Survey says...atheists are not to be trusted

It's true, recent studies have shown that some people have a pretty negative view of atheism.  Half of all Americans polled said they would not vote for an atheist president.  Studies report many people do not consider atheists as trustworthy as other Christians and Muslims.  Some argue that people who believe God is watching over them are more likely to behave morally.  I believe that people who praise a higher power can certainly use their faith to bring awareness to a better life...but to say atheists are not trustworthy folk, is a dangerous way to see the world.

I have not been able to get to know many new atheists this month, but I have done some reading up on atheist philosophy and other educational perusing of the world wide web and I have discovered an amazing truth.  Atheists seem to be just like everyone else.  They have beliefs, and some hold them tighter that what is healthy.  Some of them seem to genuinely care about a multitude of the worlds problems, and some seem to think the "others" are the bat-shit crazy ones.

Atheists seem a lot like people.  Real people, people with problems, people who meet with other like minded people to try and save the world (or school...or city), people who see the beauty of community.  From what I can tell, a common thread of all people is to want to belong.  So we hang out with like minded people, which is great...so long as we keep trying to expand our personal bubble to include other people who aren't quite like minded.  What we may find is these unlike-minded individuals are more like us that we originally thought. 

So where does this negativity come from?  Probably a lot of places, in a lot of different forms, but one commonality is ignorance.  I'm not talking about bad people necessarily.  Ignorance has many shapes and sizes ranging from down right damaging and completely made up to a simple lack of updated information.  But here is the good new friends, I have something special coming up for you!  (not really, just a lot of information that is mostly new to me)

Be warned.  I have been studying atheism for over a month now, with the help of my smart phone AND the internet.  Clearly I know my stuff, but in the case that I write something incorrect, please correct me.  And when you are correcting me, please try to be helpful...otherwise you might end up looking like one of the crazies.