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To the me, the most aggravating part isn't in the logically skimpy court rulings that continue to validate the idea of an encoded national belief in ghosts and myths.
Nor is it the right-wing gasbags who declare themselves "tired" of American atheists for wanting a secular nation to act like it or the holy warriors who remind us in all their pro-god, pro-'Murica fury that we "don't have to live here" if we don't want religiously branded money or public libraries that promote Christmastime fantasy.
Naw, the most annoying part of living on the godless side of the ongoing discussion about the role of religious faith in modern American life is this grating lie that, in challenging practices like placing references to "God" on U.S. currency and pledges, atheists somehow continue some long-held practice of “forcing” unwanted ideas on nonbelievers.
Cold War-era politicians retroactively tattoo "god" on the Pledge and it's dissenting atheists today who are "shoving" a notion down someone else's throat? It's the most frustrating sort of projection. And one of the most common.
Take even the clip of Fox News talker Dana Perino's comments last week, when she said she was "tired" of atheists in the wake of an effort in Massachusetts to have the phrase "under God" removed from the Pledge of Allegiance.
For me, Perino's childish exasperation is far less bothersome than the indignant rant from her co-host that followed, in which she claimed the atheist plaintiffs in the Massaschusetts case merely want to “inflict their belief system” on their countrymen.
Atheism Getting More Mainstream Exposure
Truth is, even at a time in the country when atheism probably enjoys more mainstream exposure than ever before, most atheists certainly don’t strive to impose anything on believers.
First, there’s no “belief system” to “inflict.” The only thing that binds atheists is our rejection of the notion of the existence of supernatural, divine beings. That’s it.
Moreover, atheists don’t intrude on believers’ lives with anything like the smug presumptuousness that is “proselytization,” demanding that you think like we do at risk of hellfire and brimstone and loss of paradise and virgin wives.
Real talk: When was the last time some atheist showed up on your doorstep at 7 a.m. on a Saturday to hand you a tract and invite you over to the Heathens’ Hall?
When was the last time some atheist scaled a bell tower and shook the countryside with pre-recorded clanging to let you know it was about time you bowed down to Charles Darwin?
What atheists are standing on city street corners with portable P.A. systems singing hymnals to the Flying Spaghetti Monster or even in NFL press conferences giving all praises due to Neil deGrasse Tyson for their two-touchdown game?
Even in my personal life — and I know I’m nobody’s shrinking violet — I spend far more time being inundated by friends’ religious sentiments than I do sharing my own views.
How many Facebook posts a day do I endure from friends and family and even relative strangers quoting this Psalm or that Surah, urging me to recognize my “blessings,” warning me of the “devil’s tricks” and “covering” everything in sight in “the blood of Jesus?” (Ew.)
Now, since many of the theist bromides I get do come from people I care about, I tend to take them more as indicators that a loved one is doing fine and thinking about me rather than as some imposition of religious belief.
But if I’m honest, I have to concede that they’re both. And yes, I know that social media offers any number of options to resolve the matter —from unfriending people to asking them to leave me off their daily Psalm hitlist — but the reality is that I, like most atheists with religious friends and family, tend to suffer such openly religious gestures quietly.
Among Black Atheists
And among the black atheists I know – an even rarer form of bird’s teeth -- I’m still considered far more “open” about my views than others. Hell, I have one friend who will not tell any co-workers or clients that he doesn’t believe in gods because he worries that the revelation might kill his business.
No, there’re few throats being stuffed with anti-god ideas on this end.
Sure, there are billboards and YouTube channels and Facebook groups where atheist groups and organizations explain their missions or detail exactly why they refuse to believe in deities.
And increasingly, there are books and TV programs and even films devoted to the notion of non-belief. There’re even small pockets of so-called “militant” atheists, nonbelievers who aren’t militant at all, but rather just loudly fed up with talking in timid whispers about their lack of faith.
And, thankfully, there are also the lawsuits.
All of this, though, is as it should be. Freethinkers, men and women who’d rather give their lives over to reason than the divine, shouldn’t have to hide in dark corners. Nor should we have to feel ostracized or, as taxpayers, be slighted by unconstitutional policies that promote religious views over non-religious perspectives in our schools and other public spaces.
Plenty about America concerns and even angers me. But I firmly believe that America’s constitutional secularity – that most elemental part of our collective DNA where we’ve enshrined this idea that we will “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” — really should be cause for recognition of legitimate progressiveness.
Atheists tend to be good with that secular safeguard. Sure, some of us wish it were enforced better—sorry, but it strikes me as patently absurd to suggest that there is "secular purpose and intent" to the phrase "in God we trust"—but us nonbelievers needn't go anywhere.
However, if constitutional freedom from religion is too much for Dana Perino to stomach, if she really, truly does want to live in a nation “under God,” hey, there are plenty of other places on the planet she can choose from.
And I bet she wouldn't even have to bring her own burqa.
