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Permalink Reply by Becca on February 16, 2011 at 11:13pm

I live in Eugene Oregon but grew up in Bend Oregon.

Eugene is friendly to pretty much everything sometimes a little too friendly. Homeopathy, anti-vaccination, not showering for a week or more, being homeless for the hell of it, and too much armpit hair are a little too popular here for my taste but I'll take it any day over what I hear the Bible Belt is like. Plus Eugene and both Oregon and Washington as a whole have a very local culture. It's really easy and cheap to eat and drink local foods in fact you can visit the farms your food is grown or raised on and there are probably a thousand or so little breweries and wineries all over Oregon and Washington.

 

Bend is somewhat conservative but there are still plenty of atheists, skeptics, and freethinkers and Bend is becoming more and more liberal and accepting of a more diverse population. Unless you venture to the far secluded eastern part of Oregon and Washington you have little to fear in terms of discrimination for being an atheist in the Pacific Northwest. You might get a few strange looks or those oh so annoying questions based off of atheist stereotypes but you aren't going to lose your job or be outright rejected in social circles for being an atheist. I've been open about my atheism since I was 15 and so far I have been party to only one incident of discrimination... I caught some high school boys who were about to key my car when I was picking up my little brother at school.

 

My partner grew up just north of Seattle in Everett. He says Seattle, the surrounding areas, and most of Washington in general is pretty accepting of atheists, free thinkers and other diversity and that discrimination is unlikely to happen.

 

As for the weather in Seattle and Portland rainy is the best way to describe it. I swear it rains 9-10 months out of the year. The temp usually hovers around 50 in the winter and 75-80 in the summer in both cities. Portland may get some snow once every couple of years Seattle proper almost never gets snow.

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Permalink Reply by Ash on February 16, 2011 at 11:15pm

Connecticut.  I also went to college here (university of connecticut).  Its very mixed.  Some people don't care but there are still those who very much do care.  I've been cornered several times by someone looking to save my soul and asking if I've accepted jesus christ as my personal savior.  They're typically shocked when they find out that I founded the UConn Freethinkers (and when I'm lucky they give up right there).

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Permalink Reply by scLovely on February 17, 2011 at 1:31am

That made me think of something I just found out. My town is beside Clemson, SC and yesterday I was searching online about the Secular Student Alliance and Clemson University has 119 members in it. Clemson is also a small town and I didn't even know the university had this club, so I was surprised to find out how many were involved. I went to USC instead, but I am a die-hard CLEMSON fan. They were just more expensive and wouldn't take my tranfer courses :/

I am so glad that there are people like you out there that organize these groups.

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Permalink Reply by A. Okafor on February 18, 2011 at 12:40pm

USC also has an atheist club. lol

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Permalink Reply by scLovely on February 20, 2011 at 12:01am

Yeah, I was on the Upstate campus though. I don't think it was offered on this campus since it was 2 hours from the main campus. I didn't have time to get involved because I still had to drive an hour there and an hour back. Drive time took a huge chunk of my day :/ I am just happy that a town beside me has it. The USC upstate campus is in Spartanburg, so that is a much bigger city than Clemson, and much further away.

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Permalink Reply by scLovely on February 17, 2011 at 1:42am

OMD! I had to listen to Focus on the Family when I worked at a christian university! It drove me crazy working there. It was jesus radio all day long. You should put atheist flyers all over their cars :) I found one website one time where you could download really funny ones. I'll try to find it again.

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Permalink Reply by scLovely on February 20, 2011 at 12:06am

I have googled and searched everywhere for it. I will keep trying. Hopefully the site hasn't been deleted or anything. They were hilarious! One that I remember was on blasphemy and when you read it, it says the words " I deny the existance of God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost". Then it goes on to say that since you just read those words, you said them in your head. That means you just committed blasphemy and you can never be forgiven for it according to the bible, so "you're fucked". But some of them weren't so harsh :) That one was just easy for me to remember.

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Permalink Reply by scLovely on February 20, 2011 at 12:57am

The site didn't look familiar but it has more than the one I was talking about. I just read a couple of them and I love it :) Thanks for the link!

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Permalink Reply by Paul Hannah on February 17, 2011 at 1:13am

Brisbane Australia, as the ad goes "Beautiful one day, perfect the next."

 

Paul

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Permalink Reply by Paul Hannah on February 17, 2011 at 3:33am

We like it, we have a thriving atheist group and the climate can't be beat!

Paul

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Permalink Reply by scLovely on February 17, 2011 at 1:46am

I have watched movies that made me terrified of Australia and Europe. It seems that all of the killer/slasher movies are supposed to be set in the Outback or somewhere in Europe. The way I imagine it is probably completely different from how it really is. You should upload some pics if you have any :) Thanks for the reply!

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Permalink Reply by Paul Hannah on February 17, 2011 at 3:45am

Brisbane is quite a lot safer than you might imagine. Here are a couple of sites with all the photos you could want.

 

http://www.tq.com.au/

http://www.ourbrisbane.com/

http://www.queenslandholidays.com.au/

 

There are dangerous animals but on the land in the wild, I have probably seen 4 or 5 in the last 30 years. I have seen sharks, but I'm a diver, we like to see them.

I've also seen wild koalas, roos, wallabies, dingoes and pademelons. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pademelon they are about the size of a cat)

 

Drop by sometime, we have just said goodbye to friends from California and will soon say hello to people from England and then more from Germany. We love to play tour guide.

 

As for being safer, I have only sat next to someone armed (outside of the army) in Las Vegas.

 

I only know farmers with guns here.

 

Paul

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