> Chris Doss lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org, Mon, 22 Dec 2003 04:20:37 -0500:
>
>> Not being an atheist, I think it would be wonderful to come up with a
>> way of talking about these matters without falling prey to cant. I
>> think the left as a whole needs to consider this issue -- though of
>> course, we'd have to thrash out the aetheist stuff first.
>>
>> I think the left's whole "Religion=Bad" fixation probably has a lot
>> to do with the legacy of the 18th and 19th centuries in Europe, when
>> there basically was no separation of church and state and churches
>> were officially giving their endorsements to particular oppressive
>> sorts of regimes.
>
> In the USA, many atheists (who aren't necessarily "leftists") now feel
> like a beleaguered minority (who may be a silent majority), not unlike
> sexual non-conformists before Stonewall, or socialists today for that
> matter -- see the closet metaphor below:
I was just saying to a friend that atheists are the most tolerant of people-- because we have to put up with acres of religious bullshit _every fuckin' day of our lives_, and it _sure_ as hell doesn't get any better around December.