Are You a Hardcore Atheist?

[dave_littler]

Apparently there's this "Are you a hardcore atheist" meme going around, which I found by means of the excellent Evolved and Rat/i/onal blog. While I only occasionally post memes and surveys of this sort, I felt this one was smart and on-the-nose enough to be worth my time and attention.

Quoting from the original post....

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How serious do you take

Comments

[tcgiant]

yaaaaaaawn atheism

[chaosblue]

Both!

[dave_littler]

I think that not only does it count as both, but the question itself serves as a sort of second meta-joke.

[anonymous]

Discordianism- Doin' it for teh Lulz.

[chaosblue]

19 out of 50 here. I pretty much caught all the ones that aren't atheist-specific.

[hentaikid]

Some of those are kinda milquetoast, how about something more hardcore like "volunteer for a war to prove the saying 'there are no atheists in foxholes' is a lie"

[dave_littler]

Or "Allowed a relationship with a theist family member to wither and die because you and/or they couldn't deal with one another's stance on religion."

There's probably a lot of things which are more "hardcore" by any reasonable expectation, but which are by the same token so non-praiseworthy that they're not the sort of thing you would want to brag about. The worst of those up there are merely moderately embarassing when compared to "committed a crime which I knew I would go to jail for but felt was justified because it dealt a blow against theism." or something psycho like that.

[morgian_le_faye]

Heh, I've been attending UU churches since I was eight. Honestly though, I go there now because I need to find some freethinkers in central Illinois. While my college may be the best choice for me in many aspects... it fails in sanity. Many of the others apply to me though.

[dave_littler]

I can understand how that may be the case; from what I've heard about life in the US, if you don't live within walking distance of one of the coasts, being an "out of the closet" atheist can be very difficult indeed. The worst I ever had to deal with, growing up as an unabashed atheist in southern Ontario was a sort of low-level but prevasive frustration at the irrationality of the majority of my so-called peers. Nothing at all when compared to the persecution a lot of atheists get down south of the border. I can easily understand how you might seek refuge among the next best thing.

[morgian_le_faye]

Yes, it can be frustrating. The most frustrating thing for me though is any atheists my age are apparently not out of the closet and don't go to church. Thus it's me and all the people over 50. Lovely! The one thing I do like about the UU church down at school is the six big names as the founders of the church are also six of the biggest names on campus! Woot! Also, I see most of the members around campus, so I feel better knowing there are some free thinkers out there.