
Portland Considers Protection Against Discrimination for Atheists, Agnostics - laurex
https://www.opb.org/news/article/oregon-portland-discrimination-protection-atheists-agnostics/
======
qubex
As a European atheist, I’ve never experienced any form of discrimination
neither in my native lands nor in the United States, but the mere prospect of
it in the latter somehow never fails to send an ominous shudder down my spine.

~~~
schmookeeg
I am a portland agnostic and have never experienced discrimination that I've
detected. Then again, I've never been invited to the best mormon parties, so I
could be missing out.

I also don't generally discuss my religious beliefs unless directly questioned
about it -- and since being so-questioned is quite rude, I would likely try to
avoid the person questioning me going forward -- thus avoiding any
discrimination risk.

My family are all southern fried baptist. I lied to my grandfather who asked
me on his deathbed if "I was saved". Otherwise, religion is just not on my
mental radar.

Amusingly, the reverse discriminatory problem is sort of true. If someone goes
out of their way to tell me about their religious beliefs, I will think less
of them. I'm trying to work on this about myself, though.

I think there are bigger problems to solve personally, but this one seems like
a cheap "win" so hey, why not I guess?

$0.02

~~~
Tsubasachan
Its hard, atheists generally don't care and won't try to convert anyone. But
every religion created by man is about spreading the message to the heathens.
If you're Christian you simply cannot accept atheism.

~~~
amanaplanacanal
> every religion created by man is about spreading the message to the heathens

I'm not even sure if _most_ religions are like that. Christianity and Islam
seem to, and the Krishna Consciousness people, and the Scientologists, but
Judaism and polytheists mostly don't. Haven't seen much Buddhist proselytizing
either. It varies.

Dawkins and Harris and the other New Atheists certainly try to spread their
atheism though.

~~~
OnlineCourage
Judiasm says that they don't, but they do. Many Hindus believe everyone is
already Hindu. Buddhism is not a religion.

------
staticautomatic
IIRC some relatively recent polls in the US showed that a signifant proportion
of Americans didn't trust atheists or something to that effect. It was
mentioned in that stupid documentary that Pinker did about atheism.

------
TheOperator
I can think of no place where such a protection is less nessecary.

------
alphanumeric0
Why not have discrimination protection for political views first?

