[Saya]

Originally Posted by Despanan

Sorry for taking this long to get back to you, been crazy busy



Nonprofit /= Tax-exempt and while nonprofits can BECOME tax-exempt, the process is long and arduous. Churches are automatically tax exempt and can register much more easily.

Church does not equal theist. There are atheist religions and churches. I bring up Raelians a lot because they're actually militant atheists and responsible for some of those infamous atheist bus ads in the US.

Yes it has happened recently. The only reason it's not more common is that again, it's virtually impossible for atheists to be elected.

Wait, so you're showing me a video of a guy who isn't using the oath, and Maddow is saying critics are THREATENING to get him out of office, but they don't have a leg to stand on, so he stayed in office.

Bothwell was elected on November 3, 2009, to the city council after he won the third highest number of votes in the city election.[5] Following the election, opponents of Bothwell, including H. K. Edgerton, a former president of the Asheville NAACP, challenged his election because the North Carolina Constitution does not allow for atheists to hold public office in the state.[2] Law experts argued the provision was invalid because the United States Constitution prevents religious tests for public office.[10] The Supreme Court of the United States held in Torcaso v. Watkins (1961) that such provisions violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.[11] Bothwell began his service with an affirmation of the oath of office.[10] Bothwell was raised as a Presbyterian, became a non-theist by the age of 20, and is a member of the Unitarian Universalist Church.[7] He later stated that he believed the question of the existence of a deity was irrelevant to governance and that he believed in the Golden Rule.[10] He has also described himself as a "post theist."[12]

Dude belongs to a church (which is apparently equal to theist?) and doesn't even describe himself as an atheist. And never lost office. And was very popular getting into office.

The presence of oppression by other people of faith does not invalidate the oppression targeted against those who lack faith. I've brought this up before but atheists are the most hated minority in the united states by a wide margin granted I'd say the oppression they are targeted with is not as severe, but again this is because atheism is invisible.

The study this links to is pretty faulty. For example, when it says that people say they'd rather their kids marry a black person than an atheist. I really recommend the book Racism Without Racists that points out the problem with such surveys, in that white people like to give what they think the right answers are to appear not racist. Like they'll say they're okay with interracial marriage, BUT....you probably shouldn't...because the kids might be beat up or something. And its funny because I remember two different teachers in two different schools actually told us all in school not to marry Muslims because they'll convert your kids to Islam and kidnap them to Saudi Arabia and you'll never see them again.

Atheists do not exist alone as a group away from sex, race, class, etc. They can be heterosexual white middle class men and escape prejudice altogether. There isn't a special oppression for them. This survey didn't include new religions or aboriginal religions or surviving African religions like Voodoo or Santeria, can we honestly say people mistrust atheists more than witch doctors? I find this misconception about atheists interesting: "threaten common values from above -- the ostentatiously wealthy who make a lifestyle out of consumption or the cultural elites who think they know better than everyone else." They assume all atheists are white elites like Richard Dawkins. Considering how many militant atheists worship racist, misogynistic men like Dawkins and Hitchens, or how Muslims in France are being brutalized by secularists, I don't wonder where that stereotype comes from; atheists can be extremely oppressive when they belong to oppressive groups. Its almost like religious identities gain privilege from the members of that religious identity, weird.

In the rural community Ashley and I grew up in, our lives would have been in danger if we'd been outspoken atheists then. I was an outspoken Buddhist my senior year and I remember being confronted numerous times for it - one such conversation ended with the aggressor saying: "Well so long as you believe in SOMETHING I guess we're cool"

You know I'm a Buddhist and I don't recall ever receiving such courtesy. When I was atheist I just got uncomfortable silences, never any confrontations, it was when I converted that people got argumentative. My Wiccan friends probably got the most shit. One had the cops called on her for reading a spell book in public. And the police actually took it seriously and confronted her mother about it.

No but it's similar, in the sense that it's a minority status which is invisible and often demanded by society and loved ones to be kept in the closet. Which is why I made the comparison. That's how comparisons work - If atheism were the same thing as being gay we wouldn't have a different word for it.

You're being extremely ignorant. My reality is that 50% of bisexual women are *****, 75% sexually assaulted. I have to live with the notion that I have a really good chance of being ***** and possibly murdered, more than heterosexual women, less than trans* and people of colour.

They don't care about a closet or being polite and not mentioning it. They care about curing us, about killing us, shit even supposed allies just want us queers to assimilate and act more heteroseuxal and normal and proper, because heterosexuality should always remain the norm even if its between two people of the same gender. Its trendy now to say you're all for gay rights but forget anyone who doesn't fit perfectly in a heteronormative mold. And with internalized hatred they give you the rope and you hang yourself with it.

Nothing I've experienced as a queer was ever comparable to my being atheist. I wish being atheist was all I ever had to worry about.

This is precisely the problem: Faith is seen as something special, mandating special treatment. If one can get out of military service via their membership to a religion, but not by showing up in dresses or shooting up drugs it shows the derangement of our society.

I just told you that my professor (nor could many religious people like Muhammad Ali. Again, atheists could actually get out of military service before Muslims could because Nation of Islam wasn't recognized as a religion, so they couldn't use that as their religious reasoning) couldn't get out of military service that way at the time. And you do get out of military service that way now. Ask MoC how being trans is working out for her in the military. Its still grounds for dishonorable discharge to be trans and in the military, same with drug use.

Yet there process for a Mennonite is to drop off a letter signed by their pastor on church stationary. The process for an atheist is much more involved/non-existent. That's a problem.

If you're a member of the War Resistor's League or other pacifist organization, you could easily prove your membership. That pretty much shows that you're a pacifist and didn't just decide that you don't feel like taking the oath. its a problem when you don't belong to any group or organization at all, true, but its equally hard when you don't belong to a church; if I never go to Sangha, how can they write a letter saying that I'm a long time member and totally they know I'm a pacifist? An atheist in the WWL would have an easier time than me.

[quoteFaith in the goodness of humanity is not the same thing as religious faith, and religious faith is not necessary to face an uphill battle and see it through. Again, the idea that religious faith is necessary IS a serious problem, for many reasons, not the least of which that if that idea that faith is necessary naturally leads to the idea that those who lack faith are somehow deficient/lacking in character.

Which is bullshit. It's also dangerous.]/quote]

Because you're a white cishet middle class dude, people tend to like you and not want you dead. Faith in humanity isn't so much a problem for you like it is for me. Some days I feel like faith in a higher being is more realistic than faith that people are ever going to change in my life time.