A time you were harrassed/singled out for being atheist or agnostic

I'll start.

I was once kicked out of a church for asking "inappropriate" questions. The funny thing was that the conversation was initiated by the pastor, not by me. I was not defensive or "on the attack". The guy tried to pull the ol "you just havent met the right group of christians yet" approach. When we started getting into the logistics of faith, he blew up, said a prayer and told me to leave.

Which was messed up, because at the time i was really interested in any answers he might have had to my questions.

Not the first or last time i was kicked out of a church mind you, but that one caught me by surprise...

 

Not a once.

 

Only ever singled out during religious discussion (esp. with parents), and that doesn't happen anymore.

 

when i was in the seventh, eighth and ninth grades, i was extremely unpopular for the honesty of my way of looking at things. teachers and peers both resented me for it. i didn't really think of it as any one thing like belif or idiology or economics. though they may well have.

my parents were of differing beliefs and so they didn't make me have to be part of anyting i didn't choose to explore on my own. so i feel i was very lucky that way about that. no churches to get kicked out of being a member of.

i went to whatever churches i could get to and listend to what they had to say and when i figgured out what they were saying i left. if there had been buddhist or jewish or whatever else kind of temples where i lived i'd have gone to them too.

reality existed and i figgured something out about it. i observed and realized that sometimes it would get painfully in my face and other times would bring unimaginable wonders and i realized that while it's diversity was indifferent this was also its blessing, that however much anyone hated or tryed to prevent it being that way, that it would always bring that diversity and because of that same diversity that does nothing to prevent the rise of tyrannts, also does nothing to prevent the grass from growing up between the cracks in the sidewalk.

i don't know if anyone can see by that how it gives me the hope i associate with it.

yes i was persicuted for my perceptions and ways of looking at things, mostly when i was in school. generaly since then i have avoided the kind of mundane company where i would be most likely to be.

=^^=
.../\...

 

I was asked not to come back to my baptist school. I guess you could consider me more agnostic at the time. I believed in a creator, but wasn't keen on christianity. I was called "a wolf in sheeps clothing" because I dared question. Once I left everyone started calling me a slut, like being a woman but not being a christian makes someone a slut

Nowadays I just get looked at like I am crazy whenever I mention I am an atheist. Usually a look of suprise and a "You don't believe in God!?" is said, then either a bombardment of christiany emails or the silent treatment is given to me.

Sometimes I am treated like a science exhibit and get questions like, "so how do you get married?" or "how hard is it for you when a relative of yours dies?" or my personal favorite, "did something bad happen to you as a child?"

I generally avoid conversations about my religious views, because 99.99% of people I have met haven't been very understanding. Here (or with my husband) is about the only place I generally go to chat it up about my perspective on religion.

 

Shane

Oh man occam wishes he could have been there.
U know those fire ad brimstone preachers?
Occam is a fire and brimstone agnostic
Occam LOVES public debate.
And has never been bested by any 'man of one book' EVER
Take that turkey and his fantasy and put it in the gutter where it belongs.

Occam

 

In my job, I am called all sorts of names.

"Liberal Communist Asshole"
"Godless Atheist"
"Queer Lover"
"****** Lover" (yes, I live in North Georgia)
"Goddamn hippie"
etc...etc...


But, it's my atheism that pisses everyone off.

 

Heh, I was only made fun of once, and that was when I was really little and one of my classmates and me got into an argument about whether humans evolved from monkeys. I said yes, he said I was wrong.

 

Shane

Occam knows this path...
he has been 'evicted' several times. When he didnt even want to be there.

And god said
LET THERE BE LIGHT

so humans made lightbulbs.

Occam

 

A few times from chatrooms. Often enough it's just a theological question I ask that does it. Last time, I was sharing Ken Wilber and his theory on integral spirit - showing the nearly universal aspects of all religions, Christianity included. Though the observations were plain in front of them, they denied it, called themselves unique, like no other, and banned me from the room.

 

I agree

 

Yeh.. not a once in your experience...
Thats 6.2 billionth of all human experience.

Occam

 

what the fuck?
I was just talking about my experience....
you are a dumbass, can I please smack you?

 

please do.. but only on pre-smacked areas.
Occam maybe a dumbass.. but he got a reply from u...
is'nt normal to ignor the villiage idiot?

Occam

 

not for me

 

occam is fucking cool. don't be a shithead.

i've never been singled out or asked to leave a church, but a lot of people don't like me because of what they think i believe.

 

I got into a discussion with one group of xtians at a nazarene church (underage at the time, our whole family was still looking for "the right church") and i started asking questions about the origins of 'evil'.


One of my questions had to do with god's omnis, such as:

"If god is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent doesn't that automatically make him/her at least partially responsible for the so called 'sin nature'?

If he knew before i was born that i would end up a non-believer (he is not bound by the limitations of time, knows every decision i will make throughout my lifetime and has the power to not create 'me' as an individual), is it not overly cruel for him to create me and then condemn me (for a nature i was born with + for acts that he knew without a doubt that i would commit) to an eternal afterlife of pain and torture?

And what about this Satan person? If angels had no free will then how did he choose to rebel against god? If angels do have free will then why are they not allowed a chance at salvation? If the angels were only around the pure goodness that is god, how could something like 'pride' even develop in an angel? And wouldn't god know about it before (being outside of time) the idea of revolution was spread to the rest of the angels? Why allow a revolt? If he/she knew which angels would end up revolting, why create those rebellious angels in the first place? why create Lucifer in the first place? Why didn't he send Satan to hell before he tricked Adam and Eve? Why not now? Why wait until the end of time? Doesn't the book of Job make it clear that all of Satan's actions are okayed by the Big Guy in the Sky before they are carried out? Doesn't the entire bible make it clear that Satan is never God's equal? And if Satan isn't the originator of Evil doesnt that mean that god is (as The Original)? And so on and so forth... "

The conversation started to get very interesting and some of the other youths were questioning aspects of their faith that they had never thought to question before.

So, of course, the youth pastor decided to shut the discussion down and move onto something less serious (school outreach or something). After the class ended he asked me not to bother to show up if i was going to be a 'distraction'.

Didn't even try to address any of the questions that the others and myself were asking...

It would be one thing if the conversation starter was about a bakeoff or something, but the youth pastor asked me what my concerns were while we were in the class. Tell him what they were was considered being a distraction? i wasn't even an athiest at this point, just another xtian with serious questions.

If Christians (or any of the members of organized religions for that matter) really belive that the have the truth with a capital 'T', then why condemn any open honest critical analyses of that truth?

 

fuck you too

 

I live with a 84 year old man who teachs bible study on wed. not to mention most of my family is religious. i'm very singled out. but what gets me is that I hate how people think athiest and agnostic are the same, there not. take this forums for example I could argue with an athiest as much as a thiest/religious person. but anyway I digress, my biggest problem is getting misunderstood for the two. I'm about to memorize the definition of each and tattoo it on my back, right next to the 10 commandments. hehe