So i just had a Marriage Equality argument with my Atheist, Conservative co-worker

[OriginalGeek]

You heard me - I said atheist conservative - and tea-bagger to boot.

He said MARRIAGE SHOULD BE LEFT TO THE CHURCHES. When I got done laughing I asked him if he realized that church has nothing to do with marriage - that's just where a lot of ceremonies are performed. Marriages are official when 2 people go get their marriage license.

"Wellll, that's not how it used to be"

I asked him if he realized if it was left up to churches only, then he wouldn't be allowed to get married - being an atheist and all...he said I was probably right...having met his wife I have to wonder if maybe that isn't his secret wish...

Then I asked him if he wanted to go back to the times when churches routinely performed same sex marriages (http://www.iheartchaos.com/post/22806986381/the-time-when-same-sex-marriage-was-a-christian-rite) and he didn;t believe such a thing ever happened.


He's grumping and giving me the silent treatment right now. Hallelujah!

[ret5hd]

1. uh huh. sure.

[OriginalGeek]

2. ?

[cleanhippie]

3. Not sure what you mean by this, so I won't tell you to fuck-off and get out of this safe-haven

until you decide to explain what you mean.

[ret5hd]

4. I mean, exactly, I don't believe his story.

Also, as one long time atheist to another atheist, I can't see why you would either. I mean, really...an atheist contending that marriage should only be done by the church? C'mon!

[cleanhippie]

5. I have no reason NOT to believe the story.

And even if it is a total fabrication, so what. If its that big of a deal to you, call the poster on it to substantiate the story. A "uh huh. Sure." is a hit-and-run disruption, and does not create dialogue.

[ret5hd]

6. uhhhh...okely dokely

on edit:
so you are saying if i believe it is a total fabrication i should respond how?

[cleanhippie]

7. As I stated already...

If its that big of a deal to you, call the poster on it to substantiate the story. A "uh huh. Sure." is a hit-and-run disruption, and does not create dialogue.

[ret5hd]

8. do you mean call as telephone, or "call him on it" ?

if call as telephone, that os impossible.

if call as call him on it, i did.

[cleanhippie]

9. Yeah, you should give him a call and have a chat.

[ret5hd]

10. kinda my feeling also.

i can't figure out why you are jumpin' on me.

really.

i'm serious.

[cleanhippie]

11. My apologies.

I dont recognize you as a regular poster in here, and thought you were just being disruptive. Again, my apologies.

[OriginalGeek]

16. I've posted a few times before

about my conservative, tea-party republican atheist friend and co-worker.

He believes abortion is murder too.

I've told him he has a lot of religious beliefs for an atheist but he gets mad and shuts up when I say that.

He spent several years of his youth in South America as the son of missionaries. I figure that's why he has these beliefs - plus he believes everything fox news and Rush tell him.


But I'll tell you this: That was kind of a dick move to just post "uh huh, sure" and move on. I can't hardly prove I'm not a liar here now can I? But I would have been happy to answer any questions you might have had.

You know, just because you are a liberal atheist doesn't mean every atheist is like you.

[cynatnite]

13. I met an atheist who believed that being pro-choice was inflicting my views on the anti-choicers...

He said abortion was a states right issue. He was a very conservative atheist. It was weird.

This is why I have no doubt about the story. People like this do exist.

[eqfan592]

28. Yep, I've met somebody like this as well. (nt)

[eqfan592]

27. I've indeed met atheists who believed marriage was a purely religious rite...

...and that the secular contractual union between two people in the eyes of the government is something different.

[cynatnite]

12. You'd think his head would explode from so much opposition occupying the same space. n/t

[OriginalGeek]

18. Yeah you'd think

he is VERY dyslexic...I wonder if that has something to do with it - he thinks left is right and right is left.

Because I don't believe there is malice in him. He's not a "typical rethug"...I know how many hours he works here (because I work a lot of the same ones) and I know he's going home tonight to help his Hispanic neighbor dig up a big-ass stump. (He speaks fluent Spanish from his time in South America) He brought that same neighbor over to my house one Saturday morning to help dig out my septic tank and replace the sump pump. For nothing. I've never heard him say a racist thing.

I just don't know exactly what to make of him - but I'm trying to make him a more liberal atheist. lol I wonder if he's never had a chance to be around other atheists - his wife is religious and conservative. he married her when they were young and before that he was with his missionary parents...

[cynatnite]

21. It seems like the religous conservative aspects of his upbringing just stayed with him...

Maybe because of familiarity. It's what he knows even though he is an atheist. He sounds really interesting.

[frogmarch]

14. "How it used to be" in America

I guess your friend doesn’t know that the early American puritans considered marriage a civil contract, a legal contract under the authority of the government, not a religious anything. Puritan marriages were not held in churches.

That is how it used to be.

[OriginalGeek]

17. Yeah he didn't want to hear from me about any of that

I mean, I didn't know about the puritan marriages but I will bring it up on monday (he's gone for the day), It will irritate him to pieces.

He mumbled something and went off to another office when I mentioned how marriage started out as owning property and asked him if that was what he wanted...

[daaron]

15. Sounds like an Ayn Rand atheist, to me.

Sort of like a Libertarian anarchist.

Or a Log Cabin Republican, for that matter.

[rexcat]

19. Just goes to show that "atheist"...

only means a disbelief in god. Other than that American atheists are all over the board politically and socially! We are not a coherent group.

[OriginalGeek]

20. I will admit to being as surprised

when I meet conservative atheists as I am when I meet liberal christians. And even though I have some of both in my real life, it still surprises me when I meet new ones.


I'm not saying this is one of my better qualities - but i don't want to be a liar either so I have to cop to it.

Regardless of what one DUer might think.

[rexcat]

22. As humans we do have the tendency to stereotype...

I am visiting family this week (brother receiving chemo and radiation). I am the only atheist in the family and it always comes down to me being the bigot because I have the audacity to speak my mind when the subject of religion is brought up.

Overall the people in this forum are really good, decent people with the exception of a few who have been banned from the forum but they did not understand the concept of safe haven. It does seem that someone did back off earlier with you because someone had your back covered. That is the way it is in this forum and when we go visit the religion forum!

[BiggJawn]

23. The concept of a Conservative Atheist is rather strange.

As an Atheist, they don't believe in the fictional invisible friend that lives in the sky, but as a Conservative, they believe in the fictional invisible hand of the free market that lives on Wall Street

Very strange...

[edcantor]

24. RE: the OP's original description of his work mate

I see a twinge of homophobia in the rationalization that atheist is making.

I see him using the "churches marry people" as a way of distancing himself from his real fears about gay folks marrying.

Maybe I'm totally wrong, but that was what I was thinking as I read your description of his compartmentalized and only half-formed opinions

[OriginalGeek]

25. I'd say that's entirely possible...

maybe even probable.

I should have acknowledged that when I said I had never heard him say a racist thing - and I do consider homophobia as bad as racism - they are both wrong. A person can certainly be a racist or a homophobe without ever using the n word or the f word.

But that's also why I think it's worth trying to get through to him. I know he is not a racist and I believe if I can show him where his strict religious influence/upbringing has warped his thinking regarding LGBT he will come around.

[edcantor]

26. Thanks for your reply to my theory....

I am sure over time your influence as a fellow atheist may help him come to realize that he might hold onto some religious mis-teachings and myths still more than he may need to.

I know for myself, and I have read about other atheists, too, that the process of letting go of all that we had been mis-taught was a longer one than the single day or time we arrived at the logical conclusion that belief in any god was highly questionable and most unlikely to be correct.

There are a lot of other myths and misunderstandings of the world, of science, of human psychology which religion imparts, (at least, in my case Protestantism did). Much of what religion imparts is outdated, incorrect, inaccurate, or simply less than well-informed, given advances in our scientific knowledge of the world over the last few hundred years. We know, for example, that people are not possessed by the devil, but that they may have a mental illness, for instance, a relatively modern concept, wherein we use medication to treat it. Religion has a lot of those folkloric images left within it, including the mythology that marriage has always been between one man and one woman.