So I've got this page called "Ask an Atheist" wherein I invite people to ask me (an atheist) questions about atheism or atheists. I keep comments on the guestbooks there approval-only because I get some nasty questions/hecklers and content is supposed to be kept G rated. None of them have been very fun or creative. Yeah, yeah, I'm going to burn in hell - heard it before, go on. But I recently got asked a (non-abusive) question which I'd been asked before (more than once) and somehow must have put out of my mind.
What the question boiled down to is "Are you an atheist because you were homeless or were you homeless because you're an atheist?"
Wow, I must have really pushed that question out of my mind because I just found some notes on how I'd answered it before when I was cleaning out my files on my computer.
Does anyone else think that question is kind of like, "Have you stopped beating your wife?"
I answered it as best I could without getting too bitchy or emotional here. (http://www.squidoo.com/Ask_an_Atheist#module71858221)
I'd send a two word e-mail back (or response w/e) False Dichotomy
***EDIT SINCE I GAVE IT A LITTLE THOUGHT***
I'm not you but if I had to guess your experience being homeless did have an impact on your belief. Though it may have been a contributing factor to you becoming an atheist to say that it is the ONLY reason (which is implied here) is tantamount to saying the only reason s/he is a Christian is because s/he has lived on the beach for a while. It makes no sense and isn't even an argument. It's just a Christian being an asshole to you.
Thought you did a great job on the response Kylyssa. Maybe what you posted in here as the question was a bit of an oversimplification of what was asked, but I think you did pare it down to the essentials; your questioner was trying link your problems in life with your belief.
Questions like this remind me of the one I read on Yahoo once. Something like 'Why do atheists have big fat bellies?' And I'm like, this is just ridiculous and insulting. This is where the Zen (not trying to plug Buddhism here, forgive me) "Wu" (or "Mu") response would be handy if we weren't in a Western Culture. It means the question is itself wrong and cannot be answered.
Back to you though. I do think your belief and some of the experiences that you wrote about are linked. I think that certain groups of Christians and some individual Christians, not sects here but social groupings, actively and quietly discriminate against other beliefs. Usually it isn't physically violent with them though, like it sometimes is with other religions.
Harassment like this can occur with any kind of social group; the Cheerleaders vs. the Glee Club sort of deal. It's petty and stupid but a reality of human nature, we formed groups to survive and we are keyed to defend our group. I think it's darkly ironic that fundamentalist Christians who don't believe in the validity of evolution and it's influences on human psychology are acting it out perfectly in their daily lives.
So it's not God, it's the people themselves that are in some infrequent cases causing the problem for others, and then saying an atheist deserved it because he or she wouldn't believe in their God or submit to "his" "divine" authority. A nice tidy self-fulfilling prophecy.
But then again, maybe these kids just beat you up because you were autistic and they weren't and then used God to manipulate their parents to lessen being punished. There are a lot of perspectives in human psychology.
Quote from: "LARA"But then again, maybe these kids just beat you up because you were autistic and they weren't and then used God to manipulate their parents to lessen being punished. There are a lot of perspectives in human psychology.
I've pondered that a bit but the closeness in date of the assault to the teacher saying "Jenny is an atheist and that means that she hates God" combined with what was said during the attack suggests to me that it was motivated by a religious difference rather than just my differences as an autistic person. Yes, I was picked on for being different even prior to that event but never with such brutality nor with such premeditation. Most picking on by students had been opportunistic - shoving, punching, spitting, choking me with my scarf, hitting, destroying my stuff, etc but this was a thought out ambush. And the later verbal abuse by teachers, pastors, ministers and school staff was the first I'd ever gotten and clearly religion related.
I was a model student, though a bit of a know-it-all with my hand in the air to answer every question - I have Aspergers rather than profound autism. I excelled in school and was feverishly enthusiastic about schoolwork. Until the incident, my teachers doted on me. Fortunately the incident occurred near the end of a school year and I was transferred to another school the next year where my parents absence of religious practices were unknown, at least to students. I'm sure some of my teachers knew why I'd been transferred because there were occasional (admittedly gentle) proselytism attempts made by a teacher at my new school.