Seven Countries For Atheists To Know About

I do a lot of complaining about how atheists are treated in America.  This could be confused for a lack of appreciation for the freedoms that come with having been born here.  It's quite the opposite though.  My disdain for the way many American Christians behave is because of my fondness for our Separation of Church and State.

My complaints about American Christians may also be seen as me ignoring how it is in some other countries.  I'm well aware of how poorly many countries treat atheists and sometimes even other believers.  For instance, there are seven countries where being atheist can be punishable by death.

The report tracks, among other things, which countries have laws explicitly targeting atheists. There are not many, but the states that forbid non-religiousness – typically as part of “anti-blasphemy” legislation – include seven nations where atheism is punishable by death. All seven establish Islam as the state religion. Though that list includes some dictatorships, the country that appears to most frequently condemn atheists to death for their beliefs is actually a democracy, if a frail one: Pakistan. Others include Saudi Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan, Sudan, the West African state of Mauritania, and the Maldives, an island nation in the Indian Ocean. These countries are colored red on the above map.

Pakistan

Saudi Arabia

Iran

Afghanistan

Sudan

Mauritania

The Maldives

As much as I hate how many Christians behave in America, we do have it better than any of those seven countries.

This certainly doesn't mean I'll lay off the American Christians though.  Our fight against their efforts to force their religion onto us and into our government is all that is keeping our country from being added to that map.

Credit:  @MidUSAtheist/@omarbaddar

A Thought Experiment With Double Standards

I've previously written about this billboard and how there was a complete lack of controversy surrounding it being up.  But what if there had been controversy?

What if atheists were so enraged by this billboard being up that they sent threats to Lamar and Ken Ham and his group, Answers in Genesis.  I think we all know how Fox News would report on this.  News networks would report it extensively, painting atheists in general in a bad light.  Prominent atheists and atheist groups would be compelled to publicly denounce the threats.  It would forever be used by Christian apologists as the prime example of how violent they think atheists are.  

In short, we would all be blamed for it and we would never live it down.

Christians can compare us to murderers publicly and barely raise an eyebrow.

Then there's the real situation of American Atheists' billboards in Charlotte.   When they went up, there were plenty of stories about them.  When Tampa refused to even put one up, crickets.  

American Atheists reported on the billboards coming down, of course.   The Thinking Atheist posted about it on Facebook.  A freethought blog in Arizona wrote about it.  Fox News reported it, but downplayed it in their headline by saying it was "complaints" and not threats.  The Charlotte Observer's headline, called the threats "outcry".  American Atheists is not known for backing down to complaints, they expected complaints.

David Silverman, president of American Atheists, said the controversy is exactly what he expected.

This leaves Fox News as the only major coverage of threats so bad, they got the self described "Marines of Freethought" to back down.  I'll just leave it there and give that a chance to sink in.