A question for people who live in the USA?

Question

I'm Dutch, my fiancee isn't. At home we speak English to eachother. We are planning on moving to the USA, simply because we wanna raise our future children in a language that we both speak.

I have only one concern, and that concern is mainly caused by Yahoo!Answers. I don't believe in God. My fiancee does. On the US version of Y!A I notice a lot of misunderstanding about Atheism. I truly am trying to understand what causes that.

Both Holland and the US are extremely rich countries, with religious freedom and a good educational system. In my daily life in Holland I have never met a person who doesn't understand what Atheism or Christianity or Islam is. But here on Y!A I notice a lot of completely wrong ideas about what Atheism is, mostly from the American answerers.

My question: is this a reflection of what daily life looks like in the US, or is the misunderstanding of Atheism on Y!A merely an exaggeration of reality?

Answer 1

If you are on the coasts, you won't havea problem, if you go to the south or the midwest, nobody will understand you. Big cities are also more secular.

Basically in New England (from New York and North) atheism is fine. Florida, Southern California and Washington you are fine as an atheist. In the bible belt (south and midwest) probably the 2nd question you will be asked when you meet someone is "What church do you go to?" If you say you are jewish or atheist, they will say "Oh... so what church do you go to?" I'm dead serious. I've seen it happen.

Answer 2

There are many agnostics and atheists here in the U.S., but you don't find them in groups so they are always the minority. Most Christians have never met anyone face-to-face who has claimed to be a non-believer -- they just assume everyone here in the U.S. is Christian. The only time it becomes a problem is during the Christmas season (Oct-Dec) when you will be inundated with mindless greetings to enjoy the season. Most of the year you will be greeted with "have a nice day!", but for at least two months of the year, the mindless greeting changes to "have a merry christmas," or "happy holidays." But just to spice things up a bit, some stores ask their clerks to use "happy holidays" instead of "merry christmas." This only serves to rile the Christians so they start to complain about how they're being persecuted!

One thing you can count on though, none of them blow themselves up (or their children) in order to protest their persecution!

I agree with both Chris and J.P. Your children will probably get a better education in Holland, and it's the fanatics that make us all look insane!
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Answer 3

No not really. Living in the united states is fairly secular. You will run into many people with very strong religious beliefs and strong christian values that may offend or trouble you. However, in your daily life (unless you decide to work for a christian charity for example) you should find that most people simply do not care if you are or are not atheist. It is a non issue 99.9% of the time. I really would not let it bother you at all. Other issues are much more important (like the growing disparity between those that have and those that have not, etc.). You are absolutely right, many Americans, perhaps unlike many Dutch, etc., can be quite ignorant about other religions or about what it may mean to be atheist, and you will certainly meet many who are unyielding and and not understanding. However, that will not prevent you from buying a house, a car, living peacefully, and doing your thing in anyway. We welcome you to live in what is still a wonderful place to live and yet has troubles like any other place!

Answer 4

Wow, I was talking with some friends from church recently about this. I also had this feeling deep inside, "what if God didnt exist?" We talked for hours, debating on facts. Our conclusion: Yes, God exists. I'll try to give you some insight on what we went over.

Ok, let's not get too complicated and just give an everyday example. Suppose you got home today, and there was this beautiful chocolate cake with icing and everything, on top of ur table. Now, we have 2 theories of where that cake came from:

1) There was an HEB truck this afternoon going by ur house, and all of a sudden, a car hit it at 70mph, and the truck rolled over violently. There were eggs, flour, all sorts of stuff in the truck, and they all got mixed up in the crash, and the truck caught on fire, and the extreme heat baked all that stuff, and as the truck continued to roll on the street, the stuff flew through ur window and miraculously landed on ur table.

2) Someone who knew how to bake a chocolate cake, went there and did it, and then put it on top of ur table for you.

Which one makes more sense? If you answered #2, good! Then God created the Earth and everything in it. If you prefer to believe in an absurd and very creative theory called "the big bang", in which somehow gases mixed up, just in the right proportion, and then everything exploded and the earth was formed ... my friend, you have a very creative mind. First of all, how were those gases there? Someone must have created it. God. Stuff doesn't just appear.

=D Doesn't that make sense? Ok, now, let's get a lil more complicated.

Scientists say that man evolved from monkeys or whatever their creative mind came up with. Well, it has been proven that over time, living beings only lose genetic material, constantly. Therefore, evolution cannot be possible. The human body is so complex, there is no way it just "evolved" from something. A project called GENOMA, just recently finished their research. Their task: make a complete mapping of the human DNA. Many countries joined forces to complete this project, each taking a body part, like arm, leg, or whatever, and finding out the DNA code for it. Germany was in charge of the human eye. At the end of the project, they said that the human eye was so complex, that there was NO WAY it could have evolved from some other animal. It's a fact. Scientists researched and wrote it down. Aren't they contradicting themselves now? Ok, I believe I made a point on this one. Mankind did not evolve. God made man in His image.

Ok, now back to the big bang stuff. The NASA has been measuring the distance from the Earth to the moon, and it's a fact that every year the moon gets further and further away from the Earth. Fact. It's been proven. It's also a mathematical equation. So, if we take that mathematical equation, and do it backwards, we come up with how long since the earth and the moon we're almost touching. The calculations say something about 10 thousand years. It can't be more than that, otherwise the moon would have been rolling around on the earth.

Also, it's possible to calculate the rate of aging of the Earth. Every year, scientists calculate the rate at which the Earth is aging. It's roughly the same. If we then backtrack how long since the Earth was relatively "new", the calculations vary from 10 to 12 thousand years. It's fact.

Also, the population of the Earth. Today, we have roughly 6.5 billion people alive. Populations, increase in a mathematical progression. In other words, there will always be more people alive today, than there are people dead. Fact. It's not possible to have more people dead than alive. Draw a sketch of a simple family tree, and you'll stumble upon the same conclusion. So, if we backtrack how long since the beggining of population, the results say somewhere between 10 to 12 thousand years.

Every fact that we can backtrace, falls upon the same range. 10 to 12 thousand years. In other words, the Earth is relatively new, not millions of years old as some scientists say.

So, why would scientists not agree with this? Why would they come up with these ridiculous theories about some big bang or whatever? The answer is simple. At the very moment that they agree that there is an all-powerful being, a God, that created everything we know, they realize all their sins. At the moment they realize their sins, they know that they'll have to eventually have a commitment and a close relationship with God. They don't want any commitments to anyone. So what's the easy way out? Make up some random theories that we evolved from monkeys and that the Earth just happens to have been created randomly by a Big Bang, that they themselves can't explain how it supposedly happened.

I sincerely hope this has opened your eyes to the truth. Thanks for reading this, and I really hope that you now accept the commitment that God wants you to have with Him. If you're already commited with God, then I hope this text has restrengthened your faith.

God Bless all of you, and have a great day.

Answer 5

Well here are the stats:

92% of Americans believe in God

6% don't

2% don't know.

So let's be frank here: you are not entering an Athiest country. However, you were very correct on the subject of religious freedom. Here (especially in New York) the religions are so diverse, no one gives a hoot what religion you are, except for the evangelicals. They're mostly concentrated in the South and Midwest, I'd stay away from those areas. You are making a wonderful decision in moving here, and I wish you the best of luck.

Answer 6

I think it reflects life in the US rather accurately. Certainly the majority of people I meet do not understand why a person would not believe in god.

The particular region in which I live has a very high percentage of Catholics. It is generally assumed in my day to day life that I am one as well. I don't usually correct people unless they direct their assumption at me specifically, and even then I usually just say, "I am not Christian" and do not elaborate further unless asked what my beliefs are.

It won't come into play for you in daily life a great deal, but there are a lot of people in this country who do believe in god and a fair percentage (*not* all by any means) will feel you are damned because you do not. Be prepared to defend yourself if and when the topic comes up.

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Answer 7

I work in the software industry, and there are quite a few atheists. You will find that as with many things, one's experience and educational level are very deterministic in how one acts towards ideas that are different from those one was raised with.
I guess that is a long way of saying that many younger people may not have enough exposure or experience to understand atheism, especially if they were raised in a very strict Christian environment.

I am not Christian myself, yet manage to get along fine here. ;)

Answer 8

I have debated with many beliefs, yet atheism is simple. I can never agree with atheism and the "unfaith" it interrogates but faith is nonetheless proven in these individuals.
It falters mainly in the issue of life to death. It holds no hope outside of the current life, yet it could end in any moment. Everything it endeavors is gone in an instant. Life ends.
There must be more. Evolution is theory based, but can't be concrete proven. If life has no meaning, then why go through the hassle for nothing?
There IS more.

Answer 9

Yeah i'm from Australia too. hello yet you have already taken Paul Hogan, Mel Gibson, Peter Weir, Nicole Kidman, Peter Carey, Cate Blanchett and a variety of of others - you prefer yet another action picture star besides??? Get real mate! Joe

Answer 10

Please do not take any representation of ANY group on Yahoo answers as a fair representation of said group. This site is extremely anonymous; there are several individuals with more than one Y!A identity, pretending to hold different viewpoints. It is impossible to tell who actually believes what!

Furthermore, there are many abusive posters, as well as insincere people posing as representatives of different religious/ethnic groups. While you may find interesting answers in the R&S categpory, I would not trust it as a true representation of any portion of the USA or the mindview of it's inhabitants. If we were to compare it to a chemistry sample in a test tube, the sample is extremely contaminated, and untrustworthy for analysis!