The misfortune of disbelief: Atheism, the new gay?

In an age of tolerance, of love thy brother, and do onto others and all that jazz, it is sad that these sentiments only apply to those of like mindedness, or of like faithesness rather. I do not understand how plastering entire highways with “Jesus Saves”, “Jesus Still Loves you”, “God is the way,” or my personal favorite, “You know you lie, but God knows only truth,” is not only acceptable, but evidently necessary for a community to consider itself safe. However, let one person stand up and say “I’m sorry, I don’t believe you,” and the rage that ensues is equivalent with what I’d expect to see if had slapped their children, made out with their spouse and ran over their dog, while proceeding to trim the cat’s whiskers.

I’m not about to go all Richard Dawkins on you or anything. That guy is a dick (pun totally intended). I understand and respect the traditions, and don’t think there is a damned thing wrong with “In God we Trust,” or “One nation under God.” That’s all fine and dandy, but to equate not believing in God with Satanism is, simply put, ignorant. Atheists don’t believe in Satan, re-tard. In fact, one can argue that atheists are amongst the most peaceful people around (scratch the above mentioned dick off that list). When was the last time you heard of an Atheist extremist blowing somebody up, or an Atheist crusade to recover the empirical land? Atheists tend to be well read people, informed, and open to discussion. There are always the bad sheep that go around insulting people for their beliefs, but they are a different kind of Atheist, commonly referred to as the Douche bag Atheists.

Speaking of asinine non-believers, I am constantly aggravated by the trendy faithless. When did Atheism become the new gay? When did denouncing beliefs loud and proud turn into a cache currency? Belief in what you hold dearest is sacred, let it be you pray to Jesus, Moses, Ala, Buddha, or Darwin (yes, all atheists pray to Dr. Charles, didn’t you know?). We hold candlelight vigils to little plastic fishies with legs before stamping them on the back of our cars.

But I digress.

But not really. Belief, no matter what it is, should be respected so far as no other person is being harmed for it. If there a people that need a God or a church system to get them to be compassionate toward their neighbor, and help the community, then so be it. More power to you. Some of us do all that, and still don’t need to believe in your theology.

So tell me, how would you react if you saw advertisements promoting Atheism in your neighborhood, your TV, your radio? And what about Agnostics? Oh, I can write a whole other tirade on the Agnostics, so perhaps I will, later.