by VorJack
I have a modest commute of about ten miles on my way to the museum where I volunteer. Nevertheless, I pass by twelve churches on the way, plus a handful of church-related buildings (two gifts shops, a nursing home, a Catholic school, etc.). Now that I’m an atheist, I notice these things more. Christianity seems pervasive to me now, and I’m constantly aware that I am in the minority.
It seems ridiculous for a Christian to talk about being an oppressed minority, but obviously some don’t see it that way. Some Christians look out at America and see a culture that has rejected their moral, social and religious views. While there are plenty of “so-called” Christians, very few agree enough to belong to the proper group. As Robert Kunzman puts it:
Some social commentators scoff when conservative Christians portray themselves as an oppressed minority, struggling to preserve their values amidst a hostile secular society. While oppressed may be the wrong word, it shouldn’t stretch the imagination to recognize the ways in which conservative Christians see themselves struggling to navigate a culture marked by increasing ethical diversity and a seductive consumerist-materialistic value system that threatens to weaken their communities and commitments. (Write These Laws…, p. 216)
Coalition of the Unwilling
Pullquote: We each see ourselves as a minority — and we’re right.
As atheists elbow a place for ourselves at the table, we face push-back from fundamentalists, and sometimes moderate and liberal Christians as well as other religious minorities. But when fundamentalists push for something the consider essential, like prayer in schools, they face push-back from atheists, moderate and liberal Christians as well as other religious minorities.
We each see ourselves as a minority — and we’re right. We each see the majority as united against us, and there I think we’re half wrong. Each of those churches I see on my commute exists because one faction can’t get along with another faction. For example, there is a moderate Methodist church, a conservative Methodist church, and a liberal Methodist church with a woman listed as the preacher. I see them as united, because that’s the face they turn to me when I act as a vocal atheist. But when I’m not around, they see themselves as divided.
Extended Republic
Pullquote: No faction can really become a majority by itself.
I looked for a phrase to express this situation, and I found one in American political history: the “extended republic.” It’s explained — though not used — in the famous Federalist Paper #10, written by James Madison:
The smaller the society, the fewer probably will be the distinct parties and interests composing it; the fewer the distinct parties and interests, the more frequently will a majority be found of the same party; and the smaller the number of individuals composing a majority, and the smaller the compass within which they are placed, the more easily will they concert and execute their plans of oppression. Extend the sphere, and you take in a greater variety of parties and interests; you make it less probable that a majority of the whole will have a common motive to invade the rights of other citizens; or if such a common motive exists, it will be more difficult for all who feel it to discover their own strength, and to act in unison with each other.
Damn me if the weasely little hypochondriac didn’t get what he wanted. American politics, culture and religion all posses a great variety of parties and interests, usually working at cross-purposes with one another. No faction can really become a majority by itself. We’re all too divided and protective of our own space. Only in extreme circumstances does the country have a large enough majority that it can act quickly and decisively.
Madison was right, this has probably made us more stable as a nation. The downside is that none of us feel terribly secure. We’re a nation of minorities, all of them feeling oppressed.
As a non-American, I’d like to invite you to extend your thoughts about minorities to cover yourself as an American in the global community. It’s interesting; you make up a mere 5% of the world’s population, and yet as a national America is all pervasive – it’s everywhere you look, culturally, economically and militarily (you have bases in almost every developed country, the only nation which does – perhaps because 50% of the total world military spending is by, yup, you guessed it, America).
Totally irrelevant to your post, I know, but it was the first thing I thought of :-)
Are you suggesting we have delusions of grandeur or that we really are that awesome? ;)
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2005/1764080976_baee1a4c5d_o.jpg
We can’t help that we’re awesome, Custador.
(Did you see what I did there? ;) )
Sarcasm, I hope ;)
Haven’t you heard? America has transcended morality. We’re beyond good and evil.
We…are on the side of awesome.
Dude, I like, totally, agree 100%. Awesomeness!
What was that? I’m sorry, I can’t hear you over the sound of how awesome I am.
Obligatory
Films such as Transformers 2 and Titanic say otherwise, well unless awesome means getting people to pay to watch rubbish … :-)
Fear the power of awesome. With great awesomeness, comes even more awesomeness. Can’t you see how awesome that is?
I had to get my inhaler out because I almost had an awesome attack there. Whew! It’s tough being American.
Sarcasm, I hope ;)
I was making a we out of Vorjack and I, who would not normally be we, at least on this forum.
I was thinking something along the same lines as Custador, and also thinking about how this applies in the context of a society where, despite the number of churches on street corners, Christians really are a minority.
@Jabster nice redefinition :-)
I am sure there are many Americans who wonder why 60 years after War World Two and twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, American troops are still stationed in Western Europe, Japan and South Korea. These countries are wealthy enough to defend themselves. But by having us foolish Americans be their military, it leaves them more money for national health and months of paid vacation. But this also leaves them with weak militaries. They could not even stop genocide occurring on their own continent just 15 years ago.
About 10 years ago the Philippines closed American bases and asked American troops to leave. The Philippine government knew it would hurt the national economy, but for the sake of national pride the Americans were asked to leave. (A few years later the Americans were invited back) Americans were just asked to leave Ecuador. So American troops will leave.
Its time to bring “Team America World Police” home. Maybe this is how America can pay for “health care reform”.
The Philippine government knew it would hurt the national economy, but for the sake of national pride the Americans were asked to leave. (A few years later the Americans were invited back)…
Having learned the hard lesson that economies, and not pride, feed and clothe people.
It’s also just an issue of pluralism wherein each of us is in some way or ways a “10% minority”. We’re also each part of majorities in other ways (and for most of us, we’re in majorities in most ways but given the room for diversity of opinion, ethnicity, and practice in a culture it is inevitable that we will eventually wind up part of outnumbered in some aspect of our experience which is important to us. That’s why it’s important just to use our experience of being a minority in whatever way it is to help us sensitize to what it’s like to be a minority so we can empathize with others in their own minority aspects that we relate to as part of a majority.
But as to your more direct question about Christian persecution complexes—fundamentally we live in a secular nation. Historically, religion by its nature absorbs entire communities and structures the lives of the individuals and groups from which it emerges completely, defining people metaphysically, ethically, politically, spiritually, etc. In past eras the religious aspect of culture was bedrock to the culture’s understanding of itself (hence the word cult right there in the word culture), its values, and its place in the universe. Religion is maximally satisfying for people when it can serve the role of uniting one’s thinking and acting with a set of rituals and symbols and communal ties that can bind one’s entire life into a unity. And when it can put an entire culture on the same page it can give it the powerful cohesive unity that Madison wanted to destroy. For secularism, pluralism, and individual liberty to thrive, it is indispensible that such religious hegemony over all aspects of life be broken. But inevitably a sizable segment of those who are genuinely religious will ceaselessly try to fulfill religion’s structural nature as a framework for structuring whole communities in which people’s entire lives can gain cohesion. That’s why they are inevitably going to be all kinds of pissed off about pluralism and secularism. And insofar as for their religious nature to fully realize itself it requires the unity of culture with cult with personal spirituality for full effect, they will feel frustrated and alienated in cultures that refuse them the complete merge. Such cultures as ours are not the best incubators of their faith but constantly threaten it and so they want that changed.
Religions will always have hostile attitudes towards secularism because religion is not really a private thing. Personal religion is a super-late invention in human history. Religion was long one of the primary media for tradition transmission and functions (and seeks to function) in such a way as to orient entire cultures. It will forever see a secular state as a rival control structure that inhibits it from implementing its whole program. That’s why religion must be starved of formal power as much as possible. Its programming is to take over and run cultures once given power. Some more thoughts on these issues: http://camelswithhammers.com/2009/07/02/moral-integration-or-the-pros-and-cons-of-moral-absolutism-and-ethical-pluralism/
My thinking is that Evangelical/Fundamentalist Christians in this country have a problem. They worship two masters: God and America. Intuitively, they know this can’t stand. America was founded as a country where the state (the people) is first and religion may operate so long as it doesn’t militate against the good of the whole. In other words, religion is secondary, behind the interests of the country. To Christians of a certain stripe this is intolerable, so they’ve tried to find ways for the church to co-opt the state, to annex it. Americanism simply becomes an element of their version of the Christian religion. They solve two problems in this way. First, God returns to his rightful (according to them) position of overall supremacy. Second, they no longer have to worry about the problem of worshiping competing masters. God expects them to worship America, because worship of America has become de facto worship of God.
You should make a sermon out of that :)
And then when they are presented with someone who loves God but criticizes America, hilarity ensues. Man, that Rev. Wright was fun.
Thank you for articulating that, Mike. I’ve been puzzled for some time about the connection between religious fundamentalism and ultra-nationalism. The whole “God and Country” thing I was exposed to in the military sometimes frightened me, but also strangely instilled pride in me. I used to be a christian and a soldier, so I guess I found the connection between my love of country and my religion appealing. I just couldn’t ever figure out why god would care more about our chunk of rock than anyone else’s, and I knew my “enemies” were invoking the support of the same god and loving their own little chunk of rock just as much as I loved mine.
I never delved into it as deeply as I should have, and your post has given me a new perspective on the matter. Now my fear is that there will never be a way to open up a reasonable and productive dialogue with religious fundamentalist/ultranationalists, because they’ll use the same defense of their political beliefs as they do their religious ones. If you question their political opinions, they’ll just call you unamerican, which is like saying you’re a godless heathen, and the dialogue is stifled before you ever have a chance.
Well, given that there are over 38,000 different versions of christianity in the US alone, perhaps it’s easy to see why each group counts itself as a minority, since all those other groups obviously aren’t really christian… I think this has a root in two fundamental pieces of christian bedrock: Persecution Complex and Bigotry.
The history of the persecution complex is something that christians just love to bring up. Nevermind that people weren’t fed to the lions for being christian, or that as soon as they got kings and emperors on their side they started persecuting other groups on nearly unimaginable scales. It makes a good story, and they just seem to love god stories.
Bigotry seems a central tenent for all religious organizations. As long as there is an Us vs. Them thing going, they are happy to sow discord and rife to generate conflict to serve their goals, and then hold up any examples of people fighting back as proof of their oppression.
Neat little package they have going there.
WOW 38.000 different versions of christianity, that means 1 in 38.000 that you will end in heaven if you are lucky since you chose to follow the one true prophet, eggg jezus!
That is 99.7% chance that you will burn in hell!
Luckily for me Hell does not exist, since I am an atheist. LOL
With those odds I would become Atheist just in case hell does exist. LOL
Generally speaking most denominations don’t believe *all* the others are doomed. If one of the more inclusive ones ended up being right, it would not necessarily condemn those in the others.
Nice in theory but it does not add up.
If that one true god happens to be one that actually dooms all other infidels that believes other christion gods and false prophets then you are toast!
You pass by many buildings, all external (inanimate, dead) monuments to a religious “system” devoid of true and lasting power or influence. This manifested externalization itself is what gives rise to the divisive and powerless nature of the current (babylonian) system. The only crosses we are to bear, to carry are inward ones by which we are crucified to the world and the world unto us. When the external (false) gives way to the internal (true) and all the (external) idols are vanquished then and only then will the power of transformative, lasting change be wrought upon a people, upon a nation. But first…
The day is fast approaching when a people will longingly, desperately search for the (true) sons (meaning spiritual offspring) of God. For the whole earth groans for the unveiling, the manifestation of the sons of God. These will be the saviours spoken of by Jude in the NT. In that day you will search for them. Your rebellious and stiff-necked ways will have brought you into captivity, into bondage. But when your heart is prepared through hardship, through your suffering then they will mercifully point you in the way of righteousness, of holiness, of peace once again for you and your little ones. For you have become as a wayward creature, sniffing in the wind, playing the harlot and lying down with every false lover forsaking your (only) true Lover. In that day you will once again know Who it is that (truly) loves you with an everlasting love. No more will His name be despised, ridiculed and demeaned.
Surely the chastisement for our peace was upon Him.
Nice analogy, I thought I smelled a fart in here.
“For you have become as a wayward creature, sniffing in the wind,”
Okay I almost snorted hot coffee out my nose. That was just wrong.
Blah, blah, blah.
More evangelyzing from a man who is clearly too cowardly to face reality on its own terms.
Yes, our realities are completely different aren’t they? And that is the whole issue. But who’s “reality” is…real?
Ours.
Ha, good one Ty
Physical reality does not require your belief in order to have effects.
You are paraphrasing Philip K. Dick:
“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.”
Which is ironic considering that while he was a great and fascinating author, his personal grasp on reality was a bit…tenuous.
Indeed. His schizophrenia was not helped by his drug addictions.
I think you’re confusing “fantasy” with “reality. In the future, please don’t
Y’know, if I had a choice and could confuse fantasy with reality, I’d prefer to go with a fantasy in which I lived in a nation of insanely hot men, all of whom wanted me…or the 24th Century in which I lived in a holodeck. I mean, why live in a fantasy world where your imaginary sky friend keeps whispering crap in your ear and then you go online to repeat the inane babble to the ridicule of 95% of your interlocutors?
We all do want you, Roger!
But the holodeck program has a malfunction, and we’re not allowed to ever tell you!
For the record, when the holodeck is working properly, I’m a lot hotter. And thinner. And a bit younger.
I don’t think he is a coward to face reality.
I think that he is simply unable to grasp reality so he has to invent some stories to convince himself so it sounds logical and all is ok.
People are very afraid when they get confronted with stuff they do not understand. They are afraid that they lose control and start to panic. Inventing fictions stories that makes it more understandable does help to reduce their fear of the unknown.
My experiences is that the more they read the bible the more they try to convince themselves that they are right. It is like trying to read a book even more when you know that there is a big bear next to you about to eat you. You hide in the book because if you do not see the bear then you think you are safe.
But there is more to it. Imagine that you stayed virgin until you married at 35!
Imagine that you have lived a life devoted to religion and then comes an atheist along that tells you that everything you did was pointless and you have wasted your only life you had on nonsense. You might have had the pleasure of sex for so many years, you might have enjoyed sleeping out on Sundays for so many years and you feel cheated that you wasted so much of your life pointless.
So again what they will do is create fictive stories, reading the bible in searching for some arguments to support that their life is not wasted. It is not by convincing others it is by convincing themselves that they did not waste their only life.
Have you ever wondered why it is if you take 100 fanatic religious people that all of them have a different interpretation of the bible? There is no consistency in their explanation, all proving that statistically their believes are just random noise and cancel each other out.
Hey Hindu religion might be the one true religion but the story about jezus is just a story.
It never happened.
“Imagine that you have lived a life devoted to religion and then comes an atheist along that tells you that everything you did was pointless and you have wasted your only life you had on nonsense.”
This is probably one of the biggest reasons people cling to, and even struggle to justify, their belief in religion. Once you have a lot invested in something, it’s hard to let it go, especially if you have to admit you were totally wrong. I’m not the kind of person who ever had a hard time admitting I was wrong. I’m curious and I’m happy to change my views if new evidence (new to me) is presented that makes more sense, or explains something better. Many people are too egotistical to do that. Shame, really.
There’s also the whole thing about loyalty. I read a few parts of the series on Camels With Hammers about the disambiguation of faith, and it really shines a spotlight on that aspect of the acceptance of religion. I highly recommend it.
Is there any particular reason you and/or your God feel the need to threaten people with doom unless they believe in him? Are threats supposed to make people worship him? That might have worked with ancient goat-herders in the Levant, but is it really necessary or useful today? Are you really so juvenile in your thinking that you can find no other way to get your point across?
No threatening whatsoever, actually quite the opposite. I said I would be there for you when your own wayward ways have brought you to a most undesirable destination, when the stuff has finally hit the fan. In spite of the name calling, the false accusations, the hatred, I will love you as I do now and God will love you because that is who He is, Love.
But unfortunately we often don’t care to listen, to change our minds and agree with the Truth Himself until we have suffered the consequences of our disobediance. That’s our (fallen) human nature, its inevitable that we learn the hard way. There’s coming a price to pay, not because God wants to harm you or cause you to suffer but rather as a mere consequence of our doing things our own way for so very long. In that day, His ear will be open to the cry’s of your hearts, just as He is now. He’s the perfect Father, He is love.
So all-powerfull god don’t want to, but has to punish us?
John C, thanks for your words; I will save a cold beer for you if you are sent to the not-so-cool volcanoe
All hail His Noddliness!
Re: “No threatening whatsoever, actually quite the opposite.” Wrong. It IS a threat. A threat of doom is … well … a threat of doom. It’s disingenuous for you to threaten doom and then claim it’s not a threat. It is. Admit it.
Re: “I said I would be there for you when your own wayward ways have brought you to a most undesirable destination, when the stuff has finally hit the fan.”
Interesting. You follow up your claim that your threat of doom is not a threat, by alluding to the threat of doom once again (“undesirable destination”). Thus you compound your own disingenuity. How nice.
Re: “But unfortunately we often don’t care to listen, to change our minds and agree with the Truth Himself until we have suffered the consequences of our disobediance.”
Who’s “we”? You can’t legitimately speak for me or anyone else.
Re: “That’s our (fallen) human nature, its inevitable that we learn the hard way.”
Where, exactly, did our “(fallen) human nature” come from? None of us made ourselves so we cannot have made our “fallen nature.” Someone else made us that way. Who was that? It can only have been your God. He makes us with a “fallen nature,” then condemns us for having “fallen,” and cooks up a ridiculous scheme to save us from having “fallen” which requires faith in something that’s indetectable and nonsensical … in addition to the outright nonsense of having created humans in a “fallen” state and condemning them for having “fallen.”
What part of this scenario is supposed to be attractive to any rational person? Your God really needs to work on his people skills. Maybe someday you could pass up a copy of How to Win Friends and Influence People. I’m pretty sure that “threatening eternal doom” is not one of them.
Re: “There’s coming a price to pay, not because God wants to harm you or cause you to suffer but rather as a mere consequence of our doing things our own way for so very long.”
By “price to pay” you again allude to the threat of doom that you say you didn’t threaten, but do, and alluded to before in addition. That’s twice you’ve compounded your own disingenuity. As for “doing things our way for so long,” humans can only have done that, because your own God permitted it. Perhaps it’s time for him to hold himself accountable for what he has done instead of threatening doom to the humans who are the victims of his wicked scheme?
Re: “In that day, His ear will be open to the cry’s of your hearts, just as He is now. He’s the perfect Father, He is love.”
Let me get this straight. He made humans in a “fallen” state, condemns them for being “fallen,” will send at least some of them to their doom because of that condemnation, then will listen on to “the cry of [their] hearts,” as an expression of his love?
WTF? Are you serious? That makes no sense whatever. If anything it’s pathological.
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There’s a very simple reason why these Christians think of themselves as “persecuted” even if it’s totally ridiculous for them to think so and there is no objective evidence supporting any such notion.
And that reason is, that they want to feel as though they’re being attacked for their faith. After all, the founder of their religion was “persecuted” for being who he was. What better way, then, can a Christian find to express his/her Christianity, than by claiming to be “persecuted” just as Jesus himself had been?
Of course this is a perverse and masochistic kind of thinking, one that inevitably leads to delusion (i.e. seeing “persecution” where it doesn’t exist merely because one wishes to feel persecuted). But it also lies at the very heart of everything they believe. Their own Bible contains examples of people who view affliction as a good thing (e.g. 2 Cor 12:7-10). They have legends about how their apostles were killed for their faith. They have writings from apostolic fathers like Ignatius of Antioch expressing joy at their imminent deaths for Christianity’s sake. They honor martyrs above all other types of Christians as “ideal” in nature. (The RC Church, for example, has a complex process of beatification and canonization of saints … but if one happens to be martyred, most of that long procedure is leapt over; martyrdom is considered an “automatic pass” to Heaven.)
There is, in short, a kind of psychopathology inherent in Christianity that makes them want to be “persecuted” even when they aren’t. Otherwise they feel unchallenged. Honestly, this tendency is so deep in Christianity that I doubt it can ever be expunged.
I live in an area of a few small towns with a total population of about 30,000 people. I checked the yellow pages for listings of churches and found one hundred and thirty six. That’s approximately one church for every 220 people in my area. So let’s just extend that to the roughly 300 million people in this country (I know this is in no way scientific). That makes for around 1.3 million churches. If we spent the money being tithed to those churches directly for feeding, clothing, sheltering and providing basic medical care for underpriveleged american citizens, imagine what an impact we could have. Sadly, the constant groveling at the feet of an invisible sky god is more important than the suffering of millions of human beings who live among us.
No such thing as a “sky God”, at least not in Christianity, that is not what Christ modeled rather quite the opposite.
Your god had a home, and it was in a temple on top of a hill like all the other cultic gods in that area of the world. He liked freshly slaughtered animals to be burned outside his temple, the same as the rest of them.
No, no, no, Aor: that was totally not God. That was…well, ok, it was God, but kinda like God 1.0. God 2.0 (not necessarily with the Service Pack update) is way cooler. That is, until God 3.0, which is a lot like Windows ME: supposedly way, WAY better, but just a big old flop that screws up the user’s life (in Bible talk, we call that “the Book of Revelation).
Hm, I suppose the Second Coming would be God 2.0 SP1. A service pack that makes up for all the promises which the over-hyped, initial God 2.0 release couldn’t deliver.
Repent, sinners! Technology is the only true God (but only until the 2003 upgrades).
So speaketh the Geek Orthodox Church.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/08/AR2008080800979.html
Hey, I found some scripture that indicates you are correct:
“If those who lead you say to you, “Look, the Kingdom is in the sky,” the the birds will get there first. If they say “It is in the ocean,” then the fish will get there first. But the Kingdom of God is within you and outside of you. Once you come to know yourselves, you will become known. And you will know that it is you who are the children of the living Father.”
Jesus
Source: Gospel of Thomas
As such, I should amend my statement and will do so now:
Sadly, the constant groveling at the feet of an invisible everywhere god is more important than the suffering of millions of human beings who live among us.
Apparently, sucking up to him is more important than working to end the suffering of other people. Your “god” may be everywhere, but he’s a selfish, immoral everywhere jerk (the first 4 of 10 commandments are all about him and contain not a shred of useful information or moral guidance). If he were loving and just, as is claimed extensively, then he’d want to see every church in the world turned into houses for poor people, or schools, or hospitals, or anything but a place for ignorant, solipsistic dolts to congregate for the sole purpose of achieving maximum stupidity, arrogance and hypocrisy.
To be fair, you can’t really judge God by the behavior of his followers (at least under the premise that God is not a human invention).
Neither do you need to. Go to the source instead. The Bible is chock-full of descriptions of God behaving immorally and in despicable ways.
I agree. That would be unfair. That’s why I didn’t do it. The reference to his apparent selfishness and immorality comes straight out of the bible. As one piece of evidence I pointed to the ten commandments, but the bible is replete with examples of god’s immorality, or at least a subjective morality, which is the polar opposite of what christians claim. Ask any christian and they’ll happily tell you that god is the source of objective morality. This claim is patently false. God doesn’t even adhere to any consistent moral code. One minute it’s “thou shalt not murder” and the next he kills everyone on the planet (including all the animals?).
I don’t need to blame his followers for his immorality. He does a fine job making the case all on his own.
My mistake then.
The concept of morality is a fallacy. God is not “moral” and neither are we. Morality implies a choice, an either or, a good or an evil. This is a duality in natures as opposed to a single nature, a singleness of heart. Religion is not what He offers, not His true message but rather a change of nature within…His.
There is more to this Christ than you (currently) know.
How does God being of a single nature make him unable to choose his actions and hence his level of conformity to basic standards of behavior (ie. morality)?
Well, on the evidence, he certainly isn’t a moral being. Either that or he has the moral standards of, say, Idi Amin … or possibly Rush Limbaugh.
I think Christians in particular feel persecuted because of the way democracy works. They are a minority de facto because they rely on the majority agreement of citizens to place people in government who will legislate according to their religious beliefs rather than the will of the people, or rather those two things would be the same thing.
We had a close call with P. Bush, and we still have some senators and congresspeople who will take their representation of fundamental Christians and vote this way, but the reliance of checks and balances to prevent unjust laws from passing, things like house and senate majority and veto power, keep the country from enacting total ignorance to favorably represent the religious fundamental beliefs of a thankful minority of its total constituents.
The mere existence of a few scant indications that our founding fathers were Christians is enough for many to think this is holding back the original intentions, i.e. persecuting the citizens and suppressing the destiny of a god-favored nation. Songs like “God Bless America” written by a Jewish immigrant and appropriated as an alternative to the National Anthem of late do not help matters of distinguishing reality from a song that evokes even manly tears at good old American sporting events regularly, much less monument dedications and Remembrance observations – the lyrics of that song might as well be an addendum to the bible now.
Just the other day, I saw a vandalization of the door of a local convenience store by way of a red sticker the size of an address label at eye level, that stated (I paraphrase) that as long as abortion exists, god will stop blessing the USA. Not only did it provide contact information and probably a web site where one could find more info and/or purchase these stickers by the roll, the sticker itself, which I attempted to peel off with my thumbnail (way too adhesive; next time I will bring a razor, is that what they want?), expressed how many stickers were on the roll – how prolific this vandal attempts to be with this message. I must re-emphasize that I live in Boston which seems a lot more liberal and secular than stories I hear from you all about other areas of the country, but that I live in a neighborhood of a primary mix of college students and Jews, which is where I saw the sticker. I’ve rarely or even never seen anything so paranoid religious crazy here, outside the occasional subway Jesus nut.
I mean, for all the jackass behavior, some people really consider the state of the union as a direct expression that may appease god or prevent us as a whole from receiving his approval, and as long as laws exist that are in direct contradiction with what religious people believe god wants, he will give up on the whole piece of land and everyone who lives here. If god existed, this prospect sounds very scary, but I imagine this is where persecution complex comes from, and not that they are at all the minority or that they are broken up into variations of Christianity who all feel separately in the minority from one another.
In my experience, I get the feeling that most people are more glad about diversity and culture and interested to find out what religion one is – as long as you have a belief in some supernatural, it almost seems like it doesn’t matter which one. I think a lot of people are familiar with the experience of feeling uncomfortable with the religion they were brought up in and migrate to a more comfortable one that “feels like” it is what god would actually want – the cherry-picking Christian, the lapsed Catholic neo-Pagan, the vaguely C&E-Christian marriage-converted Fundie, etc., including seeking other faiths entirely like Kabbalah or Buddhism or Islam. A lot of these people just can’t believe you don’t believe in god at all when they hear it, it scares them that you’re not tied into some brand of spirituality, even if it differs significantly, which is both of interest and somewhat of a relief to them. In that way, atheism is still quite the minority.
With respect to all religions that most of us have grown up learning about and accepting – despite poor acceptance of Jews in some places or ignitable fear of Muslims or Hindus that look like Muslims or black people with names like some Muslims for example, I tend to think people mostly enjoy their freedom of worship and accept the diversity of worship that entails, except when it comes to atheists.
It’s really only Christians in the US, and I can hardly think it’s all of them, who actively seek to alter the whole government to reflect their worship as the standard of patriotism due to the belief that god blesses the nation itself and not individuals, and the fear that god could rescind this blessing at any time if he doesn’t like our laws and the way we make them.