Anyone non-religious here? Please be nice!

[MaggieRae]

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I find my area to be very open, probably because those who aren't baptist, are Methodist.

There are many atheists, and they fit right in. I actually find much more of the whole issue stated above in my home area (out in the country, middle of the USA) Out in the country there, you best be going to Church every Sunday. Of course, most of the people in my home area are either older and stuck to their 'prejudiced' beliefs or have been raised not to object.

Do understand folks, most of this are just generalities I've noticed in that area and I could very well be wrong for other places.

 

[deb1]

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I find my area to be very open, probably because those who aren't baptist, are Methodist.

There are many atheists, and they fit right in. I actually find much more of the whole issue stated above in my home area (out in the country, middle of the USA) Out in the country there, you best be going to Church every Sunday. Of course, most of the people in my home area are either older and stuck to their 'prejudiced' beliefs or have been raised not to object.

Do understand folks, most of this are just generalities I've noticed in that area and I could very well be wrong for other places.

I didn't mean to generalize either.

I am from NC and I think that more people here are Baptists and Pentecostals. Maybe that has something to do with it. Of course, in our mountains we have snake handlers, so maybe my homes state is just a little strange. LOL(I like NC and have nothing against religious snake handlers, just so you all know)

 

[Rusty Hills Farm]

Mary, I think that it can be difficult to be nonreligious in the south. Religion seems to permeate southern culture. That isn't necessarily bad. But it does mean that people often expect that only someone who is immoral or angry will be nonreligious. They simply can't understand that anyone won't accept what seems so obvious to them.

Alabama must be one of the most religious areas of the country. Heck, they even plan state football championships around church activities! But, having said that, I have found that, while every one of my neighbors is a practicing Southern Baptist, once they discovered that my SO is Jewish and I am pagan/Jewish, not one single person from around here has ever tried to convert us to anything nor said a critical word. We simply don't discuss religion at all. They pretty much just let us be. Now the visiting "missionaries" are a whole 'nuther thing entirely, but they aren't from around here.

At first when they first discovered the religion difference, I think they didn't quite know what to make of it. I don't think any of them had ever met a Jew or a pagan before, let alone somebody who thinks of himself as pagan/Jewish. And when you throw in gay, well, they had no idea what to think or how to act. But it's been 5 years now and gradually folks have just gone back to treating us like everybody else. Which is to say, we wave when they pass and they wave when we pass. When our heat went on the fritz in the middle of winter, the folks next door were quick to offer a hand, because around here "that's what neighbors do, y'know?"

Living here has been quiet, peaceful, and private. Nobody hassles us about anything. It's all live and let live.


Rusty​

 

[maryk117]

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I have lived all over these great United States, so I can say that in my experience the southeast is "more open" (so to speak) than the rest of the country about their religion. I'm not saying religion is a bad thing, I just don't care to be convinced to convert every other day. Religion seems to permeate everything from billboards to the city government. Our city has only recently done away with Blue Laws, and by recently I mean within the last few months. The Blue Laws were a big deal to the church going community and they fought the repeal tooth and nail. It doesn't matter the function, everyone is expected to pray. I do bow my head and think quietly to myself about the subject at hand, be it a birthday party, dinner, or football game, but I am not praying per se. I certainly do not begrudge anyone their beliefs and all I expect is not to be hassled about mine. I guess what throws people off is that I don't have a specific reason that I do or don't believe. I like the way I am and as I said before I try to live by the Golden Rule and try to make this world a better place in my own little corner of it. Like many have said here I choose to think about things analytically and not to take a book that was written so many years ago and translated how many hundreds of times and follow it verbatim. Now I am going out to commune with nature and try to finish up the chicken coop that has been swallowing up my weekends!!

 

[KDbeads]

The blue laws are gone????

WOW. Never thought and town in SC would get rid of them!

 

[maryk117]

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Yeah, All I care about is that Lowe's opens @ 8 am on Sunday!!

 

[deb1]

It has always annoyed me when people fight for the creation or continued existence of laws whose only basis is religion. We live in a country that has many different faiths and non religious people. So, if a person can not make a coherent argument for a law without using religion, then that law shouldn't exist. I am not saying that individuals can not use their religious convictions to decide how to vote. But there should always should be defendable, non religious reasons for laws.

I think that an example of using purely religious reasons to enact laws would be the blue laws that someone mentioned.

Another example: Shortly after the birth of her last child, Michelle Duggar protested against a convience stores in a county in which she does not reside selling alcohol. Her rational only made sense if one believes that alcohol consumption is a sin and should be hidden from children.

http://www.examiner.com/x-32213-Mem...otest-days-after-being-released-from-hospital

Personally, I don't think alcohol needs to be convenient. I think it needs to be placed in a place where adults can get to it and they will have a choice to get it. But our children should not be bombarded with that. It's so close to home.

I do not see moderate alcohol drinking as wrong and keep wine and beer in my fridge, which my children see. I do not think that viewing their mom having a rare glass of wine will turn my children into raging alcoholics, nor do I think that seeing a bottle of beer in store's shelf will create an uncontrollable urge in them to get drunk.


Her rational only makes sense if approached from her particular religious view point. It would be difficult to make a secular argument against convience stores selling beer

 

[KDbeads]

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Yeah, All I care about is that Lowe's opens @ 8 am on Sunday!!

Ack! I worked at the Lowe's in Easley, SC through part of college.... people hated that we didn't open until 1:30 in the afternoon because of those stinking laws.

 

[BlackBart]

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What is a blue law?

 

[Rusty Hills Farm]

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What is a blue law?

I don't know why they are called "blue" laws but they control what you can and cannot do on Sundays. For example in some areas beer cannot be sold before noon. Retail businesses cannot open at all or must open after a certain hour. Things of that sort. The thinking behind them seems to be that people are supposed to be in church on Sunday mornings and the laws are to encourage that kind of thinking. I wish I could remember where it was I was stationed that required all businesses to shut down at midnight and not reopen until Monday--a real pain in a small military town. I recall that even the movies and the bars were closed!!! Some date night.

Rusty