I live in a suburb of Dallas Texas. The overwhelming majority are not only christian but obnoxious overbearing christians. The fact is just living in this area you are attacked with christianity. The people here EXPECT you to respect and obey the christian will.
For example: I sneeze and someone will say "god bless you". I respond I don't believe and immediately I am berated for "being rude." The rude person is the one who assumed that I believe what they want me to believe. As if assuming someone is a christian isn't rude.
That is one example. I could go on forever. Many of you may think, well that isn't just Dallas, but unless you lived here you can't really imagine. I know, I know, it's that way all over the south, but in Dallas there is a macho hostile element that I can't fully describe.
In my younger days I would actually fight these assholes and teach them a lesson. As I am 58, I have no taste for fighting whether it would do any good or not.
There are so many macho christian bubbas here it's like an ocean of rude arrogant moronic assholes.
The biggest problem with all religions, but in particular christianity in the USA, is that the rudeness and arrogance of christianity is acceptable.
As an Atheist I know what it is to be Black, Latino, Muslim, Female, Gay, Transgender, and every other oppressed demographic in the USA. The oppression is cultural, institutional, and constant.
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Having spent a few years in Texas, I have to agree it is 'extra bad' there; except for perhaps in the Austin area.
Is it as bad in the younger generation as well? Or have Internet broadened their perspective of the world?
Yes! The younger generation is a quirky weird sort of macho evangelist obtrusive bunch. They take forced christian culturalization to a whole new level. They have no respect for their elders in reality, even though they put on a fake "Eddie Haskell" performance. "Yes Sir" and so on. They hold prayer meetings at the flag poles at public schools. They ostracize their peers that aren't christian. They bully other kids. They are violent. They vandalize public and private property. They don't know history, science, literature, THEIR OWN FUCKING BIBLE, or anything! They are loud, rude and obnoxious.
I live im the subarbs of chicago, and im 16. There are many of atheists here!
"The fact is just living in this area you are attacked with christianity."
Really!? Bands of roving Christians attack you, beat you up, force you to convert? Somehow, I doubt that. :-)
"For example: I sneeze and someone will say "god bless you". I respond I don't believe and immediately I am berated for "being rude.""
They offered you a courtesy, and you responded rudely. Take it for what it was, a common courtesy, not an attempt to force you to believe in anything.
I don't think it's as simple as them just offering a courtesy. What we say, the phrases we use, our sayings, can and do collectively indicate the thoughts or opinions, so to speak, of a society. But many of those phrases, particularly when listened to with enough time gone by, demonstrate themselves to be rude or bigoted. For someone to suppose that another wants their god's blessing is, at a minimum, an assumption . It assumes that that the person to whom they said it believes as they do. And that assumption can easily be interpreted to mean they believe that their belief is of great or greater value than the next person's.
To enlighten someone that a phrase they just used is offensive (no matter to what degree) is just not rude.
John Stevens - "They offered you a courtesy, and you responded rudely."
Your dismissal of his situation is an excellent example: You think that saying "I don't believe" is rude.
You have no idea what you are talking about. There are times when you go into a business to do business that someone that works there will say something like "May god be with you". If you don't reply with an expected appropriate reply, you will not be served and may even be asked to leave. And BTW "god bless you" isn't a courtesy. It's a condescension, and an assumption. I am not being rude if I reply to such a phase with "I don't believe."
I never said "bands of roving christians are attacking me forcing me to convert." It isn't as simple as that. It's a cultural and institutional attack.
“As salamu alaikum wa rahmatullah wa barakatuhu” Is this phrase a common courtesy? In Texas that phrase is met with vile rudeness and threats of physical harm. It means: "may the mercy, peace and blessings of Allah be upon you"