h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hello everyone.

I was just snooping around this article and (don't worry, I'm not about to start ranting - I respect what you believe) I was just wondering something. It seems like most of you guys have had bad experiences with Christianity. Is this something to do with the way religion is dealt with in America? I'm only saying this because my experience, in the UK, has generally been that being a Christian has put me in a minority, especially in school, where evolution was taught as scientific fact (not that I'm saying it isn't) and my "Religious Education" lessons lasted for one year and basically consisted of the teacher saying "don't take drugs" a lot. It seems like the UK is much more secular than the US - in my school there were 5 christians out of 1500 pupils, and in University there are perhaps 150 out of 5-6000 students.
I know in France that only a tiny proportion of the population believe in a God.

I'm not trying to stir up a debate here - I'm just curious. Is Christianity pushed in people's faces in the US? Or is it done generally in the UK as well and somehow it's passed me by?

There seems to be many Christians over here who are actively trying to convert our heathen selves. And recently, it seems, it has become very 'in' to mention God when recieving awards and delivering political speeches. There is no religious education in American public schools; separation of chuch and state wouldn't allow it; and many vocal American Christians would demand that facts about other religions should be left out.

They do like to say 'don't do drugs' over here. I think that was their first mistake.

Christians are very vocal in America; they believe they hold the popular vote, and on paper do. This makes them step a little heavily on the toes of those of us who do not share their beliefs; a typical 'father knows best' attitude.

I'd rather they just minded their own business.

-jb

I can't speak for the UK, but I'm sure someone who can will turn up shortly.

In the US, we have a Consitutional Amendment which clearly seperates the powers of the Church and State. Unfortunately, there is a massive movement going on here to blur that line whenever possible. Christianity is a *definite* majority here... a recent poll showed that 96% of Americans at least believe in God. That doesn't necessarily mean they're the intolerant missionary types, but the ones who are are very vocal. They are campaigning to introduce their mythology into a lot of realms of government, most especially in public schools. The latest challenges have been to introduce school prayer time, to post the Ten Commandments in the classroom, and to eliminate Evolution teaching in science classes, or to give Creation equal time, and teach it as if it were a science (which couldn't be further from the truth, but you weren't looking for a dissertation on the scientific method just now, so I'll move on). In addition, the Republican Party has long cowtowed to a powerful group of right-wing Christians known by many names... the Religious Right, the Christian Coalition, etc. Whatever they call themselves, they are led by greedy, slimy televangelists like Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and formerly, by Jim Bakker.

Outside the political realm, we are constantly bombarded by Christian propaganda. Celebrities like NFL star Reggie White produce commercials that air all day where they nauseatingly profess their personal relationship with God, and interviews with sports stars always seem to end up with them thanking God for their victory... as if the outcome of a sporting event was the most important event in the history of man, with its effects radiating throughout history, and the people on that team just happened to be a bit more pious than the other team. People in suits bicycle to our homes on Sunday afternoons and pound on our doors, preaching at us in our private sanctuaries. As you walk down the street, you'll encounter sidewalk preachers telling us we're horrible and going to hell, and I even encountered a church who felt compelled to hold revival meetings on the streets, making a painful noise unto the lord while blocking the path to my favorite pub.

Two of the loves of my life have been football and music. When I played football, the coaches led us in prayer. When I was involved in music, we sang very religious songs, especially for the Christmas season, and we were even booked to perform at churches. This I would not have minded at all, save that some of them arranged for us to stand off to the side while they preached, then take over and perform. If we could have just come in, performed, and departed, I wouldn't have had to listen to all that drivel. Anyway, my point is that, even while pursuing very secular pasttimes, one has religion forced onto them in the US.

Even in my own family, my beliefs cause me problems. Now, my family is a very loving and tolerant one, so I have to give them credit. When I told my mother that I was atheist, she was clearly disappointed, but she didn't get judgemental, and it hasn't had an averse affect on our relationship... and this pattern has been rather typical throughout my family, with the exception of my uncle Jim. He lives in Arkansas, (I live in California), and he came to stay with my mom for a few weeks. Jim is a well educated individual (especially considering he lives in Arkansas ), and is a career musician. So anyway, we're having a discussion about writing, which leads to poetry, which leads him to singing a song that he had written, with the two of us dissecting it for its poetic structure. It was a religious song, but I shrugged that off in the interest of the discussion at hand. However, my mother came in at the end of the discussion, and couldn't help but announce my beliefs. That sparked off a huge religious debate, which is something I enjoy, but he couldn't let the thing go. The next two weeks, anytime I was alone with him for a few minutes, he brought the subject up again. What bothered me is that he started to view me as an ignorant child, still muddling my way along until I could see "the real truth," and gave me cryptic warnings like "don't take too long." I can easily shrug off that kind of thing from strangers, but you can't simply dismiss family. The whole situation has permanently damaged my relationship with him.

Sorry if that came out a little strong... I guess you touched a nerve... can we still be friends?

Within their own relm, of course. I'd rather they not make policy to affect those with differing beliefs than their own.

-jb

Well, that was completely confusing. My last post was a reply to my first post. I was going to mention the slimy televangelists (my favorite show is The 700 Club; Christian 'news').

CS, can you get onto 'DNA's take, part 2' now? If you can't, try adding a 5 after the first set of numbers in the address. The number then should read: 322345.

As far as I can tell, 'My take on this article' is lost.

Didn't take long for me to drag this off topic..

-jb

I don't have any problems getting to any of the threads off the Atheism official version. Methinks you are stuck in one of those temporal disturbances that have popped up from time to time since the new programming has gone live.

Am I?

Shoot.

-jb

One of the things that attracted me to participating in these forums is the realization that Christian thought and belief are so ubiquitous in Western culture, we have difficulty seperating what is and isn't derived from Christian philosophy.

In my own case, I have explored and lived in much of what the Christian experience has to offer. Being raised Roman Catholic, Becoming born again as a teenager, then exploring what Fundamentalism (Northern Baptist) and Pentacostalism (Assemblies of God) had too offer, visiting smaller indipendant churches here and there and returning back to something more mellow in the end (Anglican). I have explored the width, depth and breadth of Christianity, and have concluded that it is not for me.

Being somewhat of an expert in Christian thought, I can recognize it easily when I see it in the culture that surrounds me. Knowing the arcane and obscure origins of some.

I am still remembered as one of the biggest Holy Roller Jesus Freaks to many. Its pretty surprising to folks who knew me when that I am not Christian anymore. The advantage is that I more knowledgable about Christian thought and the bible than those who try to "re-convert" me. They soon learn that there is nothing that they can tell me that I have not already considered and rejected.

I love the quote that talks about that freedom of religion must include freedom from religion. (I forget the exact quote and who said it, but I read it first here...) That is an ideal that will be a long time in coming. At least here, we SHOULD have a haven against the prevalent Christian influence, but even here we can't seem to escape it. Its nearly all we talk about.

"Freedom of religion must include freedom FROM religion." George Orwell, courtesy of Anonymouse.

I too have had a similar experience, raised as a Roman Catholic, exploring Baptist, Pentecostal, Episcopalian, Lutheran, and even Seventh Day Adventist faiths before deciding I didn't need any of them.

Zen: The conversations here are all free-form, which means they'll go in any direction the people choose to take them. If, for example, you wanted to talk about Eastern theosophies, I'm sure you would be accomodated.

Warning - long, and meandering around the subject...

I think Christianity is still a technical majority in the UK - at least according to the censi. I would suspect a lot of this is due to "default christians" - people who classify themselves as christians because it's easier than bothering to think about the subject when filling out meaningless government forms... And/Or are definitely Christian, but can't be bothered to tell anyone about it. Similarly I suspect the majority of kids are raised as non-fundy christians, because it's the easiest way to try and instill a sense of morality into your offspring - but that's based on anecdote, not hard fact.

Anywhichway - I'm UK atheist. I deconverted slowly, after RE lessons (for a year) showed me that there were a million equally valid religions out there, and bible-reading got me highly concerned about the basis of the religion. The closest I came to proseltysing during this process was conversations into the night with my room-mate, and the occasional church visit.

Since then I've had a few "bad experiences" - I foolishly ventured onto talk.atheism, assuming there would be just atheists there - to see what was relevant. This turns out to be a mistake, as some idiot decided that residents of this newsgroup would be perfect people to register onto a christian mailing list, and it has a few rabid christians. However, as I've said elsewhere, it's a reasonably effective tool for honing debating skills, and it made me sure that my decision is right - I've managed to come against most of the standard conversion ploys, and it's just the odd one now and then that causes me to have to actually think.

I also have had a bit of interest from a couple of christians at my uni. One of them appealed to my GCSE history and told me to actually look at the historical evidence, which occupied me for a while while I did so. I subsequently decided that there wasn't any worth the paper it was written on, though of course my subsequent rejection was interpretted as a loss of interest, rather than a rational decision. *sigh*.

I'm not particularly angry at these things - in the first case I should have known better, in the second I probably could have avoided the whole thing had I been sufficiently closed-minded, and there was nothing really offensive about the whole thing (I suspect they were offended more than me, in any case). I don't think it's affected my beliefs, in any case, one way or the other, though some people do assume that I've had bad experiences, or the experiences I've had are worse than they are... (how else could I resist the inherent truth of their message?)

Oh, and I read the news, so I get to hear some of the more disturbing of American viewpoints, and things like Fatwahs, which tend to have an effect. And I use the web, which means I get to hear gems like that at the start of the guide entry on Durex Condoms (they apologise if they offend anyone by *discussing* contraception).

I find the "lighweight Christian" viewpoint mildly amusing, but no more harmful than a belief in UFOs, for example. The standard modifications tend to be to drop the bit about spreading the word, to write off all miracles except possibly the ressurection as folk stories, whose truth is irrelevant, to go for a meritocratic heaven, so they don't have to have Hitler in there, to accept the bible as errant, and to ignore most of the moral teachings in favour of their own feelings. My only concern with the viewpoint is it's potential to go into the more virulent "fundie" form of the religion if it's correctly stimulated, so if the subject comes up I tend to try vaguely to ward off this threat - mainly by reinforcing the "errant bible" belief.

I find the "fundie" form of the religion both distressing and disgusting, and attempt to stir doubt where I can. I tend to operate "no first strike" though, to avoid collateral damage to lightweight christians - where doubt makes them more likely to go fundie, which is bad. (I'm trying to make the world a better place here, not serve Truth, or suchlike).

You are correct that Europe as a whole is secular, in that they tend to reckon that religion should stay completely out of public life at all times, and in all guises. This would be one of the common themes that led to the formation of the EU, along with things like Democracy, et al. I don't know how you arived at your estimate of numbers, but I suspect your only counting people who are visibly Christian, and this tends to be the minority in my experience. I don't know if you're one of the people who blame bad experiences for all atheism, but if you are, you should know that you're wrong. One minor irritation for perfectionists is that the UK doesn't have a seperation of church and state concept - I think this is a good thing - it shows that it's never been a problem, and we've all got on well, but I've met a few that are a little affronted that the Queen is also the head of the church of england.

That'll do for now...

Europe sent most of the really ridiculous zealots overseas when they had the chance. I'm sure the influence of puritan fanaticism is still felt strongly in the US.

Recently in Canada, an MP (sort of like a congressman) read a petition in the House of Commons that had been signed by a couple of thousand atheists; this petition was aimed at removing all references to 'God' from the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. He would have had more success I am sure, but there are a lot of MPs from Quebec; Quebec's constituents are probably about 99.% percent Roman Catholic. Curiously, there is also a proliferation of whacked-out cults in Quebec, probably because the Catholic brainwashing makes people susceptible to that kind of thing. sort of tragic to see someone cast off one stupid belief system in favour of an equally stupid one.

Sellers, your story reminded me of a similar one in my own family. Suffice to say I have a weirdo aunt who just returned to Canada after spending 20 years in Spain as a missionary for the 'brethren' assemblies (the brethren are an ultra ultra conservative offshoot of baptism, they make pentecostals look liberal). Every time she sees me she brings up Jesus and blah blah blah. I'm going to snap the next time she tries it, and mercilessly ridicule her. It's really an insult to one's intelligence to have to listen patiently to that kind of crap. But you know, instead of arguing logically, it can be a lot of fun to simply mimic the stupidity of the person trying to convert you by mirroring it back at them. 'No, no, only Yog-Sothoth, The Goat With a Thousand Young, is the true diety, and from his oozing tentacles spring the forces of esthetic cruelty... convert now or be crushed to psychoplasmic goo in the coils of his evil mercy.' Point out that you have as much evidence for your point of view as they do for theirs, and that they just don't have understanding and wisdom to see that your Truth is Eternal while theirs is Passing. It gets them muttering.

LOL! Luckily, that uncle has returned to Arkansas, so it isn't a problem anymore.

Lol! I like it...

Fundamentalism is the worst kind of thing, as far as I'm concerned. I've been attacked by fundamentalist people in the past because I have liberal views - the best thing that anyone's ever said to me is that I'm a "mindless hedonist who uses scripture to satsify my evil desires"...erm, yeah...that just about sums me up

Don't worry, MyRedDice, I wouldn't suggest for a second that Atheism comes about from bad experience. I actually respect atheism a lot, because most atheists who I've met are far more genuine than a lot of Christians who I've met. I guess my own experience and understanding points me towards christianity, and I think that for most christians it's the same - but problems arise when christians start to view their own experience and understanding as inherently better than anyone else's.

Anyway...must dash...I'm off to satisfy my evil desires and go shopping...

Is it OK to resurrect old threads? I hope so.

Anyway, some time ago, Lucinda commented: "I find the 'lightweight Christian' viewpoint mildly amusing, but no more harmful than a belief in UFOs." I beg to differ. (surprise!! )

Have you heard of impalement? It's a hideous form of execution. The victim is placed on a sharpened stake, with the point up his/her anus, ankles loosely bound to the stake, arms tied behind the back. Death comes after a very long time, as the stake gradually impales the poor victim, tearing and ripping as it goes.

The Romans used impalement a lot, along with a technique called crucifixion. We hear the latter term so often, we fail to realise quite how hideous it is. That's why I suddenly started to write about impalement.

I was taught about crucifixion well before my fourth birthday. The Roman Catholics also taught me to eat the body and drink the blood of Christ, figuratively if not literally.

Seen in this most negative of lights, the Christians are a dangerous band of cannibalistic torturers who endanger the minds and sanity of our children with their horrific tales and practices. Give me UFOs anyday!

Pattern-chaser

Given the choice I'd probably go for Martians over Christians as well, although I find it isn't always easy to tell the difference.

But I think our colleague was talking less about anus-impaling fundamentalism, more about the kind of 'wishy-washy' agnostic type of Christian, when he said he finds them amusing but harmless. That's my understanding, anyway. To be fair, I don't think those people could be considered much worse than mildly irritating - I don't see them as dangerous torturers, anyway. I say live and let live - as long as they don't poke my fire...

Yes, Lear, I know what you mean. I was not *entirely* in earnest in my previous rant. Nevertheless, even the wishy-washiest of Christians *do* peddle these revolting images, and we are so inured to them we don't appreciate their true horror.

Hail Eris!

I guess, most christians are apt to a quite normal problem with reading books (in case of christians: reading the bible). If I read, lets say "War of the Worlds" I only get a glimpse of the feeling, of what is being discribed. BUT, if you would turn it into Schwarzenegger-VanDamme-BruceWilles-Scream123-kind-of-pictures, you would have to turn of, as you cannot bare it.

So, Christians never get the horrorshock kind of presentation of what they have got written, and if the would, they always go off into the line of "Well, that is history for us, but the Lord loves you and doesn´t want that noughty stuff on telly..."

Bad Luck...no chance to get these people down from their podest (german saying lies at the bottom of that...)