Aizle wrote:
I suspect that one difference may be part of the country. Up here in the Midwest, religion is typically a more private affair than it is down South. At least that was my experience when I lived in Dallas. Up here, it's pretty rare for someone to bring up church or religion at work or in normal socializing conversation. Down in Dallas it was quite common for it to come up both at work and in social activites. In over 35 years of living in the Midwest, I have never had an athiest come up to me to prosthetize either in public or door to door.
I would agree with that, to a point. I live in the midwest. The evangelicals are less obnoxious here than they were when I lived in Texas, and the atheists and other nonChristians more so.
I haven't ever had an atheist come up to me out of the blue to prostelytize. What I have experienced is atheists who once they know you as a passing acquaintance feel perfectly free to start expounding on the evils of religion in front of you and relying on your unwillingness to start an argument on a sensitive topic to ensure you'll allow them to have the floor unchallanged.
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Yes, many atheists are vocal about the separation of church and state. That is a seprarate topic IMHO.
In theory it's a separate topic. However, as a practical matter it's almost impossible to discuss it separately, especially when you have people like Monty that claim atheism isn't a religion. Constitutionally speaking, it's a religion or it isn't entitled to any protection as one, regardless of whether it's a religion in any other sense. Many atheists, however, seem to feel that "discussing separation of church and state" means "explaining why atheism should be the state religion, especially since it's right anyhow."