Americans and Religion

[kandrathe]

I think Lemming made a good point. The part about that religious people have more difficulty understanding an atheist than the other way around.
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Not to be too closeminded, there either is or is not a God, but for sure closemindedness is something more common among religious people than among atheist I find.

To comment on your points; Having known both "rabid" extremes, I would say that both sides are misunderstood, and both sides suffer from closed mindedness. Pig headedness is a pretty common human condition, and I've found that it correlates strongly with the lips of the bell curve. Having too little or too much education seems to cause people to "know better". For those with too little, "anything" could be a right answer so why not theirs and rational argument is useless. For the over-educated, they feel they've earned the right to shut out dissent. It might also be due to the fact that listening patiently to someone is a learned skill.

In general though, I would say that theists are more misunderstood, from the mere fact that there are more of them, and more types of them. They are even misunderstood among themselves, resulting in some of the bloodier conflicts on the planet ( ??? Ya, cuz God likes killing ??? ). About 1% of the population are avowed atheists (maybe it's higher in Holland), and that you are in that minority may make it seem like you are misunderstood more often. Your position is pretty simple to understand, but I think people questioning you might seem like misunderstanding as they seek to further engage (proselytize) you on the topic. But, you'd be surprised at the amount of deist and atheist material dedicated theist intellectuals read to defend their apologetics (Drange, Martin, Mackie, Schellenberg, Russell, etc.).

For interesting backgrounds; I'm currently working on a project with a very dedicated Christian, with whom my conversations refreshingly are intellectually on the order of C.S. Lewis, and his parents were witches. He ran away from home at age 13, and became a migrant farm worker until he put himself through college. My parents were however, that type of Christian that you would call sheep. It seemed to me that they never in their lives challenged what they were told. I was a know it all 16 year old when I rejected everything they ever taught me. It's taken me decades to come around to understanding their simple faith, which I had dismissed as a crutch for a weak mind.