How many times in a give day do you see or hear something related to the Christian faith, god or gods. A simple, "God bless you," when you sneeze. A comment in a commercial or a movie. A road sign. Someone wearing a cross or a T-shirt, Anything you would run across and see or hear on any regular given day. * DO NOT COUNT ANYTHING INTENTIONAL." No logging into forums and counting posts. This is just about your average daily life. Let's all keep a little journal for a day and compare notes. I will do mine the day after tomorrow because I have meetings all day tomorrow and it is not a "regular day."
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Sometimes I run across posters on the street with title like " fabrication of proofs for miracle" and the habitual Jeovah' witnesses... Oh and you have mention of god in a lot of traditional music on my Island.
I get a "Thank God for X" at least once a day at work.
But I mention that some goober called into the Atheist Experience last Sunday just to tell a joke and suddenly it's awkward. That's one thing that grinds my gears. I can't even mention atheism without getting judged harshly.
Last night bingeing on Seth Greene's The Orville set hundreds of years in the future in a secular galactic federation crew members are still using expressions like 'Godspeed' and 'You can go straight to hell'.
As a sort of explanation to this effect of the Christian intrusion two important things happened to English in the early 1600s. Shakespeare and the King James bible which for nearly 300 years was the only book most households ever had for reading. Not surprising that English to day is full of those biblical and Shakespearean idioms and expression 'pearls before the swine', 'road to Damascus' . For me they really stick out gratingly in sci-fi dialogues.
Taking my kids to school in the morning there's a church on the corner that always has some message written on their changeable letter board out front. For the past few days it has been "Experience Family vs. Franchise." I figure they mean that their church experience is more like "family" than a "franchised" mega-church experience. But I couldn't help picturing some kind of battle royale where Christians of various stripes gathered in an arena and duked it out.
"In this corner, with a meek but mighty number of members (#whereTwoOrMoreAreGatheredThereIAm), we have FAMILY. And in this corner, wielding swag coffee mugs and 2 acoustic guitars each we have FRANCHISE."
Oh man, small little religious influenced references are legion. (Ah shit! I just did it in my first stence reply here!)
Even in my more secular than typical little corner of the world. It is like trying to count all the mini lies, half truths and minor deceptions, withheld truths I do or realize others do. Even my wife of whom is quite secular and certainly does not subscribe to any religion will use plenty of "god" references around me, of course between us, quite often it ends up being "tongue in cheek" humour.
If I am pissed enough I still catch myself saying "god damn it" like if I stub my toe badly and unexpectedly, learned behavior...
When pissed I say "Goat damn it" (inspired by RationalWiki's many goat memes), but never loudly, as nobody would understand what it means.
My List:
1. Santa
2. Immigration Office - my lucky day. 12 nuns all decked out in their penguin outfits.
3. On the road - 13 churches between the school I work at and the immigration office.
4. 23 more churches passed.
5. One giant stone Jesus with outstretched arms looking down at the traffic.
6. Two Buddhist temples.
7. One road sign, "Church this way >>>."
MY COMMENTS:
1. Okay, My day is starting. I think I will just log in and edit each religious incident throughout the day.
I am beginning my day with a cup of coffee in my office. There is a little red Santa on the shelf and that brings to mind Christmas; however, I regard Santa as secular. Still it represents a Christian holiday. And even more so in Korea where only the Christians celebrate it. (1/3 of the population are Christian here.)
2. LOL - It must have been catholic day at immigration. There they were in their gray robes, some with black scarfs and some with white. All supporting little crucifixes and a few bibles. I really wanted to go over and ask them why they dress so funny.
3. Yep, I counted the crosses out the window of the taxi. There are churches everywhere in this country but very few Christians compared to the USA. JW and Mormons abound.
4. At night in Korea the Churches all light up their crosses. The Christian Crosses are all Bright Red at night and as prevalent as fried Chicken restaurants. I am pretty sure Korea leads the world in numbers of friend Chicken restaurants.
5. The Giant Jesus was overlooking the traffic with his flowing robes and welcoming arms. Impossible to miss.
6. Buddhist temples are around at about one third the number of Churches. Traditional Korean structures of wood and bright colored sloping roofs.
7. I only saw one church sign.
I am convinced that Christianity in Korea is attempting to become a "brand name." There is huge money in starting a Korean mission. Come to Korea, build a church, fleece the Koreans out of their money with Western faiths.
I didn't see any Mormons walking about but they are a common site. The weather here is quite cold. Similarly, I saw no JWs standing on the corners passing out their little pamphlets. Another site that is quite common but not so much in the winter months.
I did not go to the counseling office today so I missed out on my Jesus story for the day or a "God bless you." Damn.
The only time I run into that shit now days is when I go to Albuquerque looking for it so I can give those JW assholes something to make them get that "deer in the head lamps" HUH? look and walk away. Although I have to put up with that Christian crap until I find the right ones that want to do more than hand out those useless Watch Tower and Awake! magazines. As for the actual number, I never count. Once is once too many as far as I am concerned.
rmfr
I haven't seen that much religious stuff here in Western Washington, where religion isn't usually that big of a deal and many people I know are also atheists- apart from one occasion where, in a bioethical debate whose exact topic I can't remember, one of my classmates dared to suggest that "the Bible is bad"- and next thing you know, a whole bunch of people were going on and on about how "condescending" he was being... but then some of these same people brought the Pope and Catholic Church into another bioethical debate (this one was on abortion) to help them build a moral high-tower and obtain a license to condemn the opposition. As you can tell, there's still that kind of double-standard.
Well anytime we have a natural disaster, the news will ALWAYS interview someone who will say something along these lines.... “ I’m so glad the tornado missed my house, god was watching over my family. Sorry for the people down the street .”
I truly despise comments like that. "God spared me." "God was watching over me." "I thank God every day that I'm still alive."
It's pretty shitty to the people who DID die, implying that they deserved it or God decided to kill them for whatever reason, but YOU'RE special and he decided to spare you.
And it's pretty shitty that God sent the disaster in the first place. If I'm sitting in my house, minding my own business, and a god throws a hurricane at me, I'm going to be pretty pissed. Just like if a guy with a gun sprays down a public place I'm in. I'm not going to go thank him for NOT shooting me. Fuck that guy for putting me in that position in the first place.
Ok, ending the venting here.
Yeah. An all loving God- pulling favorites. How sick are these people?! Oh but then again, something something you Know Nothing because I said so something something freewilldidit.
I hate that kind of comment also! How important these people think they are! So arrogant as to think god spared them but then said fuck it and killed their neighbors! It’s that kind of logic that made me start to doubt long ago. That and the fact that I didn’t believe Jesus was white.
@Jack Oh but apparently, we atheists- who do not feel like we will be rewarded eternally and that everyone who disagrees with us will burn forever, and who don't believe that this ancient, immense, unimaginably large universe exists entirely for our benefit- are the "arrogant" ones.
I work for a Catholic owned mid-sized business, many of my coworkers are from Mexico and the Catholic Church plays a very big part in their culture and lives. I don’t know how, and I still can’t believe it but the owner of our company went to the Rome last year and met the Pope. The only explanation I was given was that my boss knows people. •__•
So yeah it’s pretty pervasive lol but not many people are rude to me (not many people know) but of those who do know only one person is occasionally rude. Like outing me and putting me on the spot to explain what an atheist is to a group of five (who I don’t know that well) when I’m running a press -___- but he is a case for Hanlon's Razor, he’s just not thinking about the situation he’s putting me in because he can’t see it from my perspective.
L0L: I would have Fucked with him... Oh no. I'm not an atheist any more. I because a Christian six months ago. 'God so love the world he gave his only begotten son, that who so ever should believe in him should not perish but have everlasting life. Praise the Lord." (This is what I occasionally do on the streets when costed by Christians and haven't the time to fuck around.)
Later he would come to me and say something like, "I'm happy to hear you are a Christian now," and I would reply "I don't know what you are talking about." "Well didn't you say you were Christian." "Oh that was just to get you out of my face." OR "Oh, that was then but I thought about it and I am an atheist again."
LOL - The idiot would never get a straight answer out of me. I would even wave good by to him at night "Have a good night and Praise the Lord." It's my personality. I can get away with shit like this.
This reminds me of a joke I heard from... I can't remember who. Possibly Sam Harris:
A boy has a box full of newborn kittens. The pope walks by and says "Oh those are some cute kittens." The boy says "Yes, they're Christian kittens."
Six weeks later, the pope and Pat Robertson are walking by the boy and the pope says "Go ask that little boy about his kittens, he has such an adorable answer." So Pat Robertson says "Oh those are some very nice kittens you have there." The boy says "Thanks, they're Atheist kittens."
The pope walks up and says "You said they were Christian kittens six weeks ago, what happened?"
The boy says, "They opened their eyes."
The main ones I see are the deliberate examples, such as in sports...
I was watching an interview with some of my favourite baseball players and the interviewer asks something mundane like, "what do you think has got you to where you are?"
The reply, "oh, the lord our god......"
Oh, so nothing to do with your genetics, the very fact your 6ft bloody 7 and built like a brick shit house?!
Not that you have the biological structure to excel as an athlete?!
Nothing to do with the fact you have been conditioned to play this game to an elite level since you was a small child?!
Bloody nora!
No, it's all down to your bloody invisible cosmic mage!
Oh geez, I just can't do that. I am literally surrounded by theism. Just like I have trained my hearing for selective response (being married) I had to train my eyes to ignore religion.
My balcony faces directly (30 feet away) onto a Church of Seventh-day Adventists and one of their huge schools. The neighborhood is densely Jewish, so I am confident in stating that at least 20 Synagogues are within three miles of my residence. And my route to work had (I counted this many times) 14 religious centers, from tiny Synagogues to one mega church that broadcast TV shows.
Arrrghhhhhhhhh
The one take-away I have from Christian intrusion is to fucking always thank my doctors and nurses.
Always see plenty of bumper stickers when going to work. Round these parts they are usually about prophet this and that, and include a picture of said prophet - these same prophets that recently caused controversy by spraying their members with insect repellent to drive out the devil lol.
I haven't thought about bumper stickers in years. They are not a thing in Korea. Great opportunity for a new market.
I've lived across the street from a (mostly black) Baptist church for almost 30 years. They do their thing, I do mine. Sometimes we exchange greeting when they're walking to the church. Not something that bothers me.