Does the Bible Belt have prejudice towards Atheists?

I live in a country to which Atheism is accepted just fine. But I've read reports that in the Bible Belt specifically, Atheists are believed to be akin to devil-worshippers and people will lose lose friends because of Atheism. Atleast, that's the case according to these Atheist groups in the Bible Belt:

yes.

I hate religion sometimes for the simple fact that they posses extremists who hate other´s people beliefs. In my country the dominant religion is catholicism, as an student who loves physics and quimistry i´m in a very small percentage of non-belivers. But i´m not an atheist.

Yes. I live in Texas and by simply saying you question some aspect of the a Christian chruch is bad.

But younger more open minded people are paving the way. I live far away from Austin.

Atheism is merely a lack of belief in God/Gods. There are versions of Atheism which are in addition to lacking a belief in a God, also asserting that Gods do not exist, and these versions of Atheism are usually refereed to as strong Atheism or sometimes Gnostic Atheism .

But I see no difference between weak atheist and a non-believer.

Yeah, it´s really hard to find someone who doesn´t care at all.

In some states you can't run for public office if you're a non believer.

BB

Yeah. I live in Mississippi. We got some pretty zealous people around here.

You can run: https://richarddawkins.net/2014/07/yes-i-can-hold-public-office-as-an-atheist/

But if people know you're Atheist, they probably won't vote for you. Richard Dawkins noted that it is statistically inconceivable that only one member of Congress is an Atheist --- I am willing to bet there are more Atheists who haven't admitted it.

The UK was an imperialist state where its king has denounced his own religious leader in Rome, founded his own church, and killed dissenters for the sake of getting married the second time, it's not a wonder that secularism and atheism are widespread.

Meanwhile like it or not USA was not only "land of the free" but also "one nation under God".

The Supreme Court banned that concept back in the 50's. Seven states still have those laws, but like a lot of nonsense laws no one enforces them and they in fact cannot be legally enforced. On the exceedingly few occasions people have tried to have them enforced, the courts have thrown them out.

That said, atheism is unpopular in the United States, so if you run for office as an open atheist your chances of winning are practically negligible.

I wonder if Obama is secretly an Atheist...

@saren: it's been said by more than a few, not in jest but with nasty humor, that the USA is more likely to elect a Black Female Christian as a President before any "Godless Person".

It would say that the BB definitely has something against atheists, but generally speaking the rest of the US seems to have as well.

I live in the UK and got to say that I was raised to decide for myself. I am atheist and I know more muslims than christians in this country. Although I know more atheists than muslims.

Obama is a comunist Muslim

Of course. There are people in every group that are prejudiced against other groups, and the stronger the presence of one cultural group in a region, the more normal the popular view will seem and the more likely people will be to treat it as the only acceptable view.

That being said, the problem shouldn't be overstated. I live in the Bible Belt and grew up as a fundamentalist Christian, and I know of nobody who would consider atheism the same as devil worship nor do I know many people who would treat people badly because they are atheists.

On CV, we have an abnormally high atheists population, and one among the crowd was proudly proclaiming that he was a bigot against all religions the other day and hated all religious people. That's clear prejudice, but it's not unique to atheism. That sort of "I'm right and everyone who disagrees with me is an A-hole" sentiment is present in all groups to some degree.

@frozen:

Bill Maher has voiced the view that Obama is a secret atheist many times. Obama's church certainly spoke more about social justice than God anyway. It's hard to imagine a better church for a leftist atheist.

@billy_batson:

It's not true that you cannot run for office if you are an atheist in some states. There are some old laws on the books that say that, but they are dead letters having been overturned by the Supreme Court.

Pretty much.

But alas, I know some people will argue as if it's a unique idea to religion only.

@consolemaster001:

@batwatch: Don't you think pretty much 75% of the internet are atheists?

Anyway Comic Vine's atheists are one of the most civilized on the internet IMO. In YouTube and Yahoo it's way worse...

More people are Atheist than would admit. A good chunk of the Agnostic statistic could also be Atheist.

@mandarinestro:

It certainly seems like there is a disproportionate amount of atheists on the Internet, but who knows?

I'm not trying to trash the atheists on CV anymore than I'm trying to trash BB Christians. I'm just pointing out that every group has problems.

The only time I was truly annoyed at the atheists on CV was when someone started a "favorite Bible story" thread, and the atheists just trolled and mocked the heck out of the Bible and the Christians. It seemed unnecessarily rude, but it is what it is.

@twix_right_side:

There certianly are some atheists who like to act as if prejudice is only a religious problem.

I've been talking to a co-worker who is non-religious who was saying how much of a problem prejudice is in the Christian community, and I've been trying to point out that it's a problem in all communities. The funny thing is that he's always talking about how judgmental Christians are while starting out conversations with statements like, "The thing I hate about Christians is..." I've never pointed out the irony to him. I think we are making slow progress.

This is true. Atheism and Agnosticism are not mutually exclusive.

That being said Agnosticism and Theism follow the same rules too.

@foolsgold:

I'm not sure about that. I though agnosticism was basically, "I don't know if there is a God or not," atheism is, "there is no God," and theism is, "There is a God, but I don't think any of the religions know anything about him nor do I think God really meddles with people's affairs."

Am I mistaken? If not, then those three religious viewpoints are fairly distinct.

That would make sense cuz he's trying to make christian America a godless communist cesspool with Sharia law.

Also, it's not called the bible belt without a reason.

Not quite

If you believe that God/Gods exist then you're Theist, if you lack such a belief then you are Atheist.

If you know whether God/Gods exist then you're Gnostic, if you do not know then you're Agnostic.

Agnostic weak Atheist simply lacks any belief in any God, and has no knowledge about them.

Agnostic Atheist is a person who do not believe in any God, but doesn't claim to know that there are no Gods.

Agnostic strong Atheist is a person who believes there's not God, but doesn't claim to know that there are no Gods.

Gnostic Atheist is a person who believes there's no God and knows there's no God.

Theism refers to belief. Gnosticism refers to knowledge. You can believe in something without actually having knowledge that it exists.

So I believe that there is life on other planets despite not knowing for sure. I would classed as an Agnostic in that regard but I would still believe

That only really applies to a slim section of Theists. Theism is the belief of a God full stop. In fact the idea you gave is something with aligns more with being a Deist- I.E the belief of a higher power, that one could call a "God", but one that doesn't really conform to any of the ideas that are commonly put forward by "traditional" Theists such as Muslims, Hindu's or Christians.

I live in Georgia, and no, I've never heard anything, or seen anything prejudice against atheists. I actually know a ton of them, and I been to quite a lot of different church services and I never heard them speak ill about them. Ofcoarse they say they need to be saved, and whatnot, but I never hear them say things such as "They are servants of the devil" or "They are demons trying to sway you from God"...

@foolsgold: @mortein:

Interesting.

Also, the definition I gave for theist is the definition I meant to give to deist. I know the difference, but I get the two terms mixed up because they are so similar.

In most cases, no. Most Christian services do not even discuss atheists; most Christian station do not even discuss atheists; when atheists are discussed, it's because one has converted to Christianity and their reasons for converting; the effect that atheism has had is that it sparked the Christian science revolution. An atheist is just like anyone who we called unsaved; atheists do not conjure up the idea of a devil whisperer in Christian circles. A known devil whisperer would simply be given his space; if the devil whisperer were to appear at a service, he'd just simply be there, just like someone who is drunk; if he attempts to disrupt the service, he would than be escorted from the building, just like someone who is drunk. In an area of high concentration of Christians, atheist are treated as any non-Christian (e.g. Christians would occasionally take an opportunity to introduce him to the Gospel; he would not be scorned). Saying otherwise is just atheist paranoid exaggeration, just like the idea that a lot of Christians are closeted atheists too afraid to come out and say so.