Ship of Fools: Atheism USA

Thread: Atheism USA Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Snags (# 15351) on :

Is this article about atheists having a hard time in the USA accurate, or only in small town America, or total bollocks?

From this side of the pond it seems utterly ridiculous, where you're more likely to get social shit for being Christian than for not, but I know you lot are a bit weird over there [Biased]

It also doesn't chime with the literary and movie output which has seemed at best ambivalent if not actively antagonistic to Christianity for most of my life.

I appreciate church-going is a bigger thing in the US, and that there's a higher level of nominal and (IMHO) somewhat messed-up Christianity-that-isnt-really (and yes, we have that too in different forms), but is it really still that parochial?

Apologies if I've stuffed up the code, going from memory on the phone.

Posted by Galloping Granny (# 13814) on :

If you deleted the word 'atheist' and substituted 'gay' all the way through it would sound very familiar. It's not a prolonged piece of irony, is it? Especially the bit about bible camps 'where they're forced to be religious'.

GG

Posted by Bob Two-Owls (# 9680) on :

An American guy I used to work with sent his young teenage son to Bible Camp at every opportunity so he didn't "grow up wrong" as in become an atheist. He publicly bragged that he would disown his son if he turned against God and when it happened he did just that. So was this guy just some relic from a particularly fundie part of the USA? A lot of what I am hearing suggests that such attitudes are just under the surface in many parts of the USA. It is difficult to judge the situation when you mainly hear from those who have been the victims of prejudice or abuse though.

Posted by seekingsister (# 17707) on :

In my part of the US religion is a market of ethnicity more than faith. Catholic = Italian/Irish, Episcopalian/Presbyterian = British-origin WASP, Orthodox = Eastern European, etc. Being Jewish was also mostly cultural where I grew up. So going around saying you are an atheist would really be more of an affront to one's family origins or community.

I know some people from small town southern US and according to them anyone who is a religious minority has a hard time. This includes Catholics, Jews, Muslims, along with atheists.

Posted by Net Spinster (# 16058) on :

Around where I am, liberal university town, little trouble. However it is noteworthy that no one in the US Congress admits to being an atheist or humanist (the only one in recent history that did lost his election but that may have been incidental). The UK Parliament has the All Party Parliamentary Humanist Group with about 100 members from all the major parties (20 of which definitely have to put their names down for the group to exist). This is not to say there aren't atheists in Congress; a few refuse to answer, one put down none but refuses to call herself an atheist/non-theist, and a few religions are as much ethnic as religious labels (e.g., Jewish). see Pew Forum info

Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Snags:
there's a higher level of nominal and (IMHO) somewhat messed-up Christianity-that-isnt-really

This, especially. There's even a kind of talk-radio hate-machine thing going on in the name of fighting all them there godless people including gays, people who believe in evolution, etc. A lot of people here pretty much equate Christianity with extreme right-wing politics. [Frown]

Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on :

I have to say everything in that article is completely alien to me. Even when I lived in a small conservative town in Texas I knew quite a few kids who were openly atheist. Christian was certainly the default, and maybe it's possible kids didn't tell their parents, but some of them were completely casual about it, so I imagine that the N and A whose dad was a methodist youth leader had told their dad. And C seemed to have many friends though she and her family never pretended to have religion. So no, I don't get it.

Posted by ToujoursDan (# 10578) on :

I doubt that it's much of a problem in the larger coastal cities. Most of the people I work with are atheists.

In the Bible Belt and some of the fly-over states it's probably a different story. I lived in Dallas as recently as 10 years ago and worked at a large professional firm. I had an a co-worker who was open but not aggressive about his atheism. There was certainly talk about it, though I don't think it hurt his career.

Posted by Jon in the Nati (# 15849) on :

It depends really on where you are, and the circles you run in. Higher education is, for the most part, very secular. If you are in academia, as Wife in the Nati is, professing any religion at all (and Christianity in particular) tends to be a bit awkward. When I was in law school, religion was generally treated as a sort of benign personality quirk; among my old friends from school, almost no one is religious. And since my current posting is in a large, moderate-to-liberal Midwestern city, I find most people are generally non-religious, though not necessarily hostile to it.

So in these circles, professing a religion is at best a pretty neutral thing. Certainly my experience is not universal, and there may be rural portions of the South and Great Plains where being irreligious might put one at a social disadvantage.

Posted by Net Spinster (# 16058) on :

Hemant Mehta has a discussion on
the article including one of the many errors he found.

Posted by Horseman Bree (# 5290) on :

As hinted at upthread, professing "no belief" or even agnosticism would probably be the end of a political career in many states of the US, sort of like being gay would have been a generation ago.

Once people realise that they actually know a lot of non-religious people, the dam(n?) will break and the "nones" will become more acceptable than the religious, just like in most developed countries.

It is obvious in hindsight that the RINOs (Religious In Name Only) was quite large in the UK in, say, 1950, or Quebec in 1960, given the near-total collapse in church attendance since then.

Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Horseman Bree:
As hinted at upthread, professing "no belief" or even agnosticism would probably be the end of a political career in many states of the US, sort of like being gay would have been a generation ago.

"Many"? Given the complete absence of open non-believers in Congress it seems more like "all states". If it were acceptable in big cities or college towns, you'd think at least one would have made it through the electoral process. Which brings me to something JitN posted:

quote:
Originally posted by Jon in the Nati:
When I was in law school, religion was generally treated as a sort of benign personality quirk; among my old friends from school, almost no one is religious.

Interestingly, the professional background most strongly represented in Congress is law, so we're forced to conclude that either religious belief is more common in the legal profession than JitN supposes, or that any lawyer standing for elected office (or hoping to be appointed to the bench) has to 'closet' their non-belief.

Posted by Jon in the Nati (# 15849) on :

A possibility, Croesos. Of course, I'm quite a bit younger than most members of Congress; I graduated from law school (a relatively conservative one, by my reckoning) in 2003. Law is a rather conservative profession in a lot of ways, but it has followed the same general trajectory of the rest of the nation in becoming more secular.

I do actually think that there are a number of candidates for office who play up a tenuous or nominal religious affiliation if they feel it would help them in an election. I'm not sure this is "closet[ing] their non-belief"; but it is an easy enough thing to do that doesn't cost you much politically and might gain with some people.

Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jon in the Nati:
I do actually think that there are a number of candidates for office who play up a tenuous or nominal religious affiliation if they feel it would help them in an election. I'm not sure this is "closet[ing] their non-belief"; but it is an easy enough thing to do that doesn't cost you much politically and might gain with some people.

That seems rather like a man saying "Yes, I'm frequently seen in public with a woman I let most people assume is my wife, but I don't think that's "closeting my homosexuality"."

Posted by Jon in the Nati (# 15849) on :

As you wish.

Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ChastMastr:

quote:
Originally posted by Snags:
there's a higher level of nominal and (IMHO) somewhat messed-up Christianity-that-isnt-really
This, especially. There's even a kind of talk-radio hate-machine thing going on in the name of fighting all them there godless people including gays, people who believe in evolution, etc.

I sincerely hope these folk haven't got a finger any where near the friggin Button .

Posted by Carex (# 9643) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Snags:

... is it really still that parochial?

It can be, in some locations and for some people. I wouldn't say that it is typical for much of the population, however, especially in urban areas.

There are small towns where people have been harassed for not attending the local church. In one case, a woman reported that she was snubbed at the local businesses and a group gathered in front of her house every day to "pray for her" because she chose to worship somewhere else.

I've certainly run across businesses, clubs, and other groups that explicitly assumed everyone who mattered was Christian. True, the instances of corporate Christian prayer have diminished over the years, but it isn't uncommon to see the fish symbol incorporated into signs or business cards to indicate that a business is explicitly Christian.

It must be difficult for those who aren't in the middle of it to understand just how pervasive the "Religious Right vs. Rest of the World" dichotomy plays out in parts of the US. Debates over school text books in Texas, health clinics at schools, business permits, selling alcohol (especially on Sunday), internet access, home schooling requirements and sports schedules (not to mention politics and a whole host of Dead Horse issues)can all become battles over to what extent someone's interpretation of proper Biblical behavior should be enforced on the population as a whole.

Actually, this might not be so obvious in conservative areas such as the Bible Belt, where it isn't likely to be questioned as much, and in liberal urban areas there may still be demands for Christian laws, but they are not as likely to be passed. It is perhaps easiest to see in those historically conservative areas that are approaching parity due to recent growth or immigration from nearby urban areas.

An example: the County Commissioners had a grant lined up to provide a health clinic at a high school (age 14 - 18) in the most economically depressed part of the county where many children had no access to regular medical care. This would not have cost the County anything - the grant covered 100% of the cost. But a coalition of 14 local churches campaigned against it because, under state law, the nurses would provide medical information about contraception to those teens who asked about it. So the Commissioners (some of whom attended the churches involved) refused to accept the grant.

In an environment where religion can be so polarizing, it isn't surprising that some students are unwilling to admit to their parents that they don't accept the religion that they grew up with. (Especially if their parents are helping to pay for college, and might refuse to do so if it appears to be corrupting their child.) Many kids from religious families either just stop attending church, or attend more out of a sense of duty or for social reasons, rather than joining an atheist group. But among the people I know, it wasn't that college turned them into atheists, but rather that church was simply something that their parents dragged them along to, but they weren't actually engaged with. So college (and being away from their parents) simply gave them the opportunity to act on their existing beliefs rather than giving them new ones.

Posted by Dave W. (# 8765) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Snags:
Is this article about atheists having a hard time in the USA accurate, or only in small town America, or total bollocks?

Columbus, Ohio, isn't a small town - it's the 15th largest city in the US (pop. 823,000).

I wouldn't be surprised if Ohio represented the middle of the spectrum of attitudes in the US; it's often considered a swing state, and is almost exactly in the middle of this Gallup ranking of states by conservatism.

The attitudes certainly aren't universal; I've never heard such hostility expressed at school or work, though admittedly the subject doesn't come up much (and I live in Massachusetts, the 2nd most liberal state in that ranking.)

Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :

quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
I sincerely hope these folk haven't got a finger any where near the friggin Button .

We saw what happened there with GWB. We, and the rest of the world, are still recovering. [Frown]

Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jon in the Nati:
It depends really on where you are, and the circles you run in. Higher education is, for the most part, very secular. If you are in academia, as Wife in the Nati is, professing any religion at all (and Christianity in particular) tends to be a bit awkward. When I was in law school, religion was generally treated as a sort of benign personality quirk; among my old friends from school, almost no one is religious.

As you say, though, this varies by location. I'm familiar with faculty and administration dynamics at a number of nearby (so Southern) public and private universities, and while they may have a larger share of non-religious than they general population, there typically isn't anything awkward about being religious—unless one is also very conservative or fundamentalist. Ditto law schools. (I am a lawyer.)

Posted by Horseman Bree (# 5290) on :

Carex: So, in the "Land of the Free", where one is explicitly told (in one state) "Live Free or Die", one can be harassed in the attempt to prevent you from attending a different church?

And that isn't anywhere near being agnostic or atheist.

Does freedom only belong to the oppressors?

Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:

quote:
Originally posted by Jon in the Nati:
It depends really on where you are, and the circles you run in. Higher education is, for the most part, very secular. If you are in academia, as Wife in the Nati is, professing any religion at all (and Christianity in particular) tends to be a bit awkward. When I was in law school, religion was generally treated as a sort of benign personality quirk; among my old friends from school, almost no one is religious.
As you say, though, this varies by location. I'm familiar with faculty and administration dynamics at a number of nearby (so Southern) public and private universities, and while they may have a larger share of non-religious than they general population, there typically isn't anything awkward about being religious—unless one is also very conservative or fundamentalist. Ditto law schools. (I am a lawyer.)

For some, if you're not "very conservative or fundamentalist" then you're not really and truly religious.

Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
For some, if you're not "very conservative or fundamentalist" then you're not really and truly religious.

Very true. But I haven't found many such people in academia around here, except at sectarian schools.

[ 05. August 2014, 00:14: Message edited by: Nick Tamen ]

Posted by Net Spinster (# 16058) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.:

quote:
Originally posted by Snags:
Is this article about atheists having a hard time in the USA accurate, or only in small town America, or total bollocks?
Columbus, Ohio, isn't a small town - it's the 15th largest city in the US (pop. 823,000).

However it was a conference of the Secular Student Alliance so had college aged students from across the US. Students sometimes overestimate what their parents' reactions will be but there are a few recent stories of parents disowning their children for atheism (e.g., Damon Fowler) to justify a bit of worry. Add in youth organizations such as the Boy Scouts of America teaching that no one "can grow into the best kind of citizen without recognizing an obligation to God" (and the Girl Scouts get quite a bit of flack for allowing atheistic and LGBT youth and adults).

My local university, Stanford, has three Deans for Religious Life (a Christian Unitarian Universalist minister, a rabbi, an Episcopalian priest though the UU is retiring and will be replaced by another Episcopalian priest [Jane Shaw stolen from Grace Cathedral, anyone know her views on atheists?]). Christmas Eve (3 services: non-denominational children, non-denominational adult, Catholic [the university also has two Catholic priests assigned to it]) and Easter services are usually packed (even the sunrise one which requires a mile and a half walk uphill to get to gets 50 or so) but one expects that; however, the Ash Wednesday noon service is also apparently quite full and almost certainly all university affiliates. The High Holy day services apparently get a good turnout also.

Posted by seekingsister (# 17707) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Net Spinster:
My local university, Stanford, has three Deans for Religious Life (a Christian Unitarian Universalist minister, a rabbi, an Episcopalian priest though the UU is retiring and will be replaced by another Episcopalian priest [Jane Shaw stolen from Grace Cathedral, anyone know her views on atheists?]).

Is it Scotty McLennan retiring? Love that guy.

Posted by seekingsister (# 17707) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.:
Columbus, Ohio, isn't a small town - it's the 15th largest city in the US (pop. 823,000).

I thought the same (it's also the home to Ohio State University) but realized it was a national conference with students from other places. I've been to Columbus and it's not a particularly religious city. I've not spent much time in the Midwest but St. Louis in comparison was much more overtly Christian.

Posted by Net Spinster (# 16058) on :

quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:

quote:
Originally posted by Net Spinster:
My local university, Stanford, has three Deans for Religious Life (a Christian Unitarian Universalist minister, a rabbi, an Episcopalian priest though the UU is retiring and will be replaced by another Episcopalian priest [Jane Shaw stolen from Grace Cathedral, anyone know her views on atheists?]).
Is it Scotty McLennan retiring? Love that guy.

Yes, retiring as dean, taking a sabbatical year then teaching ethics, etc. in the Business school. He'll still be a community minister in the local UU church.

Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :

Genuine question, and not denying that atheists have a hard time in the US - surely Muslims have a tougher time, especially Muslims wearing religious clothing? A woman in a hijab can't hide the fact she's a Muslim in the same way an atheist woman can hide her atheism.

Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :

From the outside, the USA comes across as a place where people supposedly move around and reinvent themselves all the time. So if you don't like the religious or social attitudes of your community, you just pack your bags and leave rather than suffer in silence. But maybe it's harder to do so now that the economy has declined and finding a job in a more congenial state isn't guaranteed?

Posted by Carex (# 9643) on :

There are lots of constraints that may restrict one's willingness to move to a different town. Owning property is a big one - in recent years many properties have declined in value below what the owners still owe on them, so it is virtually impossible to sell and move without taking a huge loss (and likely not having enough money left to make a down payment on the next house.)

Wanting to live near family members who need assistance, a specific job location, or a retirement property that you've spent years preparing to meet your needs may also be considerations.

Such instances aren't common, but they do occur. Harassment and discrimination can happen for any reason - and do, even in situations where it is illegal. That's simply a fact of life. In a small town that might only have one store / church / gas station / restaurant (some of which might share the same building) it is easier to discourage PNLUs*.

While there is perhaps more intense hatred of Muslims among certain parts of the population, again that varies a lot from one place to another. I suspect that, in terms of a percentage of occurrences, suspected gays, lesbians, hippies, racial minorities, liberals, druggies, and/or non-Christians (or non-Mormons) still account for the bulk of the incidents, simply because of the much smaller number of Muslims living in such rural areas.

By contrast, I work in a high-tech area. We have women wearing head scarves at work, and I often see them in the shops or walking down the streets. It is possible that they are subjected to occasional shouted insults from passing cars, but I haven't witnessed any such incidents or heard of them locally. But this is a much more urban area, and the situation may be very different in some neighboring counties.

* People Not Like Us

Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Carex:
Harassment and discrimination can happen for any reason - and do, even in situations where it is illegal. That's simply a fact of life. In a small town that might only have one store / church / gas station / restaurant (some of which might share the same building) it is easier to discourage PNLUs*.
[...]

* People Not Like Us

Small homogeneous communities exist all over the world, of course. If you want diversity, tolerance and people who mind their own business, you probably do need to move away, if at all possible.

Posted by saysay (# 6645) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Genuine question, and not denying that atheists have a hard time in the US - surely Muslims have a tougher time, especially Muslims wearing religious clothing? A woman in a hijab can't hide the fact she's a Muslim in the same way an atheist woman can hide her atheism.

You know that joke about the US and UK being two nations separated by a common language? A similar thing holds true for the US. People within the US (particularly those who did not go to college) are sometimes using words so differently from one another as to be nearly incomprehensible to one another.

My experience (primarily in the Virginia, West Virginia, DC, Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania area) says that, in fact, Muslim's do have an easier time than atheists, as a lot of people have realized that they have far more in common with anyone who is a serious believer and practices any kind of a religion than they do with the secular humanists (and they count the Unitarian Universalists among the secular humanists, not the religious).

Not that I think that atheists and secular humanists have it particularly bad (and I say that as someone who grew up as a secular humanist in Falwell/Robertson country). The people I know who are afraid to tell their parents are mostly afraid of upsetting their parents (or as one Jewish friend told me - 'I think my mother might just drop dead if I told her I'm an atheist'), not that their parents would punish them or force them to attend Bible camp or anything like that. IME you're less likely to be shunned as a result of revealing a lack of religious belief and more likely to be hounded by people who are trying to convince you to at least try going to their church with them. Which I suppose may constitute its own form of harassment.

The story about the girl in West Virginia is believable to me because it's West Virginia. We haven't even managed to get sex education into every West Virginia school, and the only way to get the curriculum into the school is to include everyone, which generally means including natural family planning as a form of birth control and including the information that people have very different ideas about sexual ethics and it's best to talk to your partner or potential partner about your sexual ethics before sexual activity takes place. Particularly if she's from someone else, trying to get that information removed from the curriculum so the school could teach her moral beliefs about sex and sexuality would have gotten her shunned, because that's what people are afraid is going to happen if they allow sex ed in the schools. Even if she's from West Virginia, that likely would have been seen as a betrayal of her community. And you can't do that in Appalachia. Would people have reacted that way if she had simply stated that she was an atheists? I have my doubts.

ISTM that right-wing talk radio personalities are the Howard Sterns of the right (shock jocks who admit to saying extreme things in the hopes of getting more air time and keeping more people listening longer). So I'm not sure how accurate a picture outsiders can get without putting their boots on the ground.

As usual, YMMV.

Posted by Net Spinster (# 16058) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Genuine question, and not denying that atheists have a hard time in the US - surely Muslims have a tougher time, especially Muslims wearing religious clothing? A woman in a hijab can't hide the fact she's a Muslim in the same way an atheist woman can hide her atheism.

Muslims probably do have a harder time though day to day Sikh men probably have it harder than Muslim men because the former are more likely to wear distinctive headgear and many Americans assume they are Muslim. I note for instance the attempts to stop a mosque in Murfreesboro and a few other places as examples of Muslims having a hard time.

Posted by Alt Wally (# 3245) on :

Aside from the ideological separation of college age children from their parents(which could be over anything including religious children rejecting the beliefs of their non religious parents), I'm not sure what the societal barriers are to atheists beyond some vague notion that people wouldn't vote for them. It certainly isn't in the realms of popular culture, science, technology, finance, higher education just to name a few. I would also guess that atheists or simply non religious people are probably disproportionately to be found among the most economically advantaged portion of our society.

I'm not really seeing what their modus operandi is as a protest group beyond being overtly anti religious as opposed to "pluralistic".

Posted by HughWillRidmee (# 15614) on :

Gallup report on voters' views of acceptable presidential candidates.

I recently spent a month in New England - 12 days or so with relatives from central MA. Before I went I was warned that New England was Boston to the east, Pittsburgh to the west and Alabama in between. There was some evidence to support this - texts on mailboxes etc. but the fact that the relatives are Baptist and have a Missouri background (which may explain the inability to control the need to proselytize - concerned and well-meant as it was), made this a perhaps unrepresentative sample on which to base conclusions.
The rather silly 1976 Moody booklet I was urged to read the agnostic who dared to search - viggo olsen, m.d. didn't help much - searching seemed to amount to believing anything he was told (such as evolution is the devil's work) without attempting to verify any of it independently!

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