The Atheist Vision

A recent study shows that we atheists are not well-liked:

From a telephone sampling of more than 2,000 households, university researchers found that Americans rate atheists below Muslims, recent immigrants, gays and lesbians and other minority groups in "sharing their vision of American society." Atheists are also the minority group most Americans are least willing to allow their children to marry.

Even though atheists are few in number, not formally organized and relatively hard to publicly identify, they are seen as a threat to the American way of life by a large portion of the American public. "Atheists, who account for about 3 percent of the U.S. population, offer a glaring exception to the rule of increasing social tolerance over the last 30 years," says Penny Edgell, associate sociology professor and the study’s lead researcher.

Jinkies! What's up with people? I mean, we atheists are a small minority of the population. This means that the majority of lawyers and politicians are religious and everyone hates lawyers & politicians. When a scandal breaks in Washington, it's Christians that are found doing wrong. You think the Supreme Court is getting all activist and defying "traditional values" - well, there's no godless justices on the SCOTUS. Yet it's we atheists that most folks find to be lower than snake pussy.

"Our findings seem to rest on a view of atheists as self-interested individuals who are not concerned with the common good."

You never hear these folks bitching about the godless scientists who contribute to the common good with their vaccines and medicines. And self-interest? Isn't the basis of capitalism that Christian folk act based on their self-interest? You know, good Christians go buy a bunch of cheap products from China at Wal-Mart and then go home to sit in front of their Japanese TV while wearing their clothes made in Mexico or the Pacific Rim and bitch about the disappearance of manufacturing jobs here in the States? Is this not the Yahweh-approved American way?

I hope that you religious folk here in America realize that we atheists are your fellow citizens. We are your co-workers; we are your neighbors. Atheists pay their taxes, love their children, and basically lead lives very similar to yours except we don't go to church on Sundays. I think that we atheists have a very similar vision of America to that of religious people. We value justice & fairness. Our hearts went out to the people of the American South in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. We don't get off on watching people suffer. (Nor do we go around saying that victims of natural disasters got what they deserved.) While there are differences on how to achieve the goal, atheist- and religious Americans have very similiar visions for our country.