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Permalink Reply by 3equ3cp1fsw0n on February 17, 2011 at 9:07pm

I live in the Atlanta metro area. All I can say is "guh". But I think these days it can depend a lot on your age. When I talk to my 19 year old niece, she makes it sound as if atheism is totally cool and accepted for many in her age group. But in my age group (I'm 50) forget about it.

 

 

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Permalink Reply by Dustin on February 17, 2011 at 9:08pm

Maryland.  I don't see it as a very religious state at all.  I'm shocked to hear about arks being built and creation museums being funded by tax money , etc.  Maryland doesn't really have that stuff going on... Not always warm though ;)

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Permalink Reply by Don on February 17, 2011 at 9:37pm

I've lived in northern Vermont for almost 40 years.  Vermont is not only the most rural state in the country, and perhaps the most politically progressive state, and the most educated state, and the state with the most libraries per capita, but it's also the least religious state in the country (in terms of a person's declared allegiance). 

This is, by and large, a very good place for a freethinker to be.  It has been for me, certainly.  No one among my neighbors and colleagues cares much about my atheism.  Religion here just isn't much of an an issue, socially or professionally. 

Just a few miles from my place, on a large limestone monument (with a sleeping babe on top) in the village cemetery in Lyndon Center, Vermont, there is this epitaph for George F. Spencer, 1908:

Beyond the universe there is nothing and within... the
universe the supernatural does not and cannot exist.*
Of all deceivers who have plagued mankind, none are so
deeply ruinous to human happiness as those imposters who
pretend to lead by a light above nature.

Science has never killed or persecuted a single
person for doubting or denying its teachings, and
most of those teachings have been true; but religion
has murdered millions for doubting or denying her
dogmas, and most of those dogmas have been false.

All stories about gods and devils, of heavens and hells, as they do not conform to nature and are not apparent to sense, should be rejected without consideration.

The lips of the dead are closed forever. There comes no voice from the tomb, Christianity is responsible for having cast the fable of eternal fire over almost every grave.

*The first two lines are taken from Robert Green Ingersoll's
The Gods and Other Lectures (1875)

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Permalink Reply by Jon Heim on February 18, 2011 at 1:11am

i live in a small town in pa called northumberland. I am 22 years old, and have never met face to face with another atheist where I live. it is a big deal here too.  actually...i'd be lucky to find someone of a different race where I live...

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Permalink Reply by Reg The Fronkey Farmer on February 18, 2011 at 10:12am

The first time I was in Atlanta GA (Sandy Springs area) I was admiring an old Coupe de Ville from the late fifties. The owner saw me admiring it and we got into a conversation. He had owned caddies since the late 1950’s. His friend and son joined in. Turned out we were all “petrolheads”. Now I can talk about cars all day long and after a few minutes I remember saying to myself “Man I am only in America 3 hours and I am about to get a ride in a Coupe de Ville – Sorted” We sat in and as he got the key out he ask me if I had “found jesus”. Before I could zip my mouth I said “I didn’t realise he was lost.” It was all downhill from there. Three people that I had just had a great conservation with about cars turned weird. I think they were annoyed with themselves for having enjoyed time with an Atheist. It was as if I had tricked them. I explained I was only in the county a few hours, was jet lagged and had not meant any disrespect. No, they were not having it. I burst out laughing at them and left making some comment about what good Christians they were. I continued to my brother’s house. He fell around laughing. He was only living there six months after 4 years in San Fran. He said “they were everywhere”. Lol.

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Permalink Reply by 3equ3cp1fsw0n on February 18, 2011 at 11:41am

Amen, can you get a witness? Yes you can lol. I live in the Atlanta metro area and you are correct about they are everywhere.

 

A neighbor of mine was telling me the other day about her daughter complaining that where she worked the employees said prayer together in the morning and this is a pretty big widely known company.

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Permalink Reply by Don on February 18, 2011 at 11:46am

Stuff like this just seems creepy to me, and I feel very fortunate not to have to make a life in a place where this kind of thing is routine.  But that feeling just underscores the helpless, despairing sense of contrariness that comes over me when I realize how much at odds so many of us are with so much of this benighted culture.

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Permalink Reply by scLovely on February 20, 2011 at 12:12am

I know, right! Got family from Stephens County, GA. "UGH" is all I can say.

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Permalink Reply by John Siqueiros on February 18, 2011 at 10:55am

I live in Long Beach, California, where there's plenty of pockets of both the faithful and the non-faithful (whether they be atheist, apatheist, or believers who don't do much about their faith). So, acceptance isn't universal around here, but there's enough of it.

 

Yeah, I bet SC is different. In my youth my family would visit Southern California, specifically Orange County, which was a lot more conservative that it is now. I had an uncle there who grew up in South Carolina, and his home-grown politics were right at home in the OC in those days - when there were John Birch and "Get US out of UN" bumper stickers all over the place, and no room for communists atheists. He eventually returned back to South Carolina, I suspect because he found California to be getting too liberal for him.

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Permalink Reply by peter cooper on February 18, 2011 at 12:00pm

oh it is fracking hard there arent many where i live and the high school doesnt even have the origin of species in the library!!! for fuck sakes

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Permalink Reply by A. Okafor on February 18, 2011 at 12:46pm

I live In New Jersey and attend Seton Hall university, a Catholic school, so I have to resort to taking the train to Madison for an atheist Meetup :( I live in the hood, so people around me are mostly homophobic and religious. I might start attending the meetups next month, though :D

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Permalink Reply by M on February 19, 2011 at 10:51pm

I live in rural N. Idaho, where I seem to know a surprising number of atheists.  There are plenty of the god-fearing, too, as there is anywhere.  We also enjoy ATVs and guns.  :o)

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