As an Aussie living in a mainly secular country I'm amazed and disheartened by the stories from Americans who have to hide their secularism and who are discriminated against because of it. It's difficult to accept a first world country with third world beliefs. To all you poor buggers, hang in there and keep fighting for your independence, we feel for you.
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This Country was founded as a secular Country. Then things got screwed up when we let the religious nutters into the Government. We are trying to fix that, so please don't lose hope for us.
Redheadedgammy
Level 9
Jan 30, 2020
8
I guess being a nation founded by criminals has it's good points. The US has always had a "holier than thou" attitude, very tribal. Truth is, as recent politics have shown, religion is really just a catch-all for small minded people. I mean, really, who could be farther from religion than Trump?
clarkatticus
Level 7
Jan 31, 2020
10
But Trump and his VP evangelical Pence act like this is a Christian country and needs to be even more Christian. Most people in the USA believe in the separation of church and state, but not all. I have talked to Christians here that do not believe in the separation of church and state. I think anybody in this country that doesn't believe in SoCS should get out.
@Grecio I've heard many Christians say that we are a Christian Nation built on Christian Principles, and if anyone doesn't like it they can move to the Middle East...which is ironic given that those countries are Theocracies which is something we are fighting against happening here. Jesus, you'd think it would be the other way around! And I always reply that we have history that shows us how dangerous that would be.
@Grecio I think the "Christian nation" is more of a cover, like sticking a Hustler magazine between the cover of a Home and Garden magazine. Sure, on the outside it looks clean cut but we all know there's a bunch of dicks, cunts and assholes inside.
@clarkatticus While 75% of Americans profess to be Christians, this country was not founded on so-called Judea-Christians beliefs. Thus, separation of church and state, among others. Thomas Jefferson was a devout atheist.
It would be impossible to prove, but I am willing to bet at least 1/2 of all Christians do not believe in Adam & Eve, Noah, and lots of other Old Testament myths.
The Christians would be better off to drop using the Old Testament. The OT is Jewish. Christians aren't Jews. In fact, the whole world would be better off if Christians dropped the Old Testament.
@clarkatticus that has to be true as confirmed by some Americans in SA. They say he cares two hoots about religion or belief in god. ...that it's a plot to draw the flock and keep the votes coming in. eg god wins, god bless (kkk) America.
@Grecio Jefferson was a Christian, he even wrote what he felt to be a better version of the bible. Used its verses to accommodate his failings, he did not have the strength of his own convictions. At the time, even our Christian forefathers understood the dangers of religion in government-all kings derived their power from appointment of God so that their power was the word of god in law. The wars in Europe all stemmed from religion up to that time.
What I have learned while on this site is, just how failed and broken the US education system must be. Sometimes seeing levels of ignorance expressed, (Not by members generally but in the postings.) that it should be a shame for any government in the 21st century to admit to allowing. Everyone should have the right to an education which at least provides a basic understanding of the world within which they live.
Sadly you have to wonder where the next generation of educators are to come from, when you produce an uneducated generation this time, it becomes a task of trying to lift yourself by your own shoe laces. And doubly sadly, I suspect that the failing is spreading to other countries like the UK too.
Fernapple
Level 9
Jan 30, 2020
7
That's just brainwashing. The public school system is a scam. Studies done in the 1980s showed that when children were taught by one teacher per five students, students were able to advance a grade every two weeks, only working two hours a day! When I was homeschooling my kids, once they learned phonics, at two years old, they were off reading on their own, checking out 200 books every two weeks from the country library, then when they read them all, moved on to the University of Morehead library, then finally, I had to drive them to the vast U.K. library system to get the books they wanted.
@birdingnut wow, what a great job you have done with your kids education! I think public schools have drastically gone downhill since I was in school in the 60s and 70s. If I had children now I would definitely homeschool them.
@birdingnut I found the school system a scam in my day, and I don't thiit has improved any, the only real education I ever got was because I was an avid reader myself. And don't get me started on the time wasted on religion at a C of E school.
It is truly weird to live in a nation that touts freedom of religion, but seems to have trouble with the concept of freedom from religion.
alliwant
Level 7
Jan 31, 2020
8
I think Christians want everyone to have the freedom to choose a religion as long as it's the right one...theirs, but not necessarily the freedom FROM religion...especially theirs.
@RhondaShotwell Most people don't want to be witnessed to by Christians, Jehova Witnesses, Mormans, and definitely not by Muslims. Our Country should pass a "Don't ask-don't tell law for religion.
I am a Canadian who lived in Texas for 8 years in the 2000s. I thought that the Bush years were pretty bad. I had hope for the US when Obama was elected and served two terms. I was shocked Trump won the last election. I thought secular liberal ideals would blossom as younger generations became adults. I was wrong. However, it is important to note that there are liberal minded secularists in pockets of the US. Trump as played to the religious and ethnic divides every chance he gets to stir up hatred for the sake of power. I also think he does it for the sake of pure drama as if he is staring on a reality TV show. The show would be a comedy if it was not reality. Trump's character would make a great cartoon villain and he provides plenty of humorous content for the late night talk shows.
rsoulliere
Level 4
Jan 30, 2020
5
We talk about Russia, we talk about election meddling, we talk about fake news of 2016 but don't write enough about Trump's election in 2016 was clearly a backlash against electing a black man for 8 years. The silent white majority decided to stand up and tell us that they did not like it. Not many admit that the was White backlash against a Black President. That is the ugly truth.
With Bernie, there will be another White Backlash against winning a Jewish candidate from the ultra progressive and socialist shit and we will regret that for the next 50 years. We don't have a slightest idea of what we are doing to ourselves.
And right now, we are feeling for you, friend. Hope you're clear of the fire danger.
Shawno1972
Level 7
Feb 1, 2020
6
Thank you for your consideration. It's a whole lot better now as recent rains have cooled things off. My family and friends have returned to their homes after being evacuated but two families have lost everything.
I get less flack as an agnostic than I did as a Pagan. It was standard to be picketed by xtians, and one year in particular, got death threats before an event and had to hire off duty cops for security. I don’t know any Xtian who walks through angry picketers and protestors to attend church. Yet they scream OPPRESSION the loudest. It’s disgusting.
Of course, I’m in the South, where you can’t throw a rock without hitting a church.
CarolinaGirl60
Level 8
Jan 31, 2020
5
@CarolinaGirl60
"where you can’t throw a rock without hitting a church".
@CarolinaGirl60
We have a South Carolina woman in our social get-to-gether group. Such a bubbly person. She uses the word Ya'll. We make jokes about it. Are you from that side too
@TimeOutForMe I am one state south of South Carolina. We sit on the porch and rock most of the day. In our southern half of the state, we have these pesky black gnats that are always trying to fly in your ears and eyes. We have found that if one will cut a hole in the seat of his/her pants, then the gnats will stay away from your face.
@Grecio she stayed close to the Appalachian border, I think I heard her saying once.
@TimeOutForMe Yes, I am. I’m from NC, in the southwestern corner, just outside Charlotte. Only 10 miles or so from the South Carolina border. They call us GRITS: Girls Raised In The South. 
I say Ya’ll, ya’lls, ya’ll’s(pronounced ya’lls-es), all ya’ll.
@CarolinaGirl60
Certain groups of Indians in South Africa have the same lingo. It depends on which area in South Africa you're from
@TimeOutForMe And sometimes, there ain’t enough rocks—-Forrest Gump.
@Grecio that's awful.
This entire summer I've had not one fly or mosquito. Ok we don't have gnats here, or at least we don't have in johannesburg. ...born and raised near the coast I saw no creepy crawlies, maybe a garden lizard yes. ...so had to live in city suburbs in johannesburg, not the country side (which is beautiful) because I don't like to be near creepy crawlies.
Yep.
@TimeOutForMe I read some of your bio and you seem very interesting. How do you feel your boys did growing up without religion? Can you explain to me the meaning of "spiritual"? Are you spiritual?
I guess, as agnostics we don't see a reason for life or really for living. I guess there doesn't have to be. But why should we try to live? Are we just biding our time until death? Actually the whole world will die for some reason or another perhaps in the distant future.
I guess most people decide that while we are waiting to die, we should just go with it and enjoy life as much as possible. just saying
@Grecio thanks for reading.
I think I grew up too quickly. I was curious about different religions from an early age. I've been into many different places of worship and checked it out and noticed the differences. I realised very soon this was a farce and to me it was absolute madness. I think in the 70s when a kid thought they knew too much it meant problems at home. ...but I had my head screwed kn more than they realised.
I thought fuck all of this, no-one owns me!!! I thought, the only thing they can do is disown me. At that age I was kinda popular at school and teachers and my friends parents liked me. My mind ran with ideas and i hoped my parents put me out, but they didn't. Anyways I did alright at school, got my grades etc and was kinda just waiting to turn 21 to F off myself. ...and F offed I did to another city. I worked and studied and was doing ok with no stupid religion. I was kinda "ruled" from a distance by my mother, not my father. ...and life went on.
I decided I wasn't going to raise my kids with religion. Both my boys were well-rounded individuals, smart, academic and sports-wise. They did well "without religion in their way". Kids need to be loved, fed and educated. They don't need a religion at all. You don't need a god to know the difference between right and wrong or good and bad. You don't need a god to have a conscience. You don't need a god to show kindness and empathy to fellow human beings. Sometimes teachers would ask questions and my sons would say they don't have a religion. ...strange thing is both my sons were liked by their peers. ...so there! 
Religion divides people. It alienates us from each other. It causes wars and pain and suffering. It's a big lie created to control people, for one person to be enslaved by another. I believe money was created through religion. It was never part of humanity. It measures people up and creates an even bigger divide. Both religion and money was created by the greedy and gave them power of others, that they now refer to as the weak.
Thanks for sharing a pic of yourself and wife. ...that was sweet on your part.
@Grecio i am not spiritual. Those are for fancy people and for those who meditate. I'm an Atheist! No god, no spirituality. F** such $#!?. We have evolved.
@Grecio enjoy life. We have one life. Don't live to wait to die. Life doesn't owe us. LIVE IT AND EMBRACE IT
@TimeOutForMe There are lots of people that don't seem to believe in kindness, fairness, honor, and all those things we call virtues. We must get our morality from somewhere. I think we get some morality from great books written by authors like Milton, Tolstoy, and Shakespeare. There morals in religious books, too as well as Buddhism and Hindu books. I guess infants' minds are born with a blank slate? In the end, the only moral we need is "Do unto others as". This quote did not originate from the Bible but predates it.
I see various animals being kind to each other so the tendency is probably some kind of mammalian instinct.
Do you agree that our consciousness is an illusion? The material brain cannot create a soul. Does anything exist the is not material or real? Humans are basically advanced animals.
@TimeOutForMe I'm atheist and I meditate. I do not try to commune with any kind of spirit since I don't think they exist. Meditation is good for calming ruminating/excessive troubling thoughts, and some hospitals and pain management specialists teach meditation to help patients deal with pain. No need to be spriritual to meditate no matter what the orginal intention of it was.
@RhondaShotwell Thank you. I have always wondered if meditation is a requirement for possessing spirituality. Even Sam Harris talks about having spirituality, but I still haven't figured out what spirituality actually means. I think spirituality might be synonymous with "hipe". Like football fans getting all hyped up about a game. I guess players and most all athletes get "hyped-up" prior to a contest. I dunno
Just like any rights movement, nothing changes until people stop being intimidated by those who think that their best shot at keeping the status quo is to intimidate other people. I have a family like that, they threatened to ignore my mother when she got a little to open about the pedophile father I had, but after she died, I basically told them to fuck off, and publish pubically a letter she had written to me about it on the worldwide web, which put them in a state that they likely still have not recovered from.
My way of dealing with people who play games like that is, if they want to be religio-nazis, pedophile worshippers, racist hillbillies, then they can do it on their own time and leave me out of it all together, and I make no secret anywhere, anytime, that I am an Agnostic, and any person that tries to bring the battle to me gets it back twice as hard. Have I paid a price for my refusal to allow people like that in my life? Sure . . . . but I also have the type of inner peace with myself knowing that what I have done is exactly what needs to be done.
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When no one stands up to bullies, they rage through the schoolyard with impunity.
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That is exactly what often happens here in the good old US of A. Agnostics and Atheists ARE gaining ground though, and that may be one of the reasons why the religio-nazis are so keen on trying to suppress it, they know their time is waning.
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No change will occur without a few dragonslayers stepping forward and unsheathing their sword in the face of these monsters. [sites.google.com]
Archeus_Lore
Level 7
Jan 31, 2020
6
I like you attitude, then and now
All the ignorant superstition has been exacerbated with the election of Don John the Con Trump as President. In three short years, our mentally I’ll President has erased all the progress and hard earned gains in science, civil rights, women’s rights, and single handedly transported our nation from the 1st quarter of the 21st century to the middle of the 20th century. I have always been bothered by the smug exceptionalism of my countrymen, but now I’m downright ashamed to be American. Our citizens have lost the ability to distinguish truth from lies or worse, simply don’t care. #Proudagnostic.
publius65
Level 4
Jan 30, 2020
7
Yes, very succinctly stated and I agree. I too am deeply ashamed to be an American, though my life has been devoted to fighting the status quo every step of the way. Sadly, it was all for naught it seems.
The British North American Colonies were founded, at least in part, as a dumping ground for religious undesirables. And we've been stuck with them ever since!
davknight
Level 8
Jan 30, 2020
5
You hit that on the nail. Very well said
Growing up in a small farming community in central Minnesota I used to joke we had two races....Catholics and Lutherans. There was a fair amount of animosity between the 2. Catholic parents got especially concerned if their kid was dating a Lutheran. Because....they’re just so different 
Marcie1974
Level 8
Jan 30, 2020
5
Well at least they didn't include Atheists in the conversation. BTW I support Amy Klobuchar.
@rogueflyer well my family didn’t go to church so the kids on the bus told me I was going to hell. In a town of 2,000 you better believe everyone knew who went to what church......of those that didn’t go at all GASP
@Marcie1974 I had to go. Don't know which would be worse.
I understand you, but don't worry. America is fast becoming a third world country and we have in office the right people for that job. I just read that Trump has raised another 45 million in the last quarter for his re-election campaign. Put the quarters together and you have a tremendous amount of money raised by this man who "only wants to help us." He really wants to help us bad, and so do the powers behind him. We are not in good hands and this is not Allstate.
DenoPenno
Level 9
Jan 30, 2020
5
It is strange that the country that talks itself up to be all about religion freedom would be so repressive. Although, if you look at the history of the country, it makes some sense. The pilgrims who fled England because they were repressed for religious reasons were quite fanatical. Bizarrely so. They passed that down to many members of churches. So there is a built in complex of being persecuted while being very inflexible themselves.
TomJonesFan
Level 3
Jan 31, 2020
4
It's not unusual...
As an American atheist since age 13, I have never felt a need to hide my lack of belief. My dating profile states I'm an atheist. Telling people helps normalize it.
My Christian friends love me for who I am. We don't talk about religion.
LiterateHiker
Level 9
Jan 30, 2020
4
@LiterateHiker Ditto 
Thanks...if I could leave tonight, I would. I hate AmeriKKKa. It has become nearly unbearable to live here.
ReadyforaChange
Level 7
Jan 30, 2020
4
@Readyforachange well what can you say with the "PRECEDENT" set in the WH 
Please list the reasons you hate America. I do think there are better countries in which to live, of course. Most every continent has countries that are better places to live than the USA. I think it depends to a degree what one wants out of life. Wealth, long lifespan, freedom from religion, slow pace good medical care that one can actually afford, etc..
Unfortunately our current prime moron is a member of a cult and has drunk too deeply of the cool aid the religious bigotry bill is just one example. Completely corrupt. So while at the moment we are allowed to express our stance if scotty from marketing gets to stay in much longer then we won't be allowed to as it will upset the poor little cultites.
Budgie
Level 8
Jan 30, 2020
4
If just one thing had been different, I would have grown up in Australia.....sigh....
Freespirit64
Level 8
Jan 30, 2020
3
A few more years of the current group in power (trumpie is just a figurehead) and the dreams of the xtian taliban will be fulfilled. Scary.
Mitch07102
Level 8
Jan 30, 2020
4
Freedom of religion does exist, although we still struggle with freedom from religion.
SoloSentient
Level 5
Feb 3, 2020
3
Thanks, mate. It sucks having to live in the closet. 
Apunzelle
Level 7
Jan 30, 2020
4
@Apunzelle it is really strange though, as someone here has mentioned, that you guys have to keep your-walk-in-life "in a box" for fear of those around frowning on you or treating you like an evil outcast. USA was supposed to be a "The Free World"!... where your freedom from religion should be of great importance too.
My sympathies. It never ceases to amaze me why people can't see the disconnect between technology in a first world country, driven by science, and a belief in hocus pocus.
Still, at least in the US you can come out as an atheist, as
unpopular as it may be. My further sympathies go out to those who cannot come out, for fear of severe punishment.
Vpatel
Level 5
Jan 30, 2020
4
Yes like those middle eastern countries like Saudia Arabia, Iran and so on.
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