Is anyone else an atheist with BC besides me?

jo6359

I don't know if this is relevant. I recently participated in a wedding for my niece. I signed on to Facebook to look at wedding photos. I don't know how it happened but a post came up from my niece's husbands sister. It stated " If you support Trump, God and Country post like. I did not post like. I posted Disagree. I do love my country, warts and all. I was inundated with private messages calling me a ni***r lover, a woman who probably likes OTHER women, and a communist and atheist. It was so tempting to respond but I chose to deactivate my Facebook account. I only wanted to look at wedding pictures. I did not want to engage in tit-for-tat with these individuals. The ironic thing is, the only thing they got right, I am an atheist. When I read these type of personal attacks, I do worry about the future of this country. I apologize for my rambling but I'm not sure if this fits or not.

HikingLady

jo6359 Your FB wedding photo story does sound relevant. I probably wouldn't choose to boycott FB, but I'd do the photo business and then be sure to block certain people's posts, once I saw offensive-to-me language and values.

Atheists are out of the norm--it's kind of assumed in our country that Religious = Good and Not Religious = Probably Bad/Damned to Hell, etc. Identifying As Atheist doesn't feel necessarily safe. There's a lot of religious evangelism, and political fervor which is also kind of evangelistic right now in our country. When we have differing beliefs, do we "engage," or do we stay silent? What's our goal, if we engage? It's not realistic to imagine that we can persuade others to join our beliefs, any more than we'll sit down and listen to theirs. We live in a diverse society with varying viewpoints. Doing that peacefully can be a challenge, for sure....

TB90

Jo: I have no idea how you could deal with that. I am reluctant to say much as I am Canadian, but I am shocked and terrified about the new normal. Wish I could do something as a neighbor who cares deeply for those forced to cope with such craziness. Just need to reinforce that most get it. But our voices are so inferior. What can we do

Wren44

I see posts like that and just ignore them. Sounds like that's a lot safer than disagree. People who can't stand other people having different ideas are scary. It might be wise to be on facebook under a different name after that experience. I'm on it mainly for photos of family and ignore a lot of it. My daughters MIL is a devout Buddhist and posts a lot of photos of temples and celebration meals. It's all in another language so I don't have any idea what the writing means. We are friends on FB and she's a sweetheart in person, so I just cruise on by.

jo6359

the crazy thing about the postings. I met these people at my niece's wedding. A one-time occurrence. No time did we bring up religion or lack of. They made the assumption when I disagreed with their Trump post it meant I wasn't a God-fearing Christian but an atheist communist lesbian. I never cared about Facebook. I only went on Facebook to look at wedding pictures. It felt good to deactivate my account. When any person starts out with name calling they truly aren't interested in a dialogue.

ananda8

Some atheists that I know through social media say it's important to 'come out' because when people know that some of their friends and co-workers are atheists, there will be less prejudice. I understand their POV but I live in one of the most religious states in the country and I don't think I would be able to get workers like plumbers to come to my house if it was known I was atheist.  I am fairly certain that at least two of my nieces would stop me from contact with their children if they knew.  Rural America is still in the 1930's.

 

magiclight

Ananda...your experience shows that being silenced is never a positive experience. When you mentioned that you would be prevented from contacting children I wondered if the adults think atheism is catching? Clearly religiosity is not, as you have been inundated with it in your life and did not catch it.

Let me add that there is a difference between owning one's own beliefs and forcing them on others. In our current national phase, religions are trying to force their beliefs, through legislation, on non-believers.

SoCalLisa

i just say I am a non-theist. That confuses them.

ananda8

The people I am speaking about would be concerned that I would try to recruit their children to atheism because they would try to convert atheist children into religion.  Of course, I never would try to undermine the faith of any child. Frankly, I don't think faith can be undermined since it is an emotion and logic would not have much affect.  

SoCalLisa, I'm not asked about religion. In my area everyone assumes that everyone they meet is Christian and religious. In 17 years here I was only asked once what denomination I belonged to. I merely said I wasn't religious.  The one who asked assumed that I still believed in a Christian god.

Kjchico

I am Jewish. More culturally than religiously. I'm unsure of my belief in God. I rarely pray and only when something is dire. When people offer me prayers, I appreciate it, but pretty much ignore it. I don't offer prayers because it would bemeaningless.

I am in limbo medically at this time. Was diagnosed almost a month ago. I have my MRI next week and then meet with the radation oncologist two days later and then the medical oncologist the week after that. Finally I meet with the surgeon at the end of the month. Have no idea what treatment they will recommend. Or even when my surgery will be.

I guess if I prayed it would be easier for my mind, but I have to be truthful to myself.

ananda8

I found that when my anxiety started to rise, a deep slow breath helped.  

MinusTwo

Yes Ananda - deep breathing and several of the Yoga breathing exercises are very useful.

HikingLady

Kjchico We all empathize. The most helpful support I got was when people who know me well told me that I'd find the inner strength to get through everything. I did, by focusing on just one thing at a time, one day at a time. You are stronger than you realize, was basically what people said to me. They were not minimizing how horrendous and traumatizing this is, but saying it to help me believe in myself, in my inner wisdom and tools to manage it all. You will find your external support and your inner strength. This whole forum is rich with shared experiences and perspectives, and it has helped me figure out my way through the labyrinth.

magiclight

kjc...You are not alone. I see that you are new to BC.org and there are many other threads on this BC site that you might find useful as you wait and wonder and that avoid the platitudes so prevalent in the non BC community. Glad you found us.

magiclight

Ananda...thanks for the reminder about staying strong.

ananda8

😊

AliceBastable

The most useful advice was something I found right here on breastcancer.org; I can't remember who posted it: "You don't have to be brave, you just have to show up."

jo6359

alice- it is so true. You have to show up.

magiclight

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY

SoCalLisa

Hard to believe that they are 50, 47 and 45

HAPPY MOTHERS' DAY

Spookiesmom

AliceBastable

Spookiesmom, that is great!

I just dumped a small can of worms onto another thread. Some newbie was praying like mad that she doesn't have cancer. I asked if that means the ones who have it aren't sufficiently religious. The back-pedaling has started! Also the clueless "but that's not what I mean by praying."

ananda8

Dump this next.  Matthew 6: 5

Prayer

⁵ “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. ⁶ But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. ⁷ And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. ⁸ Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

magiclight

Ananda...I'm going with you and Bertrand Russell re: reason/ authority/trouble.

AliceBastable

Well, I got chased away from the other thread and told to stay here. I asked why we're relegated to one thread when there are so many with prayers or for other religious thoughts. Apparently they don't like to be questioned. So it's back in the non-believers closet for us! 😈

HikingLady

AliceBastable "Apparently they don't like to be questioned" is probably always the case.

ananda8

I'm just glad we have this thread.  I don't think there are more threads for and by atheists because of two reasons.  There aren't many of us.  Any thread for and by atheists runs into the problem that unlike religion, we don't really have a dogma to unite us and talk about.  We don't even have nonsense phrases in common such as 'thoughts and prayers'.  What we do have in common is reason and philosophers like Bertrand Russell, Epicurus, Denis Diderot, Rebecca Goldstein and Walt Whitman. We don't even talk much about why we are non believers.  We don't talk about politics because that topic is well covered on another thread.

HikingLady

ananda8 that is Venn brilliance.

I agree--we have to stay in the closet. There's a lot of zero tolerance for Not My Bubble going around, and I guess I have to plead guilty! In my quests and journeys through life, the more science I learned, the less I could accept any version of religion.

I'm doing fine "believing in" physics, neuroscience, astronomy, evolutionary biology, philosophy of secular humanists.

My own childhood religious upbringing (liberal Episcopal church) treated and interpreted all Biblical stories as inspired metaphors, not as literal facts. Eventually, I couldn't logically accept any more fairy tales.

AliceBastable

That is the most awesome Venn diagram!

I'm trying to come up with a (mostly 😈) non-offensive alternative to "thoughts and prayers." "Science and steady hands?" That would work for upcoming surgeries. For a generic one, how about "rationality and compassion?"

In the thread that I got pushed out of (although there were some nice defenders of the lack of faith), I saw a lot of the bias that would not be acceptable if it involved race, ethnicity, or sexual identity. I guess we're one of the last groups that it's okay to scorn - even if we aren't really a group.

ananda8

There's always...