XPost: alt.agnosticism, alt.atheism   
   From: noone@home.com   
      
   "Pro-Humanist FREELOVER"  wrote in news:h9dbi5   
   $a8m$1@news.eternal-september.org:   
      
   > Atheism convention in Virginia   
      
   The problem with atheism is there's no way of measuring how many atheists   
   there really are.  Atheism, by definition, is simply a disbelief in all   
   gods/religions/fairies/santa there never were or will ever not be.   
      
   There's no way to count them because there's no "Atheist Church" you can   
   look into the records of and stand at the door counting noses with a   
   clicker, and very few, poorly attended "meetings" of atheists for the sake   
   of atheism.  Most atheists, especially outside the core countries of the   
   West, are deeply closeted atheists for their own person safety and the   
   safety of their loved ones and property because to expose themselves is,   
   even today, a sure way to be murdered, even by the state in many places   
   controlled by theists.   
      
   So, no counting can be done for these and many other reasons.  Many   
   atheists don't label themselves with any name like "atheist".  They simply   
   don't believe and could care less whether you know it or not.  My city in   
   the Bible Belt of the USA is full of these people.  The only way to get any   
   kind of measurement, here, is to count the people going into the churches,   
   mosque and synagogues, add them all up, then subtract the "theist total"   
   from the census total.  The rest are unbelievers, whether they call   
   themselves atheists or not.  I'm just guessing knowing how many seats are   
   in local churches and how many churches there are to get a seating total,   
   which is always more than actually fill up on a clear Sunday morning, but   
   I'd say it's about 75% of the local population that are NOT members of any   
   religion and, by proxy, are not terrorized by religion into believing in   
   any of it.  Some of us actually drink, swear, and have sex with as many   
   women (or men, or both) as we can talk into it.  They don't believe, and   
   don't even think about it, and certainly never discuss it or make an issue   
   out of it like a fundie wearing a Christie tshirt and bragging about it.   
      
   From the look of the non-church parking lots at 11AM Sunday morning, my 75%   
   guess is probably way too conservative!   
      
   --   
   Larry   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)