I probably have mentioned it before that I live in a country where the religious are everywhere. Almost everything is deferred to god. When there is bad traffic snarl-up, people are praying on twitter, when the government fails in its duties there are prayers said and those in government also pray for god to help them. I have also mentioned that there is a church right at the gate to my flat and the next church is less than 50m away. Am not kidding.
That gives you a bit of background of how religion is embedded in my society.
My friends are of two groups. I have godless friends and goddites. I meet my godless friends rarely as compared to the goddites. Hell. I work with goddites. Almost everyone in the office is a goddite except the CEO. It is common knowledge in the office am godless. It is not an issue except for those who are privately praying for me to rejoin them.
I have had a few of my friends say they are praying for me but in general, they have left it as a matter of choice which I do my best to always try and dissuade them from. And if you are wondering whether I tell them religious belief in bonkers in their face as I do on the internet, yes I do. You see am a honest guy and I don’t like to hide. I tell those in school to decide on one course of action; either you are praying to pass exams or you are studying but not both because on the final analysis, one seems to me to be redundant. It is like over reinforcing a house. You end up with redundant members.
My immediate family is an interest case. They are almost all religious. They know am irreligious. No one asks me to pray nor do they insist I join them in talking to themselves. There is a lot of respect between us.
The only group of friends that piss me off are those religious ones who tell me they have become closer to their god since they met me. How would a person become more religious by interacting with a sham smasher! And of course the church at our gate. They make so much noise on Sundays I want to burn it down.
In general though I know the great influence religion has in my society, the people around me behave in a way that isn’t far from living like there is no god. No one bothers my peace and anytime someone brings gods in discussion I make it clear am godless.
Random thoughts 
I’m happy you brought up prayer and final exams. I wonder if it’s considered cheating to do that.
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Now that you mention it, praying for exams should be banned. It is cheating
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I think it is cheating only if the person praying really believes in god. In that case, it should be considered an act of cheating. If he or she does not believe in it, it may be allowed. So only the prayers of theists must be banned in such situations 😉
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Nannus, you have made my morning.
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I always find it funny that people think they can get something through prayer. In their view, god works like a cigarette vending machine. You through in some coins (prayers) and out pops what you want. Of course, the creator of the universe has given them the power to influence him, they must only pray hard enough. You don’t have your mercedes benz yet? You did not pray hard enough! From an atheist’s point of view, that is some kind of stupidity. From a theist’s point of view, it is blasphemy. But many people think like that. Good as the ferry tale ferry granting you some wishes. When will people finally grow up?
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I like your analogy of the cigarette vending machine and sure prayers do look and sound just as you put it.
Growing up is hard. They prefer to be born again
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LOL, now you have made my morning. 🙂
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The closest church from my place, only holds a service once a month or even less.
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Can I be your neighbour?
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I don’t think there are many apartments free here.
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That can only be described as sad
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Whenever I get, “I’ll pray for you,” I return with a big smile, “And I’ll wish in a well for you —“
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Once in a while I tell them I will think for them
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“There is a lot of respect between us.” – And that says a great deal. It’s good that there’s no friction within the family on the subject. It’s great in fact.
– s.u.t.Cloud
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hello sonmi.
It is great, I agree
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Most people I know don’t care much that I’m godless. It’s the cannibalism that bugs em. Prejudice bastards! That’s what they are!
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That there is prejudice. And yes they are bastards
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The christian ones are, however, very delicious, even though they’re bigots.
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At least they are useful in one way. They are delicious
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I wouldn’t be so fast to believe the group who say you’ve helped cement their belief. That is not a thing you would ordinarily say, so i suspect these are the people who have been most challenged. Bring them over to the dark side, Noel. Let them feast at the table of roasted babies as we make love to Satan’s daughters, and top it all off with cheesecake and some brandy.
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Making love to Satan’s daughters? Now you’re talkin’! Hee Haw!!!!
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If I remember correctly, it was the gods knowing the daughters of men. You guys have taken it a notch higher
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And eat Christian babies. Don’t forget that
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Main course, certainly. Polynesian pantheists for entrees.
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And Mormon kids as dessert
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Mmmmmm!
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Over my dead body you will. I’m not going to let you put my grandchildren on the menu.
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I’ll have to consult the Great Culinary Council,,, 🙂
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Wait. Do I have the free will to choose to make love to Satan’s daughters, or must I first qualify what “free” means in free will?
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I thought you only have a used will?
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I bought a pricey new one, but it leaks, so I’m returning it.
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And ask them for a full refund
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You bet.
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Exactly!
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When I left Christianity, Christians left me, expect for one person, and I do consider her a friend because she was the only Christian who didn’t shun me. We talk to each other about twice a year, and have only seen each other twice in 15 years.. She was in town and came to visit me, as she lives in another state. We went out to eat and it was fine dining, which means that it’s not noisy. So, they bring our meals, and she says to me — I’d like to bless this food.
So I was OK with that, and out of respect for her bowed my head thinking that she was going to either bless the food in a whispered voice or do a silent prayer. But no, she says it so that it can be heard in the whole section we were sitting at. But not only did she “bless” the food, she starts praying for me, asking her god to help me with a personal situation I’ve been going through, and she was descriptive. On and on she went. I was stunned and abruptly pulled my hand from hers to end the pray. Yes, they even hold hands when they pray.
Why is it that Christians think this behavior is OK. I saw this when I was a Christian. They’d be praying for so and so and share personal information (the person wasn’t even present) that was nobody’s damn business. It boggles my mind that they don’t realize how much they inappropriately cross boundaries and seemingly all the time in the name of their religion.
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To me, that is aggressive, and abusive behavior. It is not acceptable. Idjits. The lot of ’em.
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Seriously, Jeff. You know what this was about, and here she was blurting it all over the restaurant.
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We are in agreement. It is rude too
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WTH! That Victoria is rude to say the least. And that is why I insist religion deserves no respect but ridicule and criticism until it is taken out of the public square.
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It’s not OK. I can’t speak for your part of the world, But here one’s religion is one’s personal business, in the same way as what goes on in the bedroom is one’s personal business.
With the exception of some extreme and small sects (who would ostracise you even if you changed denominations), one’s beliefs are irrelevant in a friendship. I don’t have a clue whether my friends are religious or not. Those that I do suspect are religious, it is because a church activity happened to come up in conversation, or they declined a date because of a church activity. Even then one can’t be certain, as the friend might have attended the church activity simply because he/she was invited by someone else.
Christians are in the minority here (40% Christian, 40% atheist, 20% other), mutual respect sees compromises based loosely on the beliefs of the majority. But as most Christians would consider a blessing for food to be a ritual to remind one of God’s bounty, and that God wouldn’t be offended if it isn’t always performed, the tendency is not do a blessing when eating out. In my 65 years, I don’t think I have heard a vocal prayer/blessing at another table in a public eating place, except at religious events.
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And I think if anyone is to be religious, it is a private affair. To make an issue of it in a public eating house is uncalled for and to make someone else’s issues public knowledge because on thinks their particular god solves such problems is an infringement of someone’s privacy
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“But here one’s religion is one’s personal business, in the same way as what goes on in the bedroom is one’s personal business.” Nothing here could be further from the truth. And we have separation of church and state written into our constitution. NZ is truly a liberated land. Are there any vacancies in the Shire?
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If you don’t mind living in a country without a written constitution, where the police aren’t armed, where political parties hold seats in parliament in proportion to their popular vote nationwide, where the amount of money politicians and political parties are permitted to spend during election year is strictly controlled, where the state funds (but not controls) health services, where there’s no death penalty, where buildings have to be over engineered to survive frequent earthquakes, where the national flag seldom flies – even on government buildings, where sheep outnumber humans 10:1, and where nuclear weapons are prohibited (even a nuclear powered warship is considered a nuclear weapon), then we can probably find space for you somewhere.
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Count me in
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I’m packing my bags now.
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Two of you? In that case, add overcrowding to the list of our attributes. Still want to come?
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You betcha!
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Barry, like I told you on your about page, I’ve always wanted to come to NZ, and no, I don’t wear rose-colored glasses. Took them off years ago.
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Barry — Yes! That is how personal belief should be. Don’t come to the U.S., and especially the South. It’s ridiculous and obsessive. As Neil Carter (Godless in Dixie) wrote, when you live in the South, it’s like going to church everyday. Usually one of the first questions that is asked here when you first meet someone is “what church do you go to”.
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I don’t recall the last time someone asked which church I go to.
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Noel — lucky you.
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I know, am always lucky 😛
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I’ve been to the US. but not travelled widely. Mostly southern California. I was surprised how “foreign” it seemed to me.
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Foreign in what way?
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Many words have a totally different meanings in the US and NZ.
Guns everywhere. It felt quite intimidating walking past armed police officers or armed private security guards. Neither are armed in NZ.
The need to carry cash for purchasing low value items. I haven’t needed to carry cash in NZ since the early 1980s, even when buying an item costing only a few cents.
Tipping. Never got the hang of that. It’s not part of our way of life.
Having to pay more for things, because the displayed price didn’t include taxes and other charges.
Getting nearly run over because I’d forget that cars drive on the “wrong” side of the road in the US.
Asking the waiter for a check at the end of a meal when dining out in the US. Not done here.
Hearing “have a nice day” so many times that I felt like punching the next person who said it.
Meals so large that they could feed an army. Chips (fries) came with practically everything.
The expectation that a man should pay for his date’s meal or movie.
The main course at a restaurant is called an entrée in the US. Here it’s the one before the main course.
Many restaurants, clearly disapproved when I ordered multiple Entrées (oops I mean Starters) and no Main (Entrée).
I hope you get the picture.
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Barry, you have roused my interest in knowing more about NZ
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“Guns everywhere.” I’m guessing you’re not black then. If you were, you’d have wound up with bullets every where, every where inside you that is.
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It would seem that way by the footage we see from the USA during the TV news.
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Sickening, isn’t it? Police should NOT have guns, as American police have demonstrated over and over again.
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By what just transpired this past week, they shouldn’t have cars either. Copes in a America have been militarized. The weapons used to destroyed Afghanistan and Iraq have made their way to local law enforcement. Many towns and cities now have tanks, as was the case in Ferguson. The cop that ran that man down this week called himself Robocop on FB.
A New York Times article states: “Police departments have received tens of thousands of machine guns; nearly 200,000 ammunition magazines; thousands of pieces of camouflage and night-vision equipment; and hundreds of silencers, armored cars and aircraft. The result is that police agencies around the nation possess military-grade equipment, turning officers who are supposed to fight crime and protect communities into what look like invading forces from an army. And military-style police raids have increased in recent years, with one count putting the number at 80,000 such raids last year.
At least $34 billion in Department of Homeland Security grants have gone to police agencies to buy military-style equipment. This money has gone to purchase drones, tactical vests, bomb-disarming robots, tanks and more. Source
The police are not peace officers. They terrorize citizens, even more so if you are not white.
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Lovely. Just lovely.
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Not sure what the solution is for the USA. Many Americans view the constitution in much the same way many Christians view the bible. There seems to be many ways the second amendment can be interpreted, and at the moment the only “correct” interpretation is the one the NRA proclaims.
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You mean the American Constitution and the Bible are different documents? Wow. Coulda fooled me. 🙂
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🙂
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Last I read aren’t there states trying to make the bible something like the constitution?
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Their official state “books.” Sickening.
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Yes, it is Tennessee
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Didn’t Jesus lay waste to Herod’s troops with an armed drone and an AK-47? Coulda sworn I read that in the Gospel of John somewhere. Jesus/Guns/Money/And White Males = The American way! $Amen$
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That was old yahweh himself
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Right. And with a missile launcher.
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Haha Barry. I think there are quite a number of Americans who if they could would replace the constitution with the bible
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“Hearing “have a nice day” so many times that I felt like punching the next person who said it.”
ROFL — here in the South they say “How are you doing?”, but that’s how they say “hi”. Most could care less how you are doing. 😀 I moved from California to Mississippi when I was a kid, and I felt like I was in a foreign country, but there are vast cultural differences between regions, simply because the US is multicultural, the melting pot of the world. I agree with you about tipping. It’s a strange custom. Employers get away with slave labor in the restaurant industry here, only paying their employees just over $2.00 an hour. If they don’t get tipped they can’t live. What a racket. Come to the U.S., we’ll cheat you right. 😉
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$2.00 an hour? And here I was thinking that our minimum legal pay scale of $15 an hour was too low!
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The fact that “have a nice day” was always said in the imperative mood was what really got to me. Almost like a command. I quickly got tired of being told what to do!
I’ll make up my own mind on whether or not I’m going to have a nice day, thank you!
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LOL — and most really could care less if you had a nice day or not. They are taught to say that. It’s called “customer service with a smile.” That’s one of the things I don’t like about America. I hear people say all the time that there’s so much hospitality in the South. Well, they’ll say “bless your heart” and smile to your face and stab you in the back once you turn away. Yes, I am cynical and I wished I didn’t have to be. Becoming an unbeliever really opened my eyes. I have disdain for facades. It’s the Christian way here.
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“It’s the Christian way here.” But clearly not in NZ. Too bad we Americans didn’t get Barry to come over from NZ to teach tolerance and acceptance for all. Instead, we get an idiot like Ken Ham coming over from Australia to further add to the idiocy of American christianity and religious stupidity in general here. I’m envious of the mind set Barry is describing in NZ. I wanna live there.
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Jeff, I did a good bit of research about NZ a couple of years back. I was seriously thinking about moving there in 2010, but then my step-dad became seriously ill, and my mom suffers from epilepsy. She is pretty much seizure free when she’s not under any stress and that was a stressful time. Anyway, I really like what I found there — a simple life surrounded by beauty. I’m not too found of the seismic activity there, but the bennies more than make up for that.
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And, it’s home to Middle Earth. I wanna live in the Shire with Sam and Frodo. 🙂 It looks like a lovely place to be. And from what Barry’s saying, it seems like a nice, intelligent, grown-up group of people who live there.
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No kidding. I fell in love after watching Lord of the Rings movies.
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I know. I mean, that’s exactly how I imagined Middle Earth looking when I read the books years ago. Just beautiful.
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I never read the books.
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They’re awesome. But I’ve not read them in decades. The movies, the extended editions, too, I watch every few months, cause, well, cause I’m a geek. 🙂
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Haha — god of the geeks.
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Meant to write “fond”
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I want to go there too. He even makes one almost think politicians are not a lost cause
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Indeed.
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Go to Mississippi next time. You’ll think you entered another dimension, and not a friendly one.
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“Its the Christian way here.” But clearly not in NZ.
According the the most recent census, Christians and non-religious each make up about 40% of the population. So no, you can’t call NZ a “Christian country”, but you can say it’s built on Christian tradition.
Religion here has always been kind of laissez-faire here, like most things. As an aside, in the 2001 census, 1.5% of the population listed their religion as “Jedi” (as a protest about being asked about their religion). If the description has been accepted, It would have been the second largest religion in NZ.
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It’s seems to me, Barry, that your culture doesn’t practice the toxic Christianity that we have here. The danger comes when people start taking it seriously, literally.
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And then insisting everyone else believe as they do, as well. That’s my issue with it here. Oh, NZ, here I come! 🙂
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Precisely.
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Toxic Christianity does exist here. It’s a very small but growing disease. Mostly they are branches of American denominations, but occasionally a home grown version rises, then fades slowly away.
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“Mostly they are branches of American denominations” God bless America!!
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Bless your heart.
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Have a GREAT day, Victoria!
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LOL — just DON’T say that to Barry. You don’t want to mess with a Kiwi. 😀
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Hahaha
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Don’t want to anger him. If I do, who’ll I live with when I move to NZ? 😀
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No worries. If you tick him off you have options. http://www.easyroommate.co.nz/
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Awesome, But I do kinda like my mates 3D and not “flat”. Last time I had a flatmate, he slid under a door and I never saw him again. Roundmates are far more stable.
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Hahaha. Flat-mates have the tendency to disappear
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LOL
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You mean to say, Jedi is NOT a true religion?! No wonder my Jedi mind tricks never work and I’m unable to levitate boulders with the Force no matter how hard I try. Dammit! I feel hoodwinked by George Lucas! I’m writing a strong worded letter to….well, to SOMEONE about this.
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Better write to our Statistics Department. It was they who decided it wasn’t a “real” religion.
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They’re Sith Lords, the lot of ’em! Damn Dark Side! Always bites ya on the ass when ya least expect it.
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It’s good to hear that most of the religious people in your life respect your views. That’s pretty much true for me also, with a couple of highly frustrating exceptions.
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Makes living tolerable
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Noel, I am curious. Do you think Christians there are as radical as they are here in the US?
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Yes there are a few. But I hardly meet with them.
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From my experience, nowhere are Christians as radical as in America. I would go so far as to say that what radicalism there is elsewhwere, it’s usually imported direct from the USA 🙂
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I agree Barry. We seem to import all extremism from the US of A
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You’re 100% correct on that.
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https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2015/04/15/tennessee-bill-to-make-the-holy-bible-the-state-book-passes-one-house-of-the-legislature/
that’s the link to the story
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$Amen$ Other states have tried it, too. I’d be shocked if Mississippi hasn’t.
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Bingo.
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