Basically. That about sums up the relationship between secular religious people & out the closet Atheists. I would presume that the majority of you are secular religious people (i.e, people who don’t apply every religious edict to their lives) & aren’t evangelists or religious fanatics (at least I hope not). & If you’re one out the closet, give a shoutout on the comments! As to why it’s pertinent to the national discussion in the US, stats shall suffice.

In May of 2016, a survey conducted by Gallup poll found that 11% of Americans don’t believe in God (add agnostics & you get a whopping 21%). Now, simply put, that is called Atheism. But what most people don’t even realize is that there are different forms of “nones” on religion polls. Do not confuse the “nones” as “atheists”. Nones include anyone that rejects organized religion. Which means, you have your Deists (people who believe that God gave humans reason & doesn’t interfere in worldly matters), Atheists (a strong conviction that there is a low probability of the existence of a God), Agnostics (people who believe that since you can neither prove nor disprove the existence of god, f*ck it! It doesn’t matter) & people who believe in god/are spiritual but don’t adhere to religious rules or like to be categorised.

Since the aforementioned statistic might be on a higher side lets resort to an accepted stat- 3% of Americans are Atheists & only 1 current member of Congress has declared them to be openly atheist (we’ll get to what that means). Compare that to the Jewish population- about 2% with 36 current members in Congress. (Side note- there is no problem with that. The religious preference of the representative shouldn’t matter as long as secularism is upheld in the country.) All I’m saying, is this- Atheists are an underrepresented minority.

This is just an indicator of how uneducated America (& frankly, the world) is when it comes to irreligion. Quick! It’s getting too boring! Add a meme.

Ahhhhh. That’s better. (sorry. I had to do it. For your sanity as well as mine)

Anyways, back to the main point. A study done by the University of Minnesota showed that negative attitudes towards Atheists are higher than they are to Black Americans & the LGBTQIA+ (though not as high as they are to Muslims). At one point, the president of the United States, George H. W. Bush, declared “No, I don’t know that atheists should be regarded as citizens, nor should they be regarded as patriotic. This is one nation under God.”

That is Significant.

Why? That’s a government official undermining the American constitution by declaring in the most insensitive language that the separation of church & state is void (technically, that applies to teachers as well. They cannot promote any religion while in their jobs). To be fair, that was the 80s, Bush Jr. later said in 2003 “I will be your president regardless of your faith. And I don’t expect you to agree with me, necessarily, on religion. As a matter of fact, no president should ever try to impose religion on our society. The great – the great tradition of America is one where people can worship the – the way they want to worship. And if they choose not to worship, they’re just as patriotic as your neighbor.”

Great job, George. One more thing you did right along with being the leader the people needed during 9/11.

Going past the discrimination, illiteracy & underrepresentation, the belief in God is as good as belief in an imaginary friend.

(sorry! had to do it.)

This is one of the reasons why I don’t stand up for the Pledge of Allegiance. (but that’s a talk for another time)

In the end, we are all humans with more similarities that differences & just remember-

to be continued……….