Christian or Bust

As mentioned earlier, I am an atheist, as in "a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being or beings", thank you Dictionary.com. That doesn't quite cover it as there are many types of atheism - implicit and explicit, positive and negative, etc. - and many arguments for and against. You can be practical or theoretical, actively deny gods, embrace secularism or just follow logical arguments. While I have spent a good deal of time on the topic, for the establishment and understanding of my own beliefs and for sheer intellectual curiosity, I do not have overly complicated reasons for being atheist. Am I one hundred per cent positive that there is no god? No. There is no irrefutable proof that god does not exist, but I am more inclined to accept that something doesn't exist when there is no evidence than to accept that it does with the same lack of evidence. Easy. But where does that fit into religion? That is where it all gets FUBAR and when I get bent out of shape. In specific right now it is in my growing discomfort with my place in this so-called Christian nation.

First of all, is it really? Over twenty percent of Americans do not identify as Christian, including other religions and non-believers like myself. Is there some threshold that allows us to be a "something" nation? Is it a majority (in which case we could be called a female nation), two-thirds (we can almost still be a white nation), three-quarters (then we could be an urban nation), or what? I imagine if you used any of those monikers - imagine the male response if people started referring to the US as a "female nation" - the people not included in the title would be unhappy. Well, I for one, am unhappy at being told I live in a "Christian nation". Says who? This manifests in many ways, but a few have stuck out for me recently:

- the US government is supposed to be secular. When I tuned in to watch President Obama's second inaugural, I did so with great glee and anticipation as I was thrilled he was re-elected and really admire the man. But I was more than a little put off by the amount of god and religion injected into the proceedings. I don't go to church by choice, and don't expect to find myself there at a government event. And in contrast I can't imagine it would have gone unnoticed of an atheist had talked atheism. The religious right would have gone nuts!

- Sunday should be just another day. It is the Sabbath for Christians only, and not even a majority of them attend church regularly (see study cited above), but Sunday is by default a day off for everybody because the Christians say so. There are still a great many places in this country where you can't buy alcohol on Sundays because of faith-based blue laws, and the NCAA allows faith-based member institutions to mandate scheduling changes due to "no-play Sundays" rules. 

- it is hard to get elected if you aren't Christian. Remember the over 20% of American adults who are not Christian? Well in the US congress the same demographic is 9.8%. So much for a representative body. A presidential candidate who was perfect in every other way and somehow appealed to both parties would never be elected if he was an atheist. It is one of the very few issues that crosses party lines.

- the pledge of allegiance. Don't start with that "one nation under god" shtick. That phrase was added in 1954 during McCarthyism and to differentiate us from the godless communists. It only avoided being made unconstitutional by a technicality, and its continued inclusion frankly pisses me off. Loyalty to country and patriotism have nothing to do with religious faith and wouldn't it be nice if we would stop confusing political systems with belief systems.

It is not that I am against Christians being able to practice their faith, only that their practice of it not become the de facto practice for all of us. We are supposed to be an inclusive nation, and take justifiable pride in that we want people to have religious freedom. Shouldn't that freedom include NOT practicing at all, and being able to take part in the secular portions of our society without having that religious practice thrust upon us. 

My point is that there are a whole bunch of Americans that do not identify as Christian that by default get identified as such when we refer to America as a "Christian" nation. And I am tired of the idea that I am less of an American for being an atheist.