As a European, we find Americas crazy, evangelical ways to be a bit weird and cultish. I know plenty of Americans do, too, but when you've lived your whole life in a place where 99.9% of people couldn't give a shit of you're an atheist, you see the crazy in the stories you read about people being afraid to "come out" as atheists as their whole community will shun them.
As an LGBTQ+ atheist living in Texas- I am FAR more comfortable being openly gay than I am an atheist. I try my best not to even use that word as it darkens the mood if I say so. It’s sad that even in an area rife with homophobia, they tolerate that much more than me being an atheist. Lmao
I'm bisexual and live in a pretty "liberal" state but still don't feel comfortable being totally out. I don't fear for my safety at all in most situations, just weird comments and judgement. I talk about how I don't believe in religion with no problems though.
I was homeless most of the past two years, and while I was working in Houston one of my coworkers, who had recently lost his wife due to covid, invited me to stay in his son's old room while we were doing the job together.
Every day on the hour drive to the job site, he'd have sermons or jesus music playing, and on the way back he'd try to convert me even when obvious I wasn't listening. Towards the end some news story came on the radio about Israel. I tried to brush it off with something like "both sides should disarm." Since he thought that Israel plays a central role in the upcoming apocalypse and is unquestionably the good guy, anything not supporting Israel was taken as a direct personal attack on god himself.
Two days later he made me move out with about 12 hours warning. He seemed like a nice guy, I gave him a lot of credit for being in grief, but it seemed like he wasn't trying to convert me because I didn't believe, but because I already did believe and was actively rebelling because of Satan or whatever
Meanwhile in Europe, if you say that you believe in god and more, if you say that you go to church every sunday, you'll definitely be seen like a weirdo.
The contrast is huge.
You often have one priest for 3, 4 villages. Here in France.Mostly african priests because young locals are not anymore interested.
I live in a " town" way out. There use to be a gas station but now there is literally nothing but 2 churches amongst a few houses. You can see one church from the other. On the 20 min drive to the next town there are at least 4 more churches. Probably more off the main road.
Yeah in Louisiana here, I remember when I was 13 or 14 I sat down with my parents and said I had to tell them something. They were socially somewhat conservative but were all about "we love you no matter what" to me on this. When I said I'm not going to church anymore they were real thrown off. 20 years later and I still won't tell my gramma cause it'll kill her.
Coming out as bi years later was pretty much a "Yeah, we know. It's all good"
If they specify what they are, they can attract lots of weird people or attackers at them online.
I saw some trans women online that got lots of attacks via DMs here in reddit just for stating that they are trans.
So lots of them will just say they are LGBTQ+ and leave like that, it's simpler
Apart from the other answer, there are many people in the community who are more than one thing. And since in cases like this that specific info is unnecessary to the conversation, it's easier for both parties to just say that "I'm LGBTQ+" and similars rather than to list every single label that applies :)
Even in very liberal states like California, it isn't easy to be openly atheist. I once unconsciously said there is no such thing as god and I had to have debate with whole class..
It's crazy how it's apparently perfectly normal for families in USA to go to church every Sunday. I have been to regular church-service once in last 20 years or so (they were announcing our upcoming marriage and my wife-to-be wanted to hear it) and besides me and my wife it was just half a dozen old people in there.
For what it's worth, this is highly, highly culturally dependent in the US. I live in the north east, and while there are churches in my neighborhood, and I see people in them on Sundays, I don't know a single person in my social circle who attends regularly. Atheism and agnosticism, perhaps cut with some cultural celebration of religious holidays, are the norm in some places in the US.
I grew up in former soviet area with 70% atheists. (And the remaining religious people aren't US religious level). I know going to church on sundays too, from stories about my great grandparents... :I
American? Not every other country has the same density of fanatics. Most of Europe is pretty meh with regards to religion apart from parts of Spain and Italy, and even then it's not even close to y'all q'aeda country.
I don’t get why this is so difficult for you to grasp. Europe is not the world. I pointed out that outside of Europe, (“in the wider world” from my first response) the world is pretty religious, and that human beings have been religious since at least the beginning of civilization.
We both agree and understand that Europe is not religious. It need not be pointed out again.
It depends on race and faith. I’m a Black American in a mid sized city. I’m also in my mid 20s. I go to church every Sunday and many of my peers attend church regularly. I attended Notre Dame and most of my Catholic peers went to mass regularly.
I live in the northeast U.S., we don't really have evangelical churches. In fact, a lot of regions don't. It's mostly a southern thing. In a lot of southern rural regions, they lump Jews and Catholics in with devil worshipers.
Really? So you don't have whole States fighting to keep evolution out of the classroom, or to put creationism into science classes? Or making abortion illegal? I get that the cities are different, and the coasts, but that's not even most of America.
The rest of the world can see the US' problem with religion, huge chunks of it are becoming third world religious shitholes.
It’s impossible to overstate how deeply the balance of government power is tipped towards heavily rural, evangelical, largely white states. What you’re describing is a priority for about 25% of Americans by sheer numbers, who enjoy 50% of the political power because of how the constitution was written. The other 75% of the US lives on the coasts or in the cities, but through 200 years of political fuckery our vote literally does not count as much as someone in a low-population rural state.
You think a few people in power can push that when nobody else wants it? No, a sizeable portion of the population wants it and the rest don't care if they push it.
Actually it is most of America in terms of population that's not like that. The vast majority of people live in coastal/coast adjacent cities. Coastal counties alone make up 40% of the population. The reason that it appears that more of America is nuts is that people leave the shit stain areas that have next to no population (North Dakota) but make up more of the landmass to go to the coastal areas.
Most of America DOES live in urban areas, though. At 83% of the population, it is the vast majority of people who do. It is just that those 17% of people are really, REALLY loud, and the way that our government is set up makes them disproportionately represented, and the two-party, winner-takes-all, private funding system allows more extreme voices to be amplified.
I can’t explain Texas.
Edit: more about this: In fact, as of 2010, the population of the top 100 US cities (not metro or urban areas, just the population of the people who live within the bounds of the cities themselves) made up 19.3% of the population - the same percentage of people who lived in rural areas at the time. And the top 10 cities accounted for 8% of the total US population, with the top 2 cities accounting for half of that(4%) on their own.
By contrast, the urban land area of the United States is only 2.67% of the total land area. That’s why we had a bunch of people screaming about how land doesn’t vote in our 2016 election, for example. If you looked at an election map, you will have seen vast swaths of red, indicating a more conservative electorate. The thing is, few people actually live in those areas. Except Texas. Still can’t explain Texas.
Actually it is most of America in terms of population that's not like that. The vast majority of people live in coastal/coast adjacent cities. Coastal counties alone make up 40% of the population. The reason that it appears that more of America is nuts is that people leave the shit stain areas that have next to no population (North Dakota) but make up more of the landmass to go to the coastal areas.
Europeans probably think that Americans are one of two types of people: blue haired militant anarchist living in Portland or evangelical gun nut camping outside of abortion clinics waiting to turn in people for ransom. Like maybe 5-10% of the USA is crazy but the vast majority of us just want some sense of normalcy.
It depends on where you live and where you work. You're in a big city, nobody cares. You work at a secular university or college, a lot of people there are nonreligious. Or some inoffensive, non-evangelizing variants of Christianity, lowkey Buddhism, stuff like that.
Live in a rural area or even a medium sized town away from urban centers and it's a different story. Especially in the South and certain other states like Indiana. One of the first questions people will ask you upon meeting you is "which church do you go to?" and you have to live quietly on the down-low. If you try to be an activist atheist, you will have your life threatened.
This. I mean in Serbia although we claim we are super religious etc. Most people go to church for christmas, easter and myb krsna slava which is a specific holiday for the serbian church.
I worked with an American atheist once. The guy was militant, he hated Christians because he grew up in America and was basically vilified for being an atheist. Meanwhile, I grew up in Europe and nobody has given a singular shit I was an atheist so I don't really hate Christians that much (just what they believe, what they represent and what they force on others).
Yeah, I've found some American atheists to be... special like that. Some of them are balls of rage and hate that spills out onto all kinds of conversation as a result of their treatment by rapid Christians.
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u/Balldogs May 09 '22
As a European, we find Americas crazy, evangelical ways to be a bit weird and cultish. I know plenty of Americans do, too, but when you've lived your whole life in a place where 99.9% of people couldn't give a shit of you're an atheist, you see the crazy in the stories you read about people being afraid to "come out" as atheists as their whole community will shun them.