athiest question?

Question

Okay!Let's say I was living in the 1950's.What would be peoples reaction be if I said to everyone,me denying god,and procclaim that i'm athiest.

It's a hypothetical question.

Answer 1

Pretty much the same as today. Or as 1850. Or 1150.

Man, any time I can be on the same list as Gene Kelly, I'm a happy man.

Answer 2

Actually in the 40s and early 50s it would likely have ruffled a few feathers. That was the time of Senator Joe McCarthy and the Big Red Scare. By the early or mid 50s people were so sick and tired of McCarthyism they likely would have kissed you on the cheek for saying you did not believe in God.

In the 60's no problem. It is only in the hyper religious America that developed after Billy Graham began his crusades that it has become an issue again. In fact even through the 70's Billy Graham was generally regarded as a bit of a nut and his Crusades were looked at with suspicion as a sort of cult activity.
Now a generation later religion has achieved such a strong base by using the methods of the cults that it threatens to engulf your country and destroy your democracy.
When Televangelists got to the point in the early eighties that they could chose who got elected by telling their followers who to vote for you stepped past separation of church and state and started on the road to becoming a theocracy. I think you only need to look at your past 5 presidents and their religious affiliations to understand the effect. The last independent President you had was Jimmy Carter and even he counted himself as a born again Christian. Jimmy Carter has spoken out on a couple of occasions against the relationship that religion now holds with Government in USA.
As the seventies became the eighties the Christian broadcasting networks started and by the nineties they had become fullblown propaganda networks. This is the time that the USA became noticably anti-science.
Now in the 21rst century we are back to having the same court cases fought over religion and evolution in schools as were fought in the Scopes trial of 1925.


Sorry about running on.
a brief note about McCarthyism from PBS
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/database/mccarthyism.html

Additional, Where de gold at has it right except that he is ten years late on his time line, The Red Scare began almost immediately after WWII.

also remember that by the time of Kennedy (1960)people were more worried that he would be under the influence of the Pope because he was a Catholic than they would have been about him being a Godless Atheist.

Answer 3

You should address the Soviets, who during their regime proclaimed they were atheists in the period of 1939 - 40 to 1980 , when they seperated church from state. They denied God and proclaimed being atheists, especially the ones in power, Communists or KGBs. Today, who has remained alive everybody has come back to the God. You want not to be an atheist - you want no more confrontation between the multi - religions in the world.

Answer 4

the fact that you asked what peoples reaction would be tells me that you are not serious.god will have the same reaction to a atheist in 1950 as he will 2010.does the phrase lake of fire ring a bell.god bless you

Answer 5

I'd say you were in good company with the following non-theists of that time:


Albert Einstein, physicist
Henry Louis "H.L." Mencken, American editor and critic,
Irving Langmuir, American chemist, nobel prize winner 1932, Diego Rivera, Mexican muralist painter,
Arthur Rubenstein, Polish-American pianist,
Irving Berlin, Russian-born American lyricist and composer, Sir Alfred Hitchcock, British film director,
Phillip Randolph, American civil rights veteran and union leader,
Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, British born actor, director, and producer,
Pearl S. Buck, American author
Ernest Hemingway, American author
Charles Laughton, English-born American actor
Linus Carl Pauling, American chemist
Langston Hughes, American writer
Sidney Hook, American philsopher
Joseph Campbell, American mythologist
Howard Hughes, American manufacturer, film producer, and recluse
Jean Paul Sartre, French philosopher and author
Katherine Hepburn, American actress
Gene Kelly, American dancer, singer, actor, and director
Burt Lancaster, American actor
and the list goes on...

Answer 6

Early or late 1950's?? It makes a difference...in the early 50's, most people probably wouldnt have cared. After that time, McCarthyism took over, and you would have been labeled a communist.

Answer 7

It'd be a less tolerant reaction than today, but you'd be way better off than if you said that during the inquisition!

Answer 8

Salam

You have a choice to make you can go with the left or you go to the right, inshAllah Santa is good to you this year and gets you a Quran

Answer 9

Probably the same thing that they would say if you annouced that you were gay or marrying someone with a different ethnicity than your own. They were more bigoted & ignorant then than they are now...so I'm not exactly sure what your point here is...

Answer 10

The 50s were okay, the fourteenth century was something else.