Reply #338: If you want to be treated like shit, try pretending your an atheist. [View All]

I'm sorry, but you really have no idea what's it's like.

I don't think that there are too many Christians who have to go home and teach their children how to conceal their religious preference - as I do. I'm deathly afraid that people in my community will learn of our atheism; I'm not free to discuss my atheism at my job; and I very much feel the weight of a theocracy pressing heavily on my head. My kid's science education is in danger. (And shit, I live in fucking New Jersey.)

I do realize that there are some Christians who are basically decent, but please don't tell me that Christians are somehow oppressed. They are not. They dominate everything in this country and they are very much shoving their views down our throats under the color of simply wanting respect.

Indeed, if you look at the opening post of this thread, it demands an acknowledgement of Jesus's good traits. That completely discounts and minimizes the possibility that someone thinks there is no Jesus. It, in fact, treats us with contempt and dismisses our our point of view as not even being worthy of consideration. For me it is much the same as demanding that I not hate Zeus, or Buddha or Baal. These myths may or may not have redeeming value, and they may or may not teach concepts of cultural importance, but everytime I hear from a Christian, and this thread is no exception, some remark about acknowledging Christian "rights," it is coupled with some remarks about the value of Jesus and the life of Jesus.

Now I don't care what people believe in or what they don't believe in. And I don't necessarily hate things in which I don't believe but others do. But, as an American, I am rather fond of the clause in our constitution that says "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion." That clause is quickly becoming as meaningless as the old Soviet constitution was. We have "one nation under God;" we have "In God We Trust," and now cabinet meetings run like tent revival meetings.

I come back to my original question. Why is it that Christians are so loathe to simply "turn the other cheek" as they preach? Why is it that they need some acknowledgement of us? What do they want from me? They have already stripped me of my parental rights, my dignity, my freedom and my right to be left alone.