you that there is just as much if not much more social discrimination against Christians as there is atheists. In my experience there has been a LOT more. So much of it is a huge majority of people sitting around and trying to act like they are being discriminated against, when half of them haven't even met the people they are supposed be being oppressed by. It's just a sorry excuse to feel self righteous.

The sports commentator was occasionally reasonable during the full "debate". When they started saying "Atheists need to shut up" he could at least see that they're people with a right to complain as much as anyone else. Still, why the heck they brought a sports commentator on (or for that manner why they took on a nutjob like Schlussel) I'll never know.

@ Obi Krist

Hahaha.

And Christians aren't? I wasn't going to agree with the whole "people get odd" when you tell them you're atheist, because everyone gets odd when you admit to any kind of religion. Atheists and Theists, alike, are rather arrogant.

Oh I remember all the fun back in 2004 when Obi_Kwiet joined... ah the hilarity.

This is true. But the Christians I hang around usually are not that way, because unlike most "Christians" they actually are Christians. But, yeah, especially down south you'll get a lot of arrogant people who call them selves Christians, but that's really just culture; they usually don't care about Christianity, other than the fact that it's socially required. Fortunately this kind of people are starting to die out, as it's become less and less socially acceptable.

The same can be said for "immoral" atheists and whatnot. People claim all atheists are immoral and respectable. There's lots of atheists who respect people and their religions. Despite what Jon`C would tell you, I try to respect religions unless someone makes a claim against atheism with their religion.