Personal Story

Atheist are Distrusted

Hate Site It has more then just atheists, but that is the atheist section.

Here's a post I did awhile back. Although it doesn't demonstrate all of the unsolicited hatred (although suggesting that I take a knife and run into it does!), it gives you an idea of messages from total strangers who contacted me out of the blue simply because they identified me as an Atheist.

Check it out here.

Archangelnamed,

I grew up in California, so my own personal experience with theism is consistent with what you say.  Most theists I know are nice people.  Most of my friends are theists.  However, just because this is anecdotally true for me doesn't mean I ought to extrapolate and conclude rabid theism isn't a problem.  I know plenty of atheists who grew up in different parts of the world and faced ugly situations for their atheism.

My anecdotal experience would arguably have been very different had I grown up in the bible-belt, or in Taliban-occupied Afghanistan.

And of course, it goes without saying that just because some theists are nice doesn't mean their theism is tenable.  No offense, but bullshit is bullshit, regardless of how nice and friendly the bullshitter. 

The truth is that atheists' persecution is nothing compared to the martyrdom of Christians that is going on in our present day.  A lot of the martyrdom is caused by atheistic cultures, as well as Muslim cultures.  To have a "Christian" say some harsh words to you because you're an atheist is as much persecution as someone insulting you for rooting for a certain sports team.  As a matter of fact, their are probably more deaths over Soccer fan rivals in the world than there are over atheist persecution.  I don't even know of ANY atheists that are being persecuted to death in our day, and if their are any, for every one atheist killed I guarantee there are at least 100 if not 1000 Christians killed.  Atheist persecution is a farce.  Google: Voice of the Martyrs

Sorry, fourth. You're missing the point completely.

To be sure, there are quite a few places in the world where Christians are persecuted. The most notable are the Muslim nations. As "atheist cultures" go, you need to be certain that you understand the difference between a culture and a government.

Communist nations have been responsible for a good bit of persecution of theists (not just christians.) This was not because of the "Political Doctrine of Atheism." No such doctrine exists, or ever has, to my knowledge. These governments persecuted in the name of communism, which is a political ideology, and is not shared by many -- maybe most-- atheists. In fact, I don't know any atheist communists, and I know lots of atheists.

For an atheist culture, you could look at the Scandinavian countries... High education, low unemployment, low crime, low rates of divorce, relative equality for most citizens... they're pretty nice cultures. They're also not responsible for any deaths of Christians. It's the religious nut-jobs who are doing that these days.

Now, I said all of that to get to the point you're missing:

The poster did not say that Christians have not been persecuted in history. The poster did not say that the persecution of atheists is the same as the persecution of any other group. The poster asked for examples of persecution, and that is what everyone but you has been offering.

Now, to address the original question. For a long time, I tried to teach music in Alabama. I can count at least twenty students who were pulled from my classes when they or their parents learned that I was an atheist. They learned by snooping into my private affairs, by the way. I do not mix music and religion, and never have.

To have any chance of aquiring new students in the city I was in, you had to belong to the Music Teachers' Union. The union was made up almost entirely of church musicians. Once again, when someone ratted me as an atheist to the rest of the group, my referrals dropped to almost nothing. I eventually gave up trying to teach there.

I have been told by at least a half a dozen women that they could never date me because I'm an atheist, and they want to date someone with morals.

I was once asked to please NOT volunteer to help a political candidate in my district because she did not want to have a known atheist as a supporter. No shit. Again, I don't preach my atheism outside of the internet. My friends know I'm an atheist, but 90% of the people I meet in life never get to the point of discussing religion with me, and if they do, I just politely say I'm not religious, and try very hard not to get into the discussion.

• As soon as my friends learned I was struggling they back-stabbed me.  These were friends I'd had my whole life and expected to have until I died.  I would have given my life for them.
• They tried to cast a demon out of me.
• When I told them of my struggles, they told me not to come back until I trusted Jesus to solve my problems.
• Once my mother learned of my atheism, our relationship was never the same.
• She called my counselor and tried to tell him I was demon-possessed.
• She once tried to have me committed to a mental institution (which, by the way, is run by a fundamentalist Christian)
• Once when I "took the Lord's name in vain" and was unlucky enough to be in the car with her, she drove all over the county, yelling at me.  She wouldn't let me out.  She wouldn't shut up.  She just drove and drove and yelled and yelled.
• After I had eye surgery, there were complications.  All I could do was lay and listen to music.  I couldn't see.  I was afraid I would lose my eyesight.  My mother often barged into my room without knocking and heard me playing some atheistic music.  It comforted me. When I was at my lowest, she started yelling at me, claiming I was "shoving atheism down her throat."  She was the one who had violated my space.  She also yelled at me for using "dirty words."  I had no way to get away from her tirades.  Just like the incident when I was trapped in her car, I couldn't get away.  (BTW, during the car incident, I was actually going to leap from the car because I quite honestly couldn't take it anymore.  When she saw that I was at the end of my rope, she finally took me home.)
• A fundy college professor who knew I was an atheist promised to never try to proselytize me.  I told him that religion had caused a lot of pain in my life (physical, sexual and emotional abuse) and he said, "I would be heartless to bring up religion with you."  Well, he was heartless.  Once when I was going through a rough time, he cornered me in his basement and started rapid-firing stupid fundy questions at me.  He told me I had "no hope" without Jesus.  He broke his promise and probably came close to violating the spirit of separation of church and state if not the actual law itself.  He not only didn't apologize, he said he might "do it again."  I can no longer trust the man.

This is painful.  There's a lot more, but I don't want to go into it.  Christianity has brought me so much pain.  Ditching it brought me even more pain because the people I trusted turned their backs on me.  If you want to feel raw pain, try having your own flesh and blood, your own MOTHER for Christ's sake, start treating you like some kind of diseased piece of rubbish just because you could no longer swallow the tall tales of the bible.

I also lost my friends.  Forever.  I've never been able to replace those friendships because most of the people in this town are fundies.  I am shunned. 

It hasn't been much of a personal issue for me as witnessing others having to deal with it. I've had the odd one say something to me, but they always get it back in turn so it doesn't bother me so much. It's seeing things like the US president say that atheists have no right to be american that gets to me, and exposes the danger of the stupidity of theism.

There is no first class ticket to Heaven, any Christian knows only one way. And yea, being a Martyr is a good thing, God says in His word that for all the persecution Christians face will be rewarded in Heaven...so dying a martyr might get you another crown, but besides that...who wants to die? I mean i have no fear of dying knowing that i will be in Heaven if i do die..but still i love my life that God has blessed me with, so regardless of if im dyin as a martyr i dont want to die..only 20 yrs old....so if Christians are being persecuted and dying martyrs that doesnt mean it justifies their deaths.