Atheists are Intolerant of Faith, not really.

Now, for some reason, Atheists are looked at as the most evil, and immoral people to ever walk on the face of this planet, by many theists.

Now it's true, there are plenty of us who argue against faith, and what not, and why wouldn't we? It's a fair topic of discussion. However, as soon as the debate start..

many throw a fit and go. You can't question my beliefs! How dare you! It's my faith! It's beyond human understanding (funny, they claim to understand it, but claim that it is beyond sciences reach). You're intolerant if you don't let me believe whatever I want to believe!

Alas you see, we are not stopping anyone from believing in anything. We are simply arguing. We are talking and discussing, and we are debating. We are challenging the idea that faith is a virtue. Last I checked, belief without evidence is the most ridiculous concept I can even try to comprehend. It's irrational, and it just plain doesn't make sense..

When we buy food, we look for the label that shows us the nutrients and ingredients.
When we buy medicine, we make sure it has been tested.
When we invest money, we look at the company's credibility.
When we have faith, we do so blindy.
We have no inclination that would lead us to believe one thing over an other (in terms of deities). And in fact when there is no evidence of something, it's best not to believe in it.

But that's not the point here, The point is we atheists, many of whom are rationalists, are in fact very tolerant of faith. Just because we argue against the idea, does not mean we are attacking those who posses the idea. We don't go around gathering up theists and burning them at the stake. Nor do we go hunt witch-doctors and astrologers and gun them down (though ironically there are pro-lifers who go around gunning down doctors that abort).

We are for the most part quite gentle people who would never physically attack anyone for disagreeing with us. We may engage in debate, but since when has, "sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me" stopped applying. We won't be the ones hurling stones at our opponents, though we may hurl arguments, and try and know the idea that faith is a virtue of it's over-glorified pedestal. However the feeling is not mutual. There are plenty of faithful people (not all of them, and this is not to say that they are bad people, simply delusional, and consumed by indoctrination) who are willing to attack us physically (though it would make sense since there is no rational argument to justify faith). Just look at all the places around the world where people get killed for having a difference in opinion, then look at their levels of blind faith in something. The two are usually positively related.

So yeah. We are infact very tolerant, yes, many of us are against indoctrination, and would like to see religion's role severely diminished, and that people stop killing eachother over whose imaginary friend is cooler. We would like to see a world where reason trumps blind faith.

 You may say that I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.

Double Standards... Does Religion get undeserved respect and power?

Alright.. lets rewind to the freshman year of my highschool.

I had a gym class in which for three weeks we had a unit on square dancing.. anyone who knows me knows that I dislike dancing with a passion. I just can't dance... I don't know why, and I don't like dancing. If I can help it I'd avoid it for a long long time..

Anyway, what happened is that students who had a "religious" excuse were permitted to not dance, and could partake in a supplementary activity, which was working out. So without saying a word as to why I was doing it, I partook in the supplementary activity. I knew the other two guys who were doing it to. Neither of them were very religious, but because of their parents religion, they were able to squirm out of dancing, no questions asked.

On the other hand there was me. My parents are hindu, (they're very liberal, which is awesome) and well, I was an atheist in practice, an agnostic when questioned, though I preferred to avoid the "what religion are you?" question all together, and where I could help it, I would pretend not to listen to it, or would quickly change topics, or exit the vicinity of the question by actually leaving. It isn't that I was ashamed to admit that I don't believe in any kind of a god, just as I'm not ashamed to admit that I don't believe in Santa Claus, or that I don't believe in unicorns and fairies.

 I just know of the social stigma that comes with being an atheist.. you know, people see you as a immoral, baby eater who is going to fall to eternal torment (granted that this is the US, and the majority of it's inhabitants are followers of some kind of abrahamic religion). Though I must disagree. I do have morals, you can thank my parents for that. You can thank them for being good people and passing that down to me. Also I would never eat a baby. that just sounds plain nasty, and eternal torture, well, there's no evidence for it, so it's probably not going to happen.

Anyway, I digress. What happened then, is that I was put in a bind.. apparently to not fail, I NEEDED a note from a religious leader saying that I was exempt. Darn it. I knew there would be a catch. However, it wasn't going to end like this.. I was about to challenge their logic. So on the spot I made up a "religion", in accordance to this "religion", I was not allowed to dance. Now what? they would have to be hypocritical to fail me for those three weeks. Unfortunately it seemed that the school had no issue with that. I was called into a conference with my teacher and counselor. Well, a chance to defend myself. To defend the fact that personal convictions should be valued just as much, if not more, than religious convictions. The only difference
between me and the other two students was that they had years of tradition on their side. I did not. However their motives could not be questioned, because that would be attacking their beliefs.. yet my own personal beliefs, they had no problem tossing aside as though they were trash. The hammer was brought down on me, and well, thinking that I was completely alone, at that moment. when they threatened to fail me, I broke down.
I felt truly alone. At the time, I thought I was the only person in my entire school, maybe my entire town, heck maybe even the entire state, who found religion to be fairytales taken way too seriously. It was a feeling unlike any other.. A feeling of hopelessness. One that I wouldn't forget for a while. I guess, one could say I could somewhat empathize with the witches during the witch hunts.

Luckily for me, they were somewhat understanding. They told me never to pull a stunt like that. And since I had done the supplementary activity, I was allowed to get a passing grade, a D, for those 3 weeks of gym. On the other hand the other two students got an A for those 3 weeks, only because they had a religion behind them. That sounds a little too similar to discrimination I would say.

Though you must understand, I have nothing against the school nor the people that worked there. What I'm attacking is the double standard that society has set forth, the one where we are forbidden from questioning faith (which by the way is the illogical belief in something in the face of no/ contradictory evidence) From my example you can see what happens though. One persons "faith" is worthless and that person could be considered illogical, or stupid or insane. However when many people have faith and they organize.. it suddenly becomes reasonable and taboo to say otherwise.

As it happens our society give waaaaaaay too much respect to faith. Even more so than to reason. I think that this double standard needs to change. We need to if anything, respect the individuals convictions. However none of this should be done on religious ground. Why is that pacifists are fair game to be drafted, yet priests are not? Why is it that one's political stance can be criticized, but one's religion cannot. Heck, society will go as far to slander the morals of secularists/atheists/agnostics  but it won't even lift so much as a finger if those morals that are derived from a religion. (for more on that check out my older blog, "atheists have no morals?")
This kind of discrimination needs to end. And REASON needs to be valued over FAITH.