The Double Standard of Religious Conversation
Why is it that religious people feel the need to insert their religious views into seemingly every conversation? If an atheist inserting his or her lack of belief into seemingly every conversation we are criticized by the religious for “pushing our atheism.”
Yesterday, I was out with my 8 mouth old son and a woman came up to me and started a conversation. She told me about how she works in a hospital and deals with babies all the time. She of course thought that my son was cute (because he is cute!) and that was fine. No problems so far. But then she started going off on how he is a miracle from God and stuff. She actually laid the God-talk on pretty thick and it got pretty awkward. I did my best not to say anything and to just be polite since we were in a store full of people. But she made it really difficult.
The thing is that I shouldn’t have had to bite my tongue, she didn’t bite her tongue. In fact, she had no problem whatsoever pushing her religious beliefs on me and making the conversation very uncomfortable. Plus, had I told her that I didn’t believe in God, no doubt I would be considered the rude one.
Contrast this with an incident from over the weekend in which a facebook friend (relative really) had a status update in which she started to express doubt in God. I posted a comment joking about how I don’t believe in God and haven’t gotten hit with a lightning bolt yet. This of course led to a small debate with one of her Christian friends. I was very polite and even told her friend that if she wanted to continue the conversation, we should do so privately. But instead, her friend just kept insulting me. In the end, I was considered the rude one for, “pushing my atheism” and “inserting my atheism into every conversation” despite the fact that the conversation started with someone else’s doubt of deities.
This is why I think it is so important for atheists to come out of the closet. In fact, I am probably going to start wearing my American Atheist necklace more often now. If more people realize that atheists are out there in the general public in larger numbers, they will stop assuming that everyone they meet believes in God. This might cause them to think a little bit before they start babbling about gods and miracles at seemingly every turn.
Filed under: conversation, culture war, discussion, miracles, People of Reason, Religion
