God, guns and guts, eh?

[eomer]

26. I disagree that "there has developed a hatred of the religious" in our country.

What I do see developing is fervent disagreement with the religious, still by a relatively small minority. And this minority is gradually finding its voice and coming out. The coming out has some range to it - some merely state publicly that they are not religious, others argue the reasons why they are not religious, and a small minority of the minority express out loud what many of the others believe but keep silent about: that the beliefs of (most of) the religious are without foundation and therefore absurd.

Meanwhile, even the mildest of this range can get you ostracized - I had the rumors run through my extended family after I silently stood during the pledge of allegiance at my nephew's graduation ceremony.

What I don't see in this country is any faction, even small, that goes so far that it could be called "hatred of the religious". But I'm here to learn, please make your case and I will gladly listen.

Let me add that the definition of "religious" makes a difference here. From reading this group for a while I've come to the conclusion that some of the "religious" here say so little that I'm not sure it should be called religious. For example, some seem to say no more than that God is that which goes beyond what we can know. That seems to me to be nothing more than semantics and nothing much that atheists would disagree with. Call it X or call it God, all it is is still whatever we can't know, which atheists agree will likely always exist.