Even though I am not an atheist, I have been on the receiving end of people saying I am going to hell, that I am a heathen, I must repent, accept Jesus as my personal savior, etc. I once had a Christian pro football player tell me the reason I was gay (I ID'd as a femme-lovin' butch at the time) was because of childhood trauma and that Jesus could heal that for me. Atheists aren't the only ones having to deal with this bullshit. I do empathize with you all, I sure do.

Good evening, folks...

We're getting reported posts from this thread, and I would like to encourage everyone to continue having constructive dialogue without being judgmental or critical.

Have the hard conversations, but please do so respectfully.

Thank you.

Thinker (moderator)

I think you are absolutely right that some people are insecure in their faith, particularly when it has an arguable basis. I feel sad for people who believe in a god who is wrathful and judgmental, because they condemn themselves to living with the fear of wrath and judgment. They naturally turn it on others. I think, how unhappy they must be.

Respect and Support
 

I'm here as a person who does not identify as an atheist to respect and support those that do. I grew up in an interfaith family (mother Jewish, father Catholic) and even though I was raised Jewish, I was taught over and over to respect other peoples' beliefs.

I know among progressive Jews there is a strong tradition of questioning everything, including the existence of God. I was so glad that when Jennifer agreed to come with me to the final part of the Yom Kippur service, our rabbi, who is fabulous, acknowledged that there were people in the congregation who do not believe in a god, and said that they are fully accepted. I was so glad that Jennifer could be there to hear that and not feel like she was being coerced in some way.

I think spiritual beliefs are less important than what each person contributes by way of their actions. There are atheists who work hard everyday to make the world a better place and I am grateful to them. I can't imagine that the "universe" would disapprove.

BBinNYC

:)
 

:) THANK YOU for taking the time to come back in here and apologizing! It's deeply appreciated I hope you have a great Holiday!:)

Hey, Jar,

I think within our culture there are a lot of assumptions about atheists, that we are unfeeling, not in tune with the universe, don't believe in anything, etc. Actually though, there are as many types of atheists as there are religious people. I feel hurt when someone assumes I am not in tune with the universe because being in tune with the universe is so important to me. It may seem like a contradiction but I have a book called "The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality," which helps to reinforce my gut feeling that I don't have to believe in God to find all kinds of deep meaning in relationships, nature, and the universe. I even pray for others when they want it because I conceive of it as a meditation and direction of energy towards those I care about and love. I also relate it to quantum physics. Some atheists don't feel that way at all, but I just want to put out there what a struggle it can be to be automatically written off as unfeeling or lacking depth and meaning when coming out as an atheist. Belief in God, imo, is something we have or don't have. Sometimes I think it would be much easier in life if I did have it, but I don't and yet I still want to be acknowledged as someone who cares and has depth and believes and questions and is a good person. Thanks for your participation in the thread. One aspect of this thread I hadn't thought of but which Wolfy pointed out is its potential to provide some understanding of atheism for those who do believe in God but want to understand more about those of us that believe differently. I have pretended to believe in God to fit in at times in my life, but I don't want to do that because it's not authentic. I think acceptance from those who are different from us as atheists can only help us not to hide our authentic selves. I didn't choose to not believe in God, and have tried very hard to at different times in my life, but I don't, and I want to love myself as I am, because that is what feeds my soul.

I won't elaborate on what others have so eloquently stated already. I will state however, that most atheists-myself included-do tend to stay in the closet for fear of being attacked by others that are made uncomfortable and unable to accept my own personal value system. I have stated before that I accept you as you are, I do not mock you, belittle or attack you for your own personal choices/beliefs (no jumping on me for using the word belief either-no good word to describe it). What I like about the planet is the wide range of diverging viewpoints. If I feel a pang of discomfort inside myself reading some else's post, I take a step back & try to understand for me and me alone, why it bothered me. I learned a long time ago I could be reactionary if I allowed myself to be. I would much rather be thoughtful & gain wisdom from the viewpoints of others. In case you
Also may think I was just never "shown the way"; I was raised Lutheran, Church every Sunday, confirmed, vacation bible school etc. My parents piously did the same-plus the choir. Meanwhile, they were abusive to me. I prayed plenty as a child though my prayers were never answered. I learned instead to count on myself. Just the same way it would be easier to pretend I am straight & be accepted by straight society; it would be easier for me to pretend I believed there was such a being or spirit such as God. I am going to go strap myself in my body/self-esteem armor now but hope I don't need it to
protect against attacks from planet readers.

Why am I not surprised that the first thing that happens is folks jump in and bash? High on my list of things that I don't like about religion is the hatred and intolerance that it breeds - from tribes slaughtering each other by the tens of thousands to individuals jumping in to this thread to bash.

I don't get religion, I don't get spirituality, I don't get the whole god thing. As an outside observer, the rituals appear to run the full spectrum, from sweet - like some of the midnight masses my ex used to drag me to - to silly to absurd to deadly - like the oppressions, mutilations, and murders of women throughout the world. I don't understand someone offering to pray for me or light a candle for me or whatever when something bad happens to me. How does this help me? It might make the other person feel better about themselves, but it's a useless gesture and I'd prefer that folks put their time to better use.

'Oh god' does spring from my lips during orgasm, I do pray to the parking goddess when visiting San Francisco, and I seasonally worship at the alters of Foxborough and Fenway. That's all really about great sex, close parking spaces, and winning seasons, not religion or spirituality or whatever y'all want to call it.

I was thinking last night about the distinction between a "soft atheist" and a "hard atheist." Hmm, I really should have looked it up before I came in here today, but I want to think about the possible distinctions that came to me already so here goes:

Say a soft atheist is committed to there being no deity in the sense of a superior being, but allows for the possibility that there might be one. Sort of an atheist without the arrogance. >;-) I think, though, that it may be less simplistic than this. Maybe a soft atheist believes that there IS an organizing principle in the world, just not a cognizant (thinking) being. I always think of this kind of atheist when someone says they are atheist but "believe there is more out there." I'm not sure if they mean an afterlife, or an organizing principle or being, or both.

I think I may be a hard atheist, but again there are fine distinctions. I don't think there is "more out there." I believe that this life is it. And I live with the idea that the likeliest scenario is that the generation of my great-grandchildren may not even know my name. If you think about it, that is generally true. How many here can rattle off the names of their great grandparents. How about "maiden" names?

Now, thinking about my own transience like that can depress me more than a Sartre short story, but it is what I believe. But I grow more comfortable with what I think is the reality because I also believe that it's better to address that reality--better in the sense of a life fully lived--than to assuage that reality with belief systems constructed to deny it.

The hardest of hard atheists believe that everything is random. No organizing principle, even. I am pretty close to that, but to some degree it depends on how "organizing principle" is defined. For me, a scientific (as opposed to mystical) principle is the only possibility. Then, I am left to ponder how much is heredity and how much environment. I'm reading Pinker's "The Blank State" right now for help in how to think about that.

I know everyone is trying to be nicey in here now, but there were a couple of other wee bombs dropped that I would like to address.

The original comment really was disrespectful, as was the one where Jar intentionally referred to tapu, as "tofu."

Now, I can be as big a prick as there is, but I like to at least stick to the facts of argument, and not insert disrespectful little jabs at member's names. Maybe you were butt hurt that tapu didn't know you from a million years on the internet, but still, that was shitty.

As far as atheists being "out of tune with the universe," that is clearly only your opinion, and holds no greater value than merely that. You also committed a fallacy, or incorrect leap of logic when you made the statement, "I just mean that anyone that doesn't think there's more is out of tune."

Do you know the definition of "atheist?" Because it is not an umbrella term for those who do not believe "there's more." It means we do not believe in the existence of a deity. That is all. "More" is sort of a broad term, wouldn't you say?

I hope that helps you feel more prepared to, "read the thread with more of an open mind and maybe ... understand it better." I don't think you need to worry that anyone here though you might "know it all," but thanks for clarifying.

We may be defining troll differently. To me, a troll is someone who comes onto a thread and makes a statement that they couldn't fail to know will rile the participants and then they respond to the feedback that could only be expected with continued incendiary statements about their opinions with absolutely nothing objective to back it up.

Nowhere in my troll definition does it say that a troll is someone who hasn't been on the board for very long. If that were the definition, any newbie who said something others didn't like could be called a troll.

And, Jar, in the world of not playing nice, you're out of your league.

I don't understand. I was responding to where Jar said that about "not playing nice."

And with some of the things I've seen in here (!)--I can't believe that what I said was a problem.

I'll try to do better at mastering the culture, but on that one I guess I'll still need to study it out.

If we'd really like to get on with the subject, please note that I made a post above with what I think is pertinent content to atheism today. Does anyone want to discuss it?

This is a thread I would like to participate in, but I guess the fighting is not over yet. That is what I checked in to see. I will come back a little later, and if the fighting has stopped, I'll join in.

My suggestion to any believers in a religion or a specific god. Read the thread to educate yourself, or out of curiosity, but refrain from posting. There are lots of religious based threads on the planet where your comments will be well received. On this thread they may not be.

Just sayin
Smooches,
Keri

I found this interesting!

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/0...ign/?hpt=hp_t2

Does anyone know if all the firefighters that this sign pertains to were, indeed, Christians?

In keeping with the OP, I found this blog post interesting....and am looking forward to reading the book that he's discussing.

Absent Belief in a Cosmic Enforcer, Are People Likely to be Kind, Fair, Caring, Contented and Good?by Don on July 4th, 2011

The answer to the title question, above, is likely to be "no" if you listen to right-wing Christian conservatives, particularly media commentators Bill O'Reilly and Laura Schlessinger. Both have expressed the opinion that individuals and societies cannot be "good" or moral without belief in an enforcer god. O' Reilly said a society that fails to live "under God" will be a society of anarchy and crime; Schlessinger that "it's impossible for people to be moral without a belief in God. The fear of God is what keeps people on the straight and narrow." (Source: Robyn E. Blumner, "Goodness without God," St. Petersburg Times, July 3, 2011.) There is quite an audience for this kind of thinking in America. None fewer than 64 percent of Americans agree with the statement, "Politicians who don't believe in God are unfit for public office." By contrast, only 8 percent of Danes and 15 percent of Swedes hold such a view. In this country, 75 percent of the population believe in hell, whereas a slim 10 percent of Danes and Swedes believe such a thing.

The O'Reilly/Schlessinger message can be summarized as follows: "Unless God scares the bejabbers out of you, you and society will go to hell - society first."

Kind of makes one wonder: Is this true? Is there evidence for what O'Reilly and Schlessinger are telling their audience?

Just in time to answer this question comes a book entitled, "Society without God: What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us About Contentment." Written by a sociology professor named Phil Zuckerman, "Society Without God" supports the opposite perspective. It seems the message of these arrogant Christian fundamentalists, that non-belief in a cosmic enforcer is associated with cultures less likely to be kind, fair, caring, contented and good, is false. Societies where people overwhelmingly believe in and presumably are scared to death of a god are, in fact, the ones where citizens are more likely to endure lives that are "Leviathan" in nature, that is, as Thomas Hobbes put it, "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."

In "Society Without God," Zuckerman presents evidence on both individual and societal levels that the associations between non-goodness and non-belief by the likes of O'Reilly and Schlessinger are false. In fact, quite the opposite seems true. Countries with the lowest levels of religious belief seem the most well-behaved!

"Society Without God" shows that belief in a god, not disbelief, is associated with individuals and whole societies acting badly. What sweet irony.

Zuckerman aggregated data using multiple indicators and also conducted interviews in Denmark and Sweden. Both countries are as irreligious as the U.S. and Iran, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are religious. Rather than being a social menace, the absence of fear of being smited by a sky god is not correlated in any way with bad behavior. If a person has no fear of a Santa-like god who knows who's been naughty and who's been nice, he/she is no more likely to plunder and pillage with cruel abandon than one professes to fear a god.

Zuckerman found that by almost any measure the least religious societies "are among the healthiest and least corrupt." His findings are corroborated by a Quality of Life report by the Economist Magazine. This study is based on a range of wellness-related factors, such as income, health, freedom, unemployment, climate, political stability, life-satisfaction, and gender equality. When applied in a survey of 111 countries to order to identify the "best" places in the world to live, it was found that Sweden ranked fifth, Denmark ninth. Most of the top 20 "quality of life nations" are irreligious. (The U.S. was ranked 13th.)

Zuckerman writes in "Society Without God" that it is ironic that "the moral imperatives" of religions (e.g., caring for the sick, elderly poor and infirm; practicing mercy, charity and goodwill toward others; and fostering generosity, honesty and communal concern) are practiced more often in the most irreligious nations. In America, a fifth of children live in poverty, at least a quarter lack health insurance and the mentally ill are often homelessness and untreated.

In "Godless Morality," Peter Singer and Marc Hauser condemn religious intrusion into politics and scientific research: "If anyone ever tries to tell you that, for all its quirks and irrationality, religion is harmless or even beneficial for society, remember those 128 million Americans — and hundreds of millions more citizens of other nations — who might be helped by research that is being restricted by religious beliefs" (Free Inquiry, "The Harm That Religion Does," by Peter Singer, June/July 2004, p. 17). In a letter to the editor appearing in the New York Times (Nov. 8, 2004), Singer wrote: "Paul Krugman says Democrats need to make it clear they value faith. Is everyone caving in to this religious nonsense? What is faith but believing in something without any evidence? Why should Democrats value that? Formidable as the task may seem at present, the long-term need is to persuade Americans that having evidence for your beliefs is a good idea."

There is no evidence that Bill O'Reilly and Laura Schlessinger and other Christians have a special claim on goodness; there is ample reason to think just the opposite.

There is a lot of stereotyping of atheists and sometimes I have been as amazed at the bashing of atheists here as much as religion/spirituality bashing.
I'm glad to see this thread and I hope there is an adult response to it. As iamkeri said, it just might be a way for those of us that do have some kind of spiritual/religious belief system- no matter what it is, can gain understanding of atheism across our site. There are several other threads that "believers" or whatever we all identify as to have discussions.

I speak for myself and no one else, I dislike disclaimers however find myself indulging them anyway.

I am really tired of people fighting over matters of belief, I mean this quite literally, these "discussions" can really wear me down, so I tend not to engage in them anymore.

I might have misinterpreted the intent of this thread because of the word "support" placed in the title, I thought this was meant to be a "safe place" for atheists...

Anyway...

Hi! I am Anise, and I am an atheist.

Peace.

I wasn't going to respond, but then you came back in and said it again. So here is my opinion...

It doesn't matter if you meant to be rude, you were rude. I am one of the more outspoken non-theists on the board. I have been accused of being just like a fundamentalist just because I steadfastly refuse to pretend that there's one set of rules for dealing with the physical world and there's another set of rules for dealing with the 'spiritual world' that somehow is able to effect change in the physical world in a detectable fashion--as long as the means of that detection are not scientific. Now, it may be the case that I am wrong and there's one or more gods or everyone gets two or more lives or the Universe is the result of this or that divine being with this or that egg or what-have-you. I fully admit that I *might* be wrong.

However, when I look out at the Universe, when I contemplate the thirty-seven orders of magnitude we have access to from sub-atomic particles at one end to the large structure of the Universe at the other, I see something just as beautiful and probably quite a bit more terrifying than you may. I see a universe that at the finest scale plays merry havoc with all our intuitions about how matter and space and time 'should' work. Yet, our description of the universe at the sub-atomic scale, while incomplete, appears to work pretty well, pretty much of the time. The universe at the scale of the very small is sublimely beautiful. On the other scale, that of galaxies and superclusters of galaxies, of solar systems and the very 'beginning' and 'end' of the Universe, I see a landscape of incredible majesty, phenomenal energies, and deep, deep mysteries. I also find monsters. The kinds of things that will keep you up at night. Black holes are monsters. A black hole appearing in our neighborhood would visit unimaginable catastrophe on our planet. Yet, that is not even the most terrifying of the horrors. A few hundred light years from us, there's a star system which rotates on its axis in such a manner that one of its poles is pointed right at our planet. This star is MASSIVE and is a prime candidate to die in such a way that it could become a gamma ray burst. From so far away that it will take the light a century to get here, that star, if it blows up in the manner that stars of its size tend to do, could wipe out at least half the life on this planet--depending upon how long the burst lasts. And then, closer to home, somewhere on a very eccentric orbit there is likely a very big rock with our planet's name on it. The last time something really big hit the planet, it made the Yucatan get its unique shape and likely took down the dinosaurs.

And of all the potential ways our species could shuffle off our mortal coil, we can do something about *one* of them--the rock. There's no divine being that will make the star not die in such a way as to make a gamma ray burst. Either it will (or already has) or it won't. In my world, death is death. If you are the one left behind, you have to find the inner fortitude to go on missing someone you loved. If you are the one leaving, you have to find the courage to come to grips with your non-existence. It adds urgency to my life, makes it *vitally* important how I live. Because life is done in one shot, one take, in real time, in front of a live and participating audience who all are being imperfect humans as well. If it didn't have poetry and dogs, good food, art, music, cats, sex, beer, coffee, pot, writing and storms it would be a whole lot less enjoyable. As it is, it's a good life. I don't feel like I'm missing much of anything and I've been a believer--in both the Christian and New Age senses. I know what it feels like.

I'm a better person without spirituality or religion. I live my life more presently. My only reward for being any kind of decent human being is that I get to be some kind of decent human being. I think that is a rich and wonderful life and while I am in no hurry to shuffle off this mortal coil, I recognize that I will. I don't like that, but no one ever does.

You may think we're out of tune but I prefer to think of it like this; my job is to accept the Universe on its terms, not try to make it conform to my terms. That doesn't mean I don't work for change. Because the universe is impersonal any justice, any love, any kindness or any mercy that exists in the universe will have to come from us or some other sentient species. That makes working for those things all the more important because if we fall down on it, for all we know that quality is diminished in the universe.

I don't know what you think I'm missing out on just because I don't expect the universe to conform to my own ambitions or my own desires. I don't think I'm missing much at all.

Cheers
Aj

ps. You get to have your opinion. I get to have an opinion *about* your opinion.

Yes, this exactly. Thank you for saying it so beautifully Aj.

In a different thread, someone (other than Jar) posted that a life without belief in God basically had no meaning. Frankly, I got pissed.

I hear this a lot. And yes, a life without belief in God is still a life abundant with meaning...and values and love and joy and sadness and all the rest of it.
When Scoote and I were in the Bahamas on her award trip, her company did a day of volunteer work and guests (like my son, her son and myself) were invited to join in. We painted, landscaped, built bicycles for kids....lots of good stuff. We brought joy to a lot of people (including those of us who were doing the work :) ).

I know that many, including the founder of the company, included their belief in God in that experience and verbalized that. I'm fine with that. I'll even bow my head while you pray, out of respect for your beliefs. However, the experience was not any less touching or meaningful for those of us who participated simply because we were making the world a better place for some folks living on it who had less than we did, and who could use a hand.

What's frequently also implied is that somehow atheists are worse or less moral people than those who believe in God. It frustrates me....because not all of those who say they believe live a life that would meet my moral standards, let alone those that are espoused in the new testament of the Christian Bible. (And yes, I know that not all those that are believers are Christians....that's only an example.)

At the end of the day, I don't judge those who do believe in God. And I'd appreciate the same courtesy.

Morality from the bottom up
 

So since morality has come up a couple of times now, I thought I would try to stimulate some conversation about how human beings are moral.

It's a shibboleth that without God or, more generically, some 'spiritual' belief there is no reason to be moral. I have, on numerous occasions, had people express that if not for their belief in God they would probably run amok stealing and making mayhem. These folks say more about themselves and their own view of morality than they do about human nature.

I believe that human beings are *naturally* moral and that our moral sense is not imposed from the top down but grows from the bottom up. What follows is a plausible evolutionary account of morality. I would love to say that I was clever enough to come up with these ideas myself but I'm not so clever. This is based off work of others but the expression of those ideas are mine.

Human beings are social primates. If we look at the other social primates, we see some common themes all of which look like a proto-moral sense. For example, reciprocal grooming is a common feature of gorillas, chimps and bonobos. It is a way of bonding, smoothing over insults, and serves as a form of social cohesion. Given our close proximity to those other great apes it is safe to presume that before we lost our body hair it's likely that the other hominid species that proceeded us also groomed for much the same reasons. Now, this does create a dilemma. If I can get away with it, what I would like is for you to groom me but me not have to groom you in return. The time I take grooming you is time I can't be, for instance, foraging. You, however, have a vested interest in not being exploited by me. Nature's solution was to give social animals a means for telling one another apart and a faculty for detecting cheats. Just that and you have the beginnings of anger--one of our moral emotions.

Think about the moral senses we have. We feel pride when we do something good, we feel even *better* when others acknowledge the good thing we've done. We all feel that. We feel shame or guilt when we do something hurtful. We feel worse when others acknowledge that. We strive to make amends. The person we wronged feels anger or indignation at our behavior and then, hopefully, forgives us. No one has to teach a young child to be angry at being treated unfairly. What is considered worthy of praise or of blame is culturally conditioned but the *capacity* to learn what your particular society thinks is praiseworthy or blameworthy is built-in. No human culture does not have rules of behavior and consequences for breaking those rules and rewards for exemplifying the qualities that society feels should be promoted.

All societies have pretty the same kinds of problems, people have non-identical interests. In such a world cheating or using violence is tempting. But that kind of behavior will quickly tear a society apart. So nature has equipped us with rules that work well enough most of the time. We are moral not because of religion but despite religion. Religion doesn't provide us with morals, our morals are reinforced by religion but even if we didn't have religions we would still have morals. Keep in mind that our moral system evolved in an environment where we lived in very small (~150 people) groups and might have contact with twice that number. We now live in gigantic conglomerations called cities but even with that, we are still a rather moral species. Is everyone always moral? No, we shouldn't expect that to be the case. Cheating is *always* an option but just as a group of all cheaters can't get anything done, a group of entirely honest people will be easily exploited by a cheater. In devising models for how our morality could evolve, biologists have borrowed liberally from game theory. Within that framework cheating all the time is unstable, being a sucker all the time is unstable but tit-for-tat is stable. In other words, I cooperate with those who cooperate with me but I don't cooperate with those who don't cooperate with me. Is it perfect? No, but it is *stable*.

We may have brains that evolved to be open to religion memes but that does not mean that we need those memes in order to be religious. As I said earlier, we're moral first and then we use religion as a post hoc justification for our morality. We don't have religion first and then morality later.

Cheers
Aj

Disclosure: At this point in my life, I am a deist for lack of a better explanation for the existence of "things" I spent many years as an atheist and I am very comfortable with atheists and agnostics.

My personal belief is that atheists have more of an incentive for morality than people who believe in a religion in which a god can forgive them for their misdeeds. Atheists must live with the consequences of their behavior. They can only hope to be forgiven by the person they harm, and/or by themselves. Their morality is inate. It comes from within. They do not need a god to threaten them with damnation or promise them heaven. Also they must be careful with the lives of others because they believe that this is all there is. If their actions result in the ending of the life of another being, they have to face the fact that they have robbed that being of all life. There will be no "better place" for those they harm or kill to move on to in any kind of after life.

They are, I believe more motivated to help others succeed in this life; to cure diseases and repair birth defects because THIS is all that person will have, and they should be helped to have the best life possible.

Up with Atheism ... the true morality of this world.

Smooches,
Keri

When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion. ~Abraham Lincoln

Atheist Wins Right to Wear Religious Pasta Strainer In His ID Photo

http://pre.cloudfront.goodinc.com/po...4pastafari.jpg

Haha!! I love this!! *thumbs up* :D

“We see that the apparent contradictions and perplexities in every religion mark but different stages of growth. The end of all religions is the realizing of God in the soul. That is the one universal religion.”


~Swami Vivekananda (Indian Spiritual leader of the Hindu religion Vedanta)


I wonder how someone who considers themselves religious in the traditional sense would feel about this; and, how do we atheists view this as applying or not applying to our belief system?

I understand the metaphor and don't disagree. I don't disagree with the concept of godhead ether, which is a Hindu concept. God is internal. I think that's a wonderful thing. for me, that brings it down from the supernatural to the material embodiment. And that's beautiful. Nothing wrong with that as a metaphor.

I heard an argument made that a belief in God (at least in the Christian style) renders life meaningless. What happens here isn't really important, what truely matters is what comes next.

I don't entirely believe that argument but it makes an interesting point. I think it's one of the things that has always bothered me about most religions. I believe, regardless of whether or not there is a "next", while we are here then here is all that matters. If there is anything beyond here, it will attend to itself when the time comes. I cannot accept that life is nothing more than the drudgery we have to endure to earn a reward in some afterlife.

Pascal's Gambit for One Please
 

Fascinating. I enjoyed this reading this article, especially the quote from Kenneth Bronstein.
"We’re supposed to be a secular nation - there really should not be any religious symbolism or signage in public places,”
Said Kenneth Bronstein, President of New York City Atheists.

I'll answer Medusa's inquiry with another, Are we a secular nation? I mean, really? Come on now-- In God We Trust is on our money, we have watched Presidents of the USA pray or reference their past prayers publically on the TV, etc. etc... Personally speaking, I think of the US as a Theocracy, and not as a “secular nation”. Oh don't get me wrong-- I am sure John Calvin would not be pleased at how secular we really are in 2011, but~~ There is a but.

I can find atheism and secularism in threads of our nation, but I find that the tapestry is mainly one where God is present—even if god is spelled with a small g.

On a more personal note, I'm siding with Max Planck ;)

Pascal’s gambit, anyone?
~CF

Yes, it's quite non-secular at present. But that's the problem, not the excuse. Separation of church and state, established as an ideal, is not upheld. No argument there.

Selectively, it is.