HELP, HOW DO YOU SELF-DELETE WHEN YOU SEE THAT THE DARN THING HAS BEEN POSTED TWICE?




describes many fundamentalists--as if today and historically this is what Christianity has been all about. But I guess you just don't know what is happening outside fundamentalism. I don't know any religionists who want to "stop science." You don't find them in any reputable seminary or religion department of universities or the Society for Biblical Literature, or the Jesus seminar, etc. etc. etc. The people you find repulsive are the same people who are an embarrassment to most Christians around the world, or in history. So your description of "believers" is a product of your own prejudices. Why don't or can't you all just peek at the other side of religion? Or would that spoil the game?

AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM (11/16)

Most of us take a dim view of those who have nothing positive to say about the United States, but plenty to say about what is wrong. Super patriotism may be tedious, but good solid, “I love America”—or wherever you happen to live—is both legitimate and socially rewarding.
Lives there a man with soul so dead
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!”
(Sir Walter Scott—a 18-19th century Scottish poet)

Why should anyone want to live in a nation they despise? On the other hand, these days we are hearing a steady chorus of what has been called “American exceptionalism.” While that term left undefined allows for a variety of interpretations in the hands of politicians, it may evidence an alarming perspective.

Consider what Mitt Romney had to say in a recent Citadel speech. “America must lead the world…This century must be an American century…with the United States wielding the strongest military in the world.” He continued, “I believe we are an exceptional country, with a unique destiny and role in the world… This is America’s moment…I will never apologize for America.”

What, he suggests, has given us the imprimatur to rule the world? But here is where it gets frightening. To quote Mitt again, “God did not create this country to be a nation of followers. America must lead the world.” Thus we move from the divine right of Kings, to the divine right of the nation. I objected strenuously when a Baptist pastor opined that Mormonism was a cult. That statement had no place in the political arena. But when Mitt lays his own religious perspective out for the public to examine, it is fair game. So the question arises, does Romney’s religion include the affirmation that God established, through a lost tribe of Israel, a new nation that was divinely commission to rule the world? A careful reading of the book of Mormon indicates that this new American born revelation may suggest exactly that.

Whether Romney’s theological affirmation that God has ordained America military and economic exceptionalism comes from his Mormon faith, or is just a rhetorical flourish that every other Republican candidate might mouth, it is bad religion and bad politics. It makes God into an American patriot. History is replete with attempts to enlist God as a national icon, and a particular people as divinely mandated. When Hitler was coming to power, just after seizing the title” Chancellor,” he thundered, “Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Glaube.” (One people, one nation, one faith.) What was that faith? He went on to said, “The Christian faith will safeguard the life of the German people.”

In the United State there is rooted a profound distrust of religion when it is used as a political tool. The founders were clear that the United States was to be a secular nation, as opposed to those nations having a state religion. The wall of separation spelled out in the First Amendment mandates that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” When any politician tries to bring God in the back door as somehow an exclusive American patriot, that wall has been seriously breached.

Some weeks ago in this column I discussed “Reconstructionism” which is the notion that America should be ruled by Christian law. One wonders if what Romney, and probably others of both parties might imply, is really Reconstructionism lite. If in Romney’s mind that notion is an essential religious conviction, then his religion ought to be subject to public examination. If he just tossed in the line suggesting that God created America to rule the world because it would sound good to evangelicals, then we can just pass if off as so much political verbiage.

Religious ethics, or ethics from any other point of view, has a legitimate place in any political debate. But religious doctrine does not.

Submitted by religious groups.
I have just received word that OWS has adopted the code of ethics proposed by two religious groups: (occupyfaithnyc.org and forusa.org fellowship of reconciliation.) The ten principles are.

1. We will be open and respectful to all.
2. We will exemplify caring and compassion for all.
3. We will ground our actions in our spiritual traditions and practices.
4. We will use no verbal or physical violence toward anyone, including the police and those who disagree with us.
5. We will accept the legal consequences of nonviolent action and if arrested, will behave in an exemplary manner.
6. My attitude will be one of openness, friendliness and respect toward everyone, including police and opponents.
7. If arrested I will behave in an exemplary manner. I will not evaded the legal consequences of my actions.
8. I will no damage property.
9. I will not bring or use drugs or alcohol.
10. I will not carry weapons.

OWS has personnel throughout the group who will see that anyone violating this code of ethics is removed from the site.

IS THERE A CLASS WAR IN THE U.S.?

A couple of congressional Republican leaders have recently called the President’s proposal to control the deficit, partly with tax increases on the affluent, “class warfare.” But then the Republicans have always been good at the use of language, even when the words have little to do with reality. The term “class warfare” dates back to the medieval insistence that the lord of the manor had the sole right to control both the grain supplies and the bread ovens. The peasants revolted and there arose a clash between those two very separate classes. Guess who won? With the rise of democratic societies, it became clear that no one class had the right to dominate everything, and that some system of equity had to replace feudalism. The Marxists picked up the language and held that any economic system which only benefited the rich at the expense of the working class needed to be challenged. The Republicans, in an attempt to label Obama’s proposal as Marxist, regurgitated the phrase.

Is America currently being seized by Maxist oriented class warfare? The best evidence would be the rapid flow of goods, money and power down, so that the already powerful and the rich lost massive ground and the poor and middle-class gained it. Society would then find most of the economic power in the hands of the proletariat. But the exact opposite has been taking place. Our current economic and political format guarantees that the already affluent receive the lion’s share of everything, while allowing some of the goodies to “trickle down.” Supply side economics loads money at the top, assuming that the accumulated wealth in the hands of entrepreneurs will generate jobs and therefore some of the overflow would leak on everyone below. Not even Milton Freedman, however, envisaged the day when instead of trickling down, wealth gushed up—and stayed there.

If there is class warfare these days, it is not in the development of an economic system where the power belongs to the workers, the poor and the outsiders, but is deposited almost solely with corporate interests, together with the already rich and the politicians they can buy. If it’s class warfare, guess who is winning? The top 1% of the population earns a staggering 20% of the nation’s net income. In the meantime almost forty-five million Americans live in poverty, one out of five children are in want of the basic resources needed to sustain a decent life, and tens of millions have no health insurance. The President’s proposals at their most extreme wouldn’t make a dent in that mal-distribution.

At the same time there is a concerted effort to shred the safety net woven by FDR and LBJ, even while the nation’s wealth continues to gush up. That’s class warfare! It is a belligerent assault on the poor, the left out, the unemployed, the ill-educated and the nobodies, on behalf of keeping the way clear so that the biggest hogs may stay at the table. The affluent have the political movers almost totally in their camp. Not only Republicans but also a sizeable smattering of Democrats are deep in the pockets of these right-wing power brokers.

No matter what sounds we are now hearing from the likes of the Tea Party, I am convinced that at heart the vast majority of Americans believe that health care for all, the social safety net, decent wages for workers, widespread educational opportunities, good schools and a society that cares about its elderly are all more important than preserving the entirety of the enormous wealth of America’s most affluent. If America is not built on the notion of fairness, what have we to offer the rest of the world? My guess is that sooner or later the American people will wake up and realize just how badly they have been had and how cheaply they have been bought. What we might hope to achieve is an equitable balance of America’s wealth. That is not the product of class warfare, but of economic and political justice.

I recently spent time at the Los Angeles City Hall with a few thousand turned-on people; the 99% who are not among the nation’s super-wealthy. About two-thirds of those assembled were young adults. Others were clearly older middle class liberals, including a sizeable collection of families with children. The first man I encountered sheepishly admitted being a CPA. His beef? While the bankers and the corporations are skimming off the cream, the rest of society is being hung out to dry. “Unemployment, houses under water, no health insurance” were among his concerns. “Something,” he said, “is very wrong with the system. It’s loaded in favor of the already affluent.” I next encountered a man whose sign read. “If a real-estate agent is here, the situation must be serious.”

There were a variety of issues discussed and scores of workshops held throughout the day. “Corporations are not people” seemed to dominant much of the signage. This was not a slovenly mob. I didn’t see a single piece of trash on the ground anywhere. While food, clothing and other incidentals were being distributed by whomever had brought them, nothing was being sold.

Police were in the vicinity, but none on the grounds. I saw one officer outside the encampment getting his picture taken holding one of the protester’s signs. While a small group called for revolution, the organizers had done everything possible to eliminate even the threat of violence.

Groups of local university professors had their own areas, and there was a smattering whose symbols suggested that religion had formed their perspective. The only overt religious act I witnessed was by a couple of Muslims who silently stopped for prayers at the appointed hour. There was no evidence that anybody was selling religion or stickling it in anyone’s face. A few days before, the Rev. George Regis, a well-known Episcopal priest, was arrested wearing his full ecclesial robes. I’m not sure just what he had done, but he wanted people to know that the church was in support.

Having been in a ton of such demonstrations, I was impressed by the careful discipline in how this one was being conducted. Such events are not new. The earliest one I know about was not as quiet and non-violent as what I recently experienced. It also had to do with an obscene example of capitalist economics. “Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords he drove all of them out…He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. (John 2:13-15)

Nobody seems certain as to where these nation-wide events are headed. Certainly the time will come when the focus must be involved in the political debate. But the pure democracy evidenced doesn’t produce clear directions quickly.

Certainly many others in this forum have been to similar actions around the country. Let’s compare notes.

May I be allowed to respond to this group here? If that is not appropriate, just get what I say axed and I'll do it on r/t.

There is a consistency to what I have done in r/t in these months. I have never--not once--condemned atheism. In fact I believe atheism and agnosticism have major roles to play in the discussion of these important issues. There are contributions made my atheists and agnostics that add mightily to the conversation. I have both learned and modified some of my prejudices. And I thank them for their contribution to the discussion. While I have criticized Ayn Randism, even there I have never said that it has no place in the conversation. Nor have I ridiculed, put down, slammed, condemned atheism, and i will not. Had I searched the world for examples of how bad atheism is--had I said that it should disappear. Had i identified all atheists with the worst of them. Had I spend hours each week in an effort to prove that all atheists are phony, stupid, evil or just ill-informed. Had I majored in those things you all might have an argument, and my guess is you would have come out of your corner hopping mad and belligerent. And you would have had a perfect right to do so. You however, expect me to soak up all of that and more and wilt. Isn't there a simple matter of justice here? But if I DID those things it would not tell you very much about atheists, but it would tell you a great deal about me. And it would be unflattering.

I had hoped that this forum (r/t) might find ways to seriously help each other see the positive side of our differing commitments, instead of trying to prove how terrible the other is. That is still my hope. Furthermore, I would like to see r/t begin to make some valuable contribution to the Democratic agenda, instead of what goes on so much of the time. I have felt that closing down what we have and opening up a forum with a somewhat different agenda would be an invitation to stop the useless set of blanket condemnations. Skinner says that keeping r/t as it is simply siphons off the fumes from infecting other forums. So we--you are kept safely in our box so as not to disturb other things.

Well, if the Administrators won't help, perhaps we ought to agree among ourselves to alter our direction. I have not nor will i spend my time condemning atheism,. I have never been that kind of a person. But think when what you do is condemn religion, not much positive has been accomplished.

I respect the way you handle these disagreements. You have never really attacked my rationality while your critique has often been fierce. I can handle that. But there are a half dozen old hands here with a very different agenda. They do not want religion discussed at all, except to condemn it. Their vocation is to bash religion. When a poster reported that a religion man showed up to protest an execution, the response was that this sort of thing had no place on r/t and the poster should go elsewhere,.

This is why r/t is held in such low regard by most DUers who won't even bother to post or respond here. I decided to do what I could to alter that approach, and I have the scars to prove it.

To your answer. I listen to it realizing that it is a rational response. Of course I come at things very differently as my answers to your questions suggest.

The main critique is that I employ the NTS fallacy. The implication is that I speak for all religious thought and that those who do not agree with my thesis are therefor not real Christians--only those who believe as I do. Carried to this conclusion would mean that here can be no internal debate in anything where anybody held that their view was authentic, assuming others were not. Thus the end of any dialogic process of firmly held propositions. I am in no position to judge whether someone else is or is not not a Christian, or a historian, or a scientist or an politician. I hold what I do about the heart of Christianity as compassion for all. This is common proposition of liberal scholars and religious historians throughout the world. I am a member of the Jesus Seminar, and that is what Marcus Borg proposed in his book, "The Heart of Christianity." You NTS comment strikes me as a debater's rhetorical ploy that is intended to sidetrack what I really have to say.

I just flatly disagree that my 3 is epistemological mush. It is a deeply thought out perspective on Biblical literature that has been solid for a long long time.

that's one thing. If you are just looking for a crack in the armor to attack religion, then these are, "when did you stop beating your wife" questions. I'll assume the former.

1-the real heart of religion is compassion for everyone. It was Jesus' primary message. It is what has been affirmed by the whole "Parliament of Religions" backed up by a research project by a host of modern scholars who really know and understand the world's religions. Please take the time and read Karen Armstrong's "Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life"

2-I accept as colleagues both polytheists and atheists if their social goals are similar to mine (see #1). In my experience I have had much more working agreement on the goals and values from atheists I know than from the polytheists I know. My atheists friends tend to be deeply humanistic. I celebrate that. Those whose vocation is simply to bash religion and never argue for solid compassionate social values are not in my orbit whether they are atheists of polytheists.

3-Neither historic facts or legends, but ways in which the early church tried to tell stories of important realities that are always true but never purely historic. They are a affirmations of life against all the powers set to destroy it--for everyone. This is the heart of the Christian message--not doctrine.

4-The Mormon stories are their stories, and they are welcome to them. They are not my stories, and I'm not a judge. The question I ask has to do with actions. "By their fruits(not their doctrines) you will know them."

5-No

6-Sadly, not nearly enough. And that is why those of us in the social minority get questions from you all. I never claimed we were a majority. But them Christianity has never gotten anywhere when it was the majority. It has then always tended to be repressive. Thus the real horror stories of religion--and I know many more than you all. It has been the minority without political power which is the clearer voice.

I have tried to address your questions. Your penultimate paragraph is loaded and far from the honest questions you raised. Most of the rest of your post seems fair. I really hope these were not just "gotcha" questions.

One of the fears occasionally surfacing around here is that radical Islamists will take over some political jurisdiction in the United States, putting its citizens under Sharia law. Women will lose all their hard fought-for rights, be required to dress modestly including headscarves, and find it necessary to walk behind their husbands. But that, we are told, is the mildest part of Sharia law. Those who violate certain religious taboos would be subject to public stoning. There are obvious ominous results were this to happen. 1-The American Constitution and the Bill of Rights would be gutted. 2-The separation of Church and State would be obliterated, and we would be in a similar fix as was Salem during the witch trials, Blacks during slavery and Spanish heretics during the Inquisition.

There is not the remotest chance that this scenario could be produced anywhere in the United States. No one except the most paranoid anti-Muslims even suggests the possibility of such a development. The real threat is not from advocates of Sharia law, but from a significant contingent of Americans who advocate the adoption of Biblical law.

“Reconstructionism” has been around since the 1960s when a sect led by J. Rushdoony openly advocated replacing American law with Biblical law, drawing mainly from the Old Testament which includes such things as the death penalty for homosexuality and apostasy. While it has been denounced by leading conservative Christians, an adaptation of the notion has recently resurfaced in a somewhat less threatening form. Two current candidates for the Presidency seem to live on Reconstructionism’s borders.

Michelle Bachmann lifted from Rushdoony’s followers the notion that as a matter of law the government should be prohibited from collecting taxes in excess of 10%. In a book titled “Call to Duty,” which she recommends, the Civil War was depicted as a battle between the devout Christian South and the godless North, while it lauds slavery as a benevolent institution. Her academic hero is John Eldsmoe of Oral Roberts University, a devout Reconstructionist. She and overt Reconstructionists in the Tea Party hold that God has set the proper role of government, which does not include such things as public education or assistance to the poor. Instead God desires a Christian government in which an evangelical worldview is enforced. While she might never use the Reconstructionist label, her roots lie deep in that soil.

Rick Perry, while not as blatent in his support of Reconstructionist goals, stands clearly on the border of that movement. His unsuccessful April 22-24 “Days of Prayer for Rain in Texas” seems to assert that the State would be blessed by God if Jesus’ loving people prayed hard enough. Jesus has always been part of his anti-tax, anti-regulation, pro-gun, pro-life agenda. His supporters include the American Family Association, which regularly denigrates gays and lesbians and other minority groups, and holds that the First Amendment applies only to Christians, and therefore Muslims should not be allowed to build mosques. Perry has declared “as a nation we must call upon Jesus to guide us through unprecedented struggles.” His politically sponsored August 6 prayer rally leaned almost all the way toward Reconstructionism.

A few weeks back I published a piece concerning breaches in the wall of separation between Church and State. A score of responses suggested I had ducked the chance to be specific and to name names. So here they are. The real problem is not what these people believe. They have every right, and one would hope that all candidates had underneath their political proclivities some sort of ethical rootage. But when they openly declare clearly defined Christian doctrine as the basis for their political agendas, that wall has not only been breached, it has been dismantled. Bachman and Perry have a perfect right to hold what they believe to be faithful political perspectives, but to insist that their goal is to promote a narrow biblical view as the basis for national law, puts them on shaky unsupportable ground.

I've a pretty good grasp of the myriad ways Christians have been--and still are--among the worst enemies of the Jesus they claim to follow. In r/t the accusation has often been made that I only describe the good things people of faith have done The following two paragraphs are taken from a previous thread, and are only an example of what I have said in a variety of ways over these months.


"The worst enemies of Christian faith are Christians who are narrow, exclusivist, bigoted, war mongering, on and on and on. And there are plenty of them. Christian history if replete with prejudices, pogroms and support of tyranny. Somehow, however, there are a growing number of Christians who follow the one who was the Prince of Peace, defended all the left out, was ethically centuries ahead of his tradition and lured his followers beyond the commonalities of a cultures mired in bigotry.

As a pope in the middle-ages remarked, when asked how he could stay in the church with all its evil, 'It's like Noah's ark. The only way to tolerate the stink inside is to know about the storm outside.'”

The worst enemies of Christian faith are Christians who are narrow, exclusivist, bigoted, war mongering, on and on and on. And there are plenty of them. Christian history if replete with prejudices, pogroms and support of tyranny. Somehow, however, there are a growing number of Christians who follow the one who was the Prince of Peace, defended all the left out, was ethically centuries ahead of his tradition and lured his followers beyond the commonalities of a cultures mired in bigotry.

As a pope in the middle ages remarked,w hen asked how he could stay in the church with all its evil, "It's is like Noah's ark. The only way to tolerate the stink inside is to know about the storm outside.

Every major religious perspective and a variety of non-religious philosophic traditions, have at their ethical centers something very similar to what Christians call “the golden rule.” “Do to others what you would have others do to you”
This maxim lies at the heart of Christian faith. Some other examples:
• Brahmanism –“Do naught unto others which would cause you pain if done to you.”
• Buddhism—“Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.”
• Confucianism—“Do not do to others what you do not want them to do to you.”
• Hinduism—“Do not do to others what would cause pain if done to you.”
• Islam—“None of you truly believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself.”
• Judaism—“Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”
• Sikhism—“No one is my enemy, none a stranger, and everyone is my friend.”
• Sufism—“The basis of Sufism is consideration of the hearts and feelings of others.”
• Plato—“May I do to others as I would that they should do to me,”
Kant—“Act as if the maxim of thy actions were to become by they will a universal law of nature.”

A similar list might be generated with other principle ethical imperatives which run throughout both religious and secular history: Peace, justice, the care of the left-out, hospitality to the stranger, universal respect, compassion for the poor, widows and orphans, violence used as a last resort, if at all—and more.

I would be interesting in hearing of similar examples from other non-religious traditions.
Ayn Rand’s “Objectivism” is probably at the opposite ethical extreme.
If we are to take values seriously, we must struggle with the question of what makes for human good, in both personal and societal manifestations. Somehow our noblest political motivations ought at least to be in touch with these ethical presuppositions.

THE JOBS ARE COMING! THE JOBS ARE COMING! OR ARE THEY? (8/24)

Now that things have calmed down a bit, following the futility of the debt-cap fiasco, it is time the political wizards turned to job creation. That, after all, is the blood spurting from America’s economic arteries. The Republican solution has always been, “don’t raise taxes—especially on the already wealthy.” The uncertainty of tax increases, they opine, is the reason why the already affluent have been hesitant to invest in job creating businesses. Well, the threat is suspended for the foreseeable future. Taxes on the wealthy will not be increased soon. Now, if that is the Republican answer to job creation, one wonders where all these new jobs are? After all, the Bush tax cuts have been in effect for almost a decade, and their influence has provided only the loss of jobs. Economists tell us we are now on the brink of a double dip recession. At least we are witnessing a stagnant economic future.

The problem is not the lack of available money in the hands of potential job creators. They have the lion’s share of America’s wealth now. They don’t need more. Their almost three trillions in the bank are going almost exclusively to overseas jobs, the repurchase of their owns stocks, and dividends. America does not have a supply problem. It has a demand problem. The American consumer is where the financial lack lies. If people don’t have money to buy, nobody is going to manufacture things that they cannot sell. The question is, therefore, how do we get purchasing power into the hands of potential consumers?

We have been through this before. After a false start with attempted budget cuts, FDR realized that the nation was being driven back into a continued depression, so he put America to work. When D.D. Eisenhower hit the recession following the war, he devised the Interstate Highway System and gave Americans millions of good paying jobs. LBJ, in addition to jobs in the Great Society, generated a housing boom, realizing that the building, sale and occupation of homes is always necessary to break out of a recession.

Most economists realize that in a financial crisis government may be the only source of new jobs. While dealing with the long-term deficit is important, the immediate problem can only be solved by government intervention. Obama’s modest effort to ignite the economy faltered by being much too little, and was thus branded a failure by his opponents. The needs are there. What if we decided to rebuild America’s rail system, our decaying sewer system, dilapidated bridges, and the rest of the infrastructure? There would be millions of new jobs. And that may be the only responsible answer to deficits.

The short-term solution is to awaken the American people to the pickle we are in by turning around the House while securing a filibuster proof majority in the US Senate. That seems to be the task for the next year and a half. While I share the Democratic party’s left in its disappointment over what Obama hasn’t produced, I lay the blame, not on him, but on they way those who elected him ran for cover and allowed the Tea Party et al to take over the House in 2009, almost without resistance. While very conservative funding sources were putting big bucks into almost every campaign, we sat back and let it happen. And when the conservatives discovered the budget deficit and debt cap issues, which were hardly new, they got hold of a gold plated way to inspire terror in the hearts of the middle-class.

No one should expect the Republicans to come up with a solid job-creating strategy before the next election—even if they might have one. The fixation on cutting the government’s ability to create jobs seems to be currently a winning issue, and I doubt if the three they appoint to the new commission will budge from that preoccupation. So if the problem is economic, perhaps the solution is political.

One of the most articulate, albeit occasionally my r/t antagonist, suggested I take a look at a detailed scholarly study developed in 2006 and published in the “American Sociological Review.” It was titled “Atheists as ‘Other’ : Moral Boundaries and
Cultural Membership in American Society.”

The conclusion of this well-done study was that of all the minority groups in the United States, atheists were being more slowly accepted as having life-styles consistent with the American ethos than other groups—homosexuals, Jews, Muslims, Hispanics, Asian American and recent immigrants. While there was no evidence that this produced even the mildest persecution of atheists, many Americans had a more difficult time seeing them as “us.” Things are increasingly better for all the above named groups, and while atheists are gaining in acceptance, it has been somewhat slower than among other minorities.

A 2002 study, while indicating that 14% of all Americans stated “no religious preference,” the percentage of avowed atheists was between 3 and 1, so the group is relatively small.

The two categories of most interest were questions having to do with accepting (I gather for one’s children) intermarriage with atheists, and one’s willingness to vote for an atheist running for high public office. Only 54% of those surveyed agreed that they would vote for an atheist running for President, while 90% said they would vote for a Black, female or Jew. The intermarriage question revealed a sturdy racial bias even while atheists ranked high on the unacceptable list. Thirty nine percent of those surveyed responded affirmatively to the question: “This group (atheists) does not agree with my vision of American Society.” Muslims polled the next highest with 26 percent. Since these are 2003 statistics, my guess is that Muslims are more suspect in 2011.

While the study revealed no overt persecution, my own opinion is that there is no place for even this modest suspicion of atheists as not being part of mainstream America. Prejudice in all its ugly ramifications is abhorrent. I was surprised by the findings since in my rather wide circles I do not find even the slightest sense of atheists being “other.” But maybe my circles are not that wide after all, and I am willing to learn. So I thank the r/t colleague who put me on this data.