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Comment by citricsquid | Hacker News Reader

> I stopped calling myself a Christian

Specific to this point as someone that has lived in England forever I find it really strange how on the reddit atheism subreddit all the (American) posters act as if they're persecuted for their Atheism whereas in England religion is just something people do in private if they do it at all, it's hard for me to understand the way r/atheism posters perceive their persecution, but reading someone from America saying that how England is very different with religion makes it easier to understand.

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Religion seems to be much more pervasisve in public policy in America than anywhere else. 40% of voters believe the Rapture/end of the world will occur in their lifetime. This is unprecendented in any secular country, and it affects all spheres of life. Why worry about global warming when Jesus is going to come back and fix everything in a few years anyway?

That's a pretty high percentage. Link?

> 40% of voters believe the Rapture/end of the world will occur in their lifetime. This is unprecendented in any secular country

This is unprecedented because it's simply not true. The best statistic I could find for this is 11%. Even 11% seems like a very high number based on my personal experience. As an American who has lived in different parts of America my whole life (and currently living in a high-tourist city with people from all over the US), I can say that most people in most parts of the US do not believe that the rapture will happen within their lifetime.

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/PPP_Release_US_0602.p...

Your personal experience living in a high-tourist city does not represent the rural, Evangelical majority that actually votes. Here's one poll with the 41% number: http://pewresearch.org/databank/dailynumber/?NumberID=1043

And here's another poll from the same organization, this one focused only on Christians, that says 20% of them believe in the rapture in their lifetimes.

http://www.pewforum.org/uploadedfiles/Topics/Issues/Politics...

41% in no way jibes with my experience, even as someone who grew up attending white rural evangelical churches. You might get 41% (or much higher) to say it might occur, but I am seriously skeptical of "definitely" percentages.

The survey I linked has some interesting facts about American Christian beliefs about science. Strong (79%+) majority believes global warming is a serious problem, for example. Even a slim majority believes in evolution.

Yes, but my poll is from 2010 and yours is from 2006. Whether the actual number is 40% or 20% or 11%, I'm sure it's much higher than other modern, secular countries. That's all I'm saying.

In any case, that's not the scary poll. It's polls like this one that are scary: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/12/interracial-marriag...

There is a lot of confirmation bias in judging how non-religious folks are treated in America by using /r/atheism - the people that don't feel persecuted won't ever feel a need to join an online community to discuss it.

oh of course and I do not use r/atheism regularly, I find the entire place really disappointing because it's not about atheism, it's about how much religious people are morons (which I disagree with). My curiosity was because there are thousands of redditors that believe they're persecuted for their Atheism and I've never once seen someone from England claim that, it's only ever Americans, which leads me to believe there may be some base to the claim (if what Ryan said in the blog post is accurate).

I'm from the UK. Something I remember from a road trip I took in the 90's across the US was, on multiple occasions, being told that I was "brave" or "courageous" when it came up in conversation that I was an atheist (technical agnostic, working atheist if you want to be picky :-)

This was from religious and non-religious folk. Nobody was mean about it to my face - but it felt like people expected bad things to happen because of it.

As I mention in another comment, atheism is shamed in America. You could say you're viewed as...immoral? A belief in God (at least in my community) is expected, and it's certainly expected in our highest political figures and celebrities.

You can't really conclude much about atheism from /r/atheism. That subreddit is an embarrassment to atheists who are capable of arguing above a junior high school level.

I think that's cause the demographic is mostly teenagers that have been forced into a religious upbringing for most of their lives, and are discovering atheism for the first time.

(Not that there's necessarily anything wrong with that.)

As an atheist in Texas(one of those places where the churches are as big as the shopping malls), as long as you don't act like those assholes on r/atheism it isn't a big deal. The people on r/atheism aren't atheist because they are atheist, they are atheist because it is the cool, rebel against your parents thing to do.

The NE, NW, and NorCal areas of the US are pretty secular. I've never had an issue with atheism. Like in so many things, this part of America is pretty polarized.

I suspect there is a tipping point for religion. It is easy to be culturally Christian and accept basic tenets (i.e., God exists) when there aren't significant vocal doubters. Currently, even in secular areas, it is seen as a bit rude to vocally doubt the existence of God.

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