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re: Charismatic leaders

Hey, I completely understand your agnosticism. It's a very logical step between religious beliefs and atheism. The only step difference between your beliefs and mine are simply that I feel there is simply no proof needed for the non-existence of a God or creator just as the need does not exist for someone to disprove the Easter Bunny. The burden of proof always lies with the claimant to a theory. Atheism, in my mind is the simple absence of the theory in the first place.

That said however, I feel no threat whatsoever from a person's beliefs be they agnostic or religious. As you stated it's the actions they take to either deprive me of my rights or to force their beliefs on me or others. It is easy for a fundamentalist Christian to cross that line of disgust or repulsion lately though. That distaste has little to do with any perceived threat to my liberty but instead it's more a nagging irritation with humanity as a whole. I feel the same revulsion to a Jehovah's Witness at my door as I do to a dinner time phone call trying to sell me a timeshare condo. Somehow our species is devolving in regards to basic manners and decency in our interactions with one another. What seems ethical and good manners to me when in a room full of strangers is to keep my views on contentious subjects such as religion to myself unless provoked.

For some reason, many Christians I meet don't have that ethic in them. They'll start spouting off how Jesus has changed their life in the midst of a group of people, assuming everyone in that group shares their same core beliefs. I used to sit silent during those outbursts but now I let them know their audience is varied. I don't do it beligerently, just believe it's information a speaker needs to know if they want to bring up that topic. What's amazing though is that lately, as soon as I let them know I'm an atheist, 2 or 3 other people generally pipe up as well that they are also not Christians. That would've been unheard of a decade ago.

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