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In reply to the discussion: My Mother is Very Religious, and I Am Not [View all]Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)This post is not meant as an attack of any sort, rather an explanation of how some of us see things, or how I do anyway.
I've never knowingly met in the flesh another atheist, I even had an OP up about it in the religion forum last April.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/121820137
The atheist in a heavily theist society has two basic ways of thinking of themselves and their fellow humans who are theists, either they are all deluded and maybe a little crazy and you are one of the rare sane or the atheist is the freak missing some basic portion of the human sensorium that allows the perception of the divine.
Honestly, neither scenario is particularly comforting and in the USA it's hard to escape being reminded of it.
Seeing a large mass of people engaged in either deluded/crazy or seeing something you are completely blind to is a little hard to take sometimes but mentioning that discomfort absolutely guarantees an avalanche of criticism.
I fit every negative stereotype on DU, older white male raised and living in the deep South, EmoProg Firebagger and atheist, I'm at war with every single part of my own being, a walking dichotomy. Those I resemble in real life mostly loathe me if I allow myself to speak of anything beyond the weather or sports and then I come on DU and find that everything I am is hated too.
In 2003 DU was a comfort to me, a refuge to escape the crazy I was surrounded by and talk with people I mostly agreed with about subjects that really concerned me, DU hasn't been that refuge for several years now but I'm still surrounded by the crazy.
Just my two dollars, not meaning this as an attack in any way.