Kids Without God

So you're saying a better ad would have been, "I don't need the Bible, because I can make up my own scary ghost stories!"

Run it.

Quatoria, no one is making a claim about serious harm from the ad in the OP or questioning the right to post it. The only thing some of us have questioned is the point of it. It's petty.

It's of the same calibur as the religious messages we encounter often enough in public. My favorite recent sighting was a license plate frame: "Know Jesus, Know Heaven - No Jesus, No Heaven" Okay, so they're distilling their religious messiah down to the Soup Nazi? What is the point of that? It's not going to inspire thoughts of conversion in anyone and it casts their beliefs in a childishly simplistic light. If I were a christian, I don't think I would care for that license plate frame any more than I do as an atheist. In fact, probably less because then I would be more mindful of how dumb it makes the faith look.

Anyhow, if the point of the OP ad was to satisfy a sense of injustice by lashing back with an inane and petulant message then it hits the mark. If the point was to provide validation to fellow atheists, well, there are those of us who neither need or want that validation as we've stated here. (Which is not to say you can't still have it for yourself. We can agree to disagree there.) If the point was to get religious believers to reconsider their treatment of atheists, it flat out fails.

The "flies people into buildings" ad is much better IMO because it comes across as "religious extremism is bad for everyone". That message is at least considerable to many people of faith and nibbles away at the intolerance at the heart of the experiences you related.

That's exactly what will not happen if you tell someone their religion is for babies. I'm not playing a violin for the poor persecuted christian majority. I'm just pointing out that it's behaving poorly because they did first.

You might want to start a thread in the Debate and Discussion forum. This forum is for threads about Brett.

I'm sorry, but that's ridiculous. You cannot create an equivocation between the two meanings because you cannot divorce them from the broader cultural context, and any attempt to analyze the content of the poster without considering the context in which it exists is naive at best, and disingenuous at worst. A hostile Christian message is of an entirely different 'calibur' - and significance - precisely because it is backed by the force of the dominant religion in the country, one with massive political and social power and influence. That power and influence implicitly backs up every statement of Christian bigotry you encounter - from the billboards on the side of the road opposing abortion and gay marriage to the bumper stickers and screaming preachers threatening you with damnation and eternal torment. Those messages are backed up by the force of a religion so dominant that professions of Christianity are considered virtually mandatory for any attempt at high political office, so dominant that polls have repeatedly shown a widespread belief that it is impossible to be a 'good citizen' of this country if you are an atheist. Quite frankly, in the face of that kind of political and social monsoon, a little shouting back is far from harmful, and the amount of hand-wringing that goes on about something this mild really bothers me. If that poster makes a kid - any kid - feel less alone, less isolated, when surrounded by the religious masses who literally tell them that they're less of a person, less of a citizen and a human for their lack of theism - who literally say that the kid will burn forever in hellfire, and that they're glad - then it's worth any number of mildly bruised feelings on the part of the dominant majority.

Brett and Pogo are star crossed lovers with a thing for angry sex. Unfortunately for all of us here they're working jobs in separate parts of the country and have decided to fulfill their need for sexytimes through the medium of internet catfighting.

Both posters might give internal encouragement to an atheist feeling lonely in the terrible place you live, but one is more likely than the other to wind up subjecting that atheist to more poor treatment in response. It seems we can do better, if we care to.

If not, that is certainly your choice.

You really think this poster is going to make a single bit of difference to the way that theists treat atheists? Seriously? Frankly, that seems so incredibly specious that it's hard for me to believe you're not just concern trolling here. If you really are being sincere, let me reassure you - the only thing that would change the 'poor treatment' they dealt out was conversion. I promise you, school kids did not think "oh boy, I saw a poster that said God was an imaginary friend - that's the reason I'm going to throw rocks at that devil kids head today! Wait, why was I doing it yesterday? Oh, right, SPAWN OF SATAN!"

You sound traumatized. Since we're internet-arguing I guess I should respond that I've managed to go my whole day so far without seeing one fiery preacher exhorting a rampaging christian horde to stone me out of my blasphemous existence. But it's only lunch time. I guess I should give it a few.

Yeah, I have to say as an Atheist I've never really run into discrimination/persecution that others have mentioned in this thread. I think that kind of stuff may be a function of the south, where religion just plays a bigger role period.

I guess what I'm trying to say is get to the west coast where nobody gives a shit what sky ghost you may or may not worship.

When you allow your imagination to influence your actions more than reality influences your actions, that's close to the medical definition of schizophrenic symptoms - taking actions based on things that are not real and do not exist.

Not even in the same ballpark, Nute.

1: Yes, it is. From the Mayo Clinic:

2: Stop taking it personally. Schizophrenia is a tragic and terrible condition, yes. But the quote above also describes most events that people interpret as "God speaking to them" or "I felt the presence of god" - it's not based in reality and usually involves a misperception of what's actually happening.

Okay, you're trying to be funny/sarcastic to make a point - but you're making mine for me. Let's use the helium shortage argument as an example. I argued, quite self-assuredly, that you can't "run out" of a basic element unless it's broken down into something else, combined with something else, or escapes Earth's atmosphere. This belief seemed eminently logical to me based on what I knew of science at the time. I was arguing from a position that was, as many people pointed out, incorrect. Faced with overwhelming opposition, I took a step back and reassessed my viewpoint.

Now, had I continued to this day going "I am right and you are wrong despite all this evidence from reputable sources backing up your claim and nothing but my own nonprovable belief backing up my claim!" - yes, that would be a delusion because I am basing my argument on something patently not real.

I find people who claim "I know God exists because I just know!" to be making that same sort of argument. Hence why I find the OP ad to be rather on the nose. Schizophrenics or other delusional people may feel that something is "real to them", despite no actual source of evidence.

Nute, saying that everyone who is religious basically has a mental illness is idiocy, even for you.

At no point did I say that. Delusions are a symptom of various mental illnesses. They are also misconceptions that many sane people have - Elyscape bringing up my infamous helium boner as an example. I assert that belief in a mystical higher power is a delusion because it's not real. It doesn't mean you're insane. It just means you're wrong.

Fair point, and I apologize for the offense.

still waiting for the day I'll see such advertisement around my city (although I think that ad is uhm too firestarter-ish).
I don't care much for religion, but I'd like my people to be openminded enough to allow such an AD to be published.

And madkevin in commie-socialist Canada has apparently been exposed to an even harsher and more personal attack on his atheism basedon his recollections concerning the building landlord or manager or something (going by memory here). So there must be more to it than stereotypical locationism* or whatever.

*new word, we can share it.

Hate to chime in again, especially on the creative process bit.

It is being regularly pushed that creatives are crazy. Thus the argument that we don't deride creative anyone for the characters they bring to life is ringing sour in my head.
I spend much of my time making characters. They don't live in as vast a world as a complete book because I am not capable of -that- level of creativity. That does not make them less a creative endeavor. If I bring this up I get made fun of regularly. This is because the medium I chose has some limitations to what one is able to do, and bad connotations to it. Still if one pointed out every fiction work is no better than Harlequin romance we wouldn't have literary works we could hold up. Yet the characters in the romance have some development and gods I hate to say it even twilight has some.

What I am saying is that we cannot point to something being imaginary as being a problem unless we are willing to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
We have proven that we all actually live in an imaginary world. We don't see, we interpret and shortcut all our senses to get an approximation of what might really be going on. AND WE ARE FOOLED REGULARLY.. yes even you. So I can't say God doesn't exist nor can I say he does merely based on reality as we perceive it being you know.. not actually anything near reality as it is.

ow... I think my head hurts.
Still having gone through that above I conclude that the advert is missing the point entirely and should take an entirely different tactic to insult if it so desires.

Man, this all makes me so glad I live where I do, instead of the "Proper" south

Even growing up in a very small country town in regional Australia, I was able to confidently assert "fuck that shit" on the question of going to Sunday School at a very early age (~ 8 or so), even though a very large number of kids my age in town did attend and I suffered exactly zero social consequences. My granddad (also an atheist) positively grinned at my non acceptance and my mum simply said, "fine you don't have to go" - she is also an atheist and was simply sending me for social inclusion reasons.

Same for "opting out" of scripture teaching at school and having to go sit with the 3 Jehovah witness kids in the library for an hour every week (thanks for writing that letter mum, pretty sure I read Lord of the rings during that time, which is a much better story). Had zero social consequences from that as well, same friends, same everything. I don't remember even talking about it all with anyone. I don't recall ever saying more than a few words to the Jehovah kids though, mostly because they were in different years than me. Interestingly, looking back they probably suffered more social stigma (albeit still mild) than me - they still played with all the kids though.

(also fuck the government for allowing "scripture teaching" conducted by whatever local untrained worshipper felt like volunteerering into school in the first place, as if they were part of the curriculum! At least they don't take actual school time up now, and are forced to proselytise at lunch time.)

I just don't remember ever seeing that kind of mockery in an article/review/interview with a book/movie/game writer. Even when bad stories are made fun of, it seems focused on shortcomings of writing/plot/characters than "he/she is cuckoo for inventing fake people in the first place".

If you are made fun of in that latter manner, perhaps it's done by dim people who --lacking first-hand experience-- don't grasp how big role the character creation plays in the writing, and so when presented with it on its own their reaction/attitude is much like that of the OP ad -- "aren't you too old for imaginary friends?"

From what I recall about that the landlord is in a pseudochristian cult and his only crime that I recall being mentioned is repeatedly asking madkevin to join him in the common room for festivities. Doesn't sound too traumatic to me.

Yeah, it isn't. Irritating, sure, seeing as he's asked five times now and I've explained five times that my wife and I don't celebrate Christmas, and even if I did I wouldn't join his Christmas party masquerading as a recruitment drive anyway.

And being woken up on a Sunday by a woman buzzing all of the apartments in the building demanding to know why we're all not at church probably doesn't fall under the "traumatic" banner either. After all, why should I expect any right to privacy in my own apartment? Clearly, if I were to complain about such a thing I'd be a monster.

And waiting for a bus, minding my own business, looking at my ipod, having a pamphlet thrust between the ipod screen and my eyes boldly declaring how all of my friends who are gay are going to be tortured for eternity is also probably not traumatic. I mean, it's not like she physically assaulted me with the pamphlet. She merely broke every natural rule of public behaviour and completely disregarded my personal space. It's good to remember that, at times like that, if I were to loudly complain to such a person, I'm the one that's being rude.

And opening up the paper today and reading about how Christians are supposed to boycott a mall in Guelph because the mall isn't doing a nativity scene - because clearly the most appropriate place to demonstrate the importance of the Christian message is in a shopping mall - would also not technically fall under the umbrella of trauma. Not even when I point out that each of these examples happened to me within the past six weeks or so.

No, it's just a death by a thousand cuts. Every Christmas, the Christian world conspires to make sure that everybody who isn't Christian gets the true meaning of Christmas, which is: You don't matter. It's like being single on Valentine's Day, except it now apparently has to be two months long.

The point is that it's just annoying. You aren't being physically or financially threatened because of your beliefs. The state of affairs in most of Canada with respect to religion isn't optimal but it could be a lot worse.

The only reason we're NOT being financially threatened is because my wife happens to run a business that does not cater (or, really, even care about) Christians. Not that she's hostile to them or anything, but her clothing store carries a lot of stuff that has questionable iconography on it - devil girls, skulls, zombies, etc. If a Christian group threatened us with boycott, we'd shrug because we're pretty sure they don't shop there anyway.

That's just luck, though. Not everybody is so lucky. There are plenty of businesses that, when faced with the ridiculous and arbitrary decision to say "Merry Christmas!" instead of the way more logical, way more inclusive "Happy Holidays!" will cave, because the economy isn't strong enough to tell these assholes to go fuck themselves. That's a real thing, a real threat that people who laughingly call themselves "Christians" in my community have absolutely no problem making.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg. I've caught people going through the garbage outside my building looking for fetuses because there's a Planned Parenthood office on the top floor of my building. Up until just a couple of years ago, the public school system would hand out Bibles to each kid in grade two - they were to take them home, and then if they didn't want them they were to fill out a form and send the form back with their child. This is in public schools. When a majority of the school board decided to suspend that practice, guess what happened? The Christians agreed that it was probably an inappropriate thing to do. Oh, wait, no they didn't: They started a two-year long smear campaign against the specific board members, and loudly cried in the letters column that Jesus was being censored.

Now, maybe none of that would bother you personally. I can tell you as sure as shit that it bothers me, though. Because as I've tried to explain here and The Other Place, I have no problem with somebody choosing to worship in any way they want, as long as they don't impose those views on other people. I cannot say the same about the Christians whom I call neighbours.

madkevin, It bothers the fuck out of me and I've never had to deal with anything like it.

Is that the point? When did that become the point?

Sorry that was my point, in response to shift6 implying that discrimination against atheists is everywhere and not more present in certain locations in North America. If that wasn't what he was saying or he was joking then nevermind me.

Oh. Well it definitely does vary, that's for sure. I think his point was just that it isn't quite as predictable as you might think, since a lot people have the idea that persecution of atheists is a linear scale that runs from from south to north and gets better as you move up the line with no exceptions.

My girlfriend’s son is in the French Catholic system here in Ottawa, so he is slowly picking up the religious stuff. Dead people are “in the sky”, and Jesus is also in the sky somewhere with them. Recently he was told that the soldiers who died for Canada are with God. Nothing about hell yet, but they did want to confirm him in the church. I’m glad my girlfriend agreed that it’s an absurdity for a seven year old (as he was when they wanted to do it). If he wants to do the Catholic thing when he’s old enough to understand it, fine, but I consider it part of my responsibility to make sure it’s a real decision and not just doing what he’s expected to do.

Confirmation at seven? What the fuck? I know 14-year olds barely qualify as capable of making informed decisions, which is when they get confirmed here, but 7? That's just absurd.

I think Hatter might be confusing first communion with confirmation. Confirmation happens when you're 13 or 14. My first communion was around 7.

FTFY. If you're too young to drink, drive, or screw, you're sure as shit too young to figure out the essential meaning of the universe. Hell, where I live they don't let fourteen-year-olds decide for themselves that they want to get their ears pierced, but when it comes to the thing that religious people consider literally the most important decision you could possibly make in your entire life, that's the one they want to trust children with. Of course it's no accident but it's pretty appalling.

The confirmation thing (mine, I was 13, I'm thinking it's either first communion or baptism they want to do to Mad Hatter's girlfriend's son) doesn't bother me, simply because if you wind up thinking the Church is a bunch of bullshit ... well, who cares if you were confirmed? I was confirmed (my confirmation name is CATHERINE), I was actually my sister's sponsor (the confirmation equivilent of a godparent, basically), etc. It had precisely zero impact on my decision to tell the Church it can take its bullshit and shove it, I'll figure out the God thing on my own, and no one I went to church with seemed to even notice I had wandered off besides my parents, who still go to church but are grown up enough to realize not everyone is going to be down with that (they give no fucks about Ingmar's atheism, either). I imagine it has even less of an effect on someone who goes all the way to atheism, unless picking that as another reason to resent religion counts.

And if you don't leave the Church? Well, it's a shared cultural rite of passage you had with everyone else there, and it still ain't no big.

Yeah, it's not like they have Confirmation RFID tags to sort the saved from the damned as they come through the door.

...

I think I just stumbled on a scheme to make a lot of money.