NOT cool... acceptance should be a two way street.

[Fortigurn]

When they ask you to swear on a bible? Force kids to sing bible songs? Take religious studies? The Spanish inquisition? The pledge of allegiance? Anti abortion?

How do any of these examples dictating that you must accept other people's faith in whatever religion? Who is forcing you to sing Bible songs? The Spanish Inquisition, seriously? Pledge of what?

[Rockefeller]

why is it that society dictates I must accept other people's faith in whatever religion,

Since when did society dictate any such thing?

When a good portion of religious people start calling people who share the same views as I do unflattering names as soon as we tell them we don't believe in their specific brand of faith.

Side note: It was only several years ago that I was an atheist. Imagine what the hardcore religious folks have called me then.

[sulavaca]

I think you removed the bit about me giving people the benefit of the doubt.

No. Saying 'you're probably wrong' isn't giving people the benefit of the doubt, it's saying the exact opposite. I'm going to ask my question again; do you understand that calling another poster a kiddy fiddler, despite whatever sleight of hand you want to use to do so, is a breach of the forum guidelines? Yes or no>

I think you know exactly what I meant, and you aren't being forgiving enough . You say sleight of hand, I say there is no possible way on earth that what I am saying can refer to every single "religious" person, and nobody is going to believe that for a moment. You're blowing things even beyond the proportion that I blew them up to be in the first place. If you read my last post, I said I was part of a "religion" at one point in my life. If I'm calling all religious people kiddie fiddlers, then I am also referring to myself. You didn't delete the part where I asserted that religious people don't go to war either. Should that bit be deleted too perhaps? That was a bit sensitive wasn't it? I mean to suggest that according to the way you read my post, that no religious people go to war! Wow!
I think the issue here, is an issue of sensitivities. You are obviously very sensitive about the words kiddie and fiddler. You think that people will take my word for it that all religious people practice this, and won't just read my words as being controversial.
The root at which I'm trying to strike here however is how certain religious groups (calming the tone down here, to not upset certain religious groups) can get away with far more than non religious people can get away with. It's because of this that topics such as this one even come up in the first place.

[sulavaca]

When they ask you to swear on a bible? Force kids to sing bible songs? Take religious studies? The Spanish inquisition? The pledge of allegiance? Anti abortion?

How do any of these examples dictating that you must accept other people's faith in whatever religion? Who is forcing you to sing Bible songs? The Spanish Inquisition, seriously? Pledge of what?

Your original enquiry:

why is it that society dictates I must accept other people's faith in whatever religion,

Since when did society dictate any such thing?

Once again, you were asking "since when did society dictate such a thing".
I take that to mean since when has religion forced you into performing it or accepting it as the truth or part of a common law.

And the answer is, since as far as I have looked back, which is a couple of thousand years, and as far as I can tell today.

[Chris]

Nobody called any particular individual a "kiddy fiddler", nor did the post equate all theists with pedophiles.

Back to the topic: atheists are one of the least accepted groups in the US, as a 2006 University of Minnesota study, published in Vol. 71 of American Sociological Review, found. To the question "This group does not at all agree with my vision of American society", the result was:

Atheist: 39.6%
Muslims: 26.3%
Homosexuals: 22.6%
Hispanics: 20%
Conservative Christians: 13.5%
Recent Immigrants: 12.5%
Jews: 7.6%

To the question "I would disapprove if my child wanted to marry a member of this group", the result was:

Atheist: 47.6%
Muslim: 33.5%
African-American 27.2%
Asian-Americans: 18.5%
Hispanics: 18.5%
Jews: 11.8%
Conservative Christians: 6.9%
Whites: 2.3%

[sulavaca]

And when it comes to understanding religion. We don't always come off too badly.

[Fortigurn]

When a good portion of religious people start calling people who share the same views as I do unflattering names as soon as we tell them we don't believe in their specific brand of faith.

This sounds quite a bit different to your original claim, which was about 'society'. Now we've narrowed it down to 'a good portion of religious people' who are 'calling people names' just because those people don't believe in their specific brand of faith. I fail to see how this constitutes society dictating that you accept other people's faith in whatever religion.

Throughout every single one of my high school years I was called every name under the sun, and bullied ceaselessly (verbally and physically), for my religious beliefs, due largely to the fact that I was one of only about half a dozen religious children in the entire school of several hundred; you were a target if you weren't an atheist. Does this mean that society was dictating that I must accept the atheism of other people? No it doesn't. It was just kids doing what they had been taught to do at home.

Side note: It was only several years ago that I was an atheist. Imagine what the hardcore religious folks have called me then.

Believe me, I don't need to imagine.

I think you know exactly what I meant,

Yes I do, that's why I asked you to edit your post. Of course you weren't referring to every religious person, and I never said you were; you were referring specifically to those Christians reading you posts. You weren't calling all religious people kiddy fiddlers, and since you're not a Christian nor even religious, of course nothing you wrote applied to you. You didn't actually say 'religious people don't go to war', you said they 'opt out of fighting on religious grounds when they cause a war'. You also said they are 'illogical, intolerant, bigots who support unequal standards for all'. I objected to all of your claims about what Christians do, not simply the kiddy fiddler claim; that was simply the most objectionable to me.

Why can't I both accept that we all live together, but openly voice my opinion? I'm not a violent person. I have never harmed a religious person.

You are entirely free to voice your opinion. However, when you make vitriolic posts such as the one to which I objected, you sound like a violent person. You also seem to enjoy making claims that Christians habitually engage in a range of deeply immoral activities.

Nobody called any particular individual a "kiddy fiddler", nor did the post equate all theists with pedophiles.

No one has claimed the post equated all theists with pedophiles. It did however claim that any Christian readers of the post were probably kiddy fiddlers (among other vices), and the fact that no specific individual was singled out by name is completely irrelevant.

Back to the topic: atheists are one of the least accepted groups in the US, as a 2006 University of Minnesota study, published in Vol. 71 of American Sociological Review, found. To the question "This group does not at all agree with my vision of American society", the result was:

What do you expect given they're a minority group, the most public members of which carry out repeated personal attacks on religious people, denigrate religion, and claim they want to sweep religion off the face of the earth? Do you really expect religious people to read that and say 'Wow, that really agrees with my vision of American society'?

And when it comes to understanding religion. We don't always come off too badly.

The majority of atheists and agnostics who understand religion well are ex-religious people. The article even says this:

American atheists and agnostics tend to be people who grew up in a religious tradition and consciously gave it up, often after a great deal of reflection and study, said Alan Cooperman, associate director for research at the Pew Forum.

So they're not knowledgeable about religion because they're atheists, they're knowledgeable about religion because they used to be religious.

[Rockefeller]

And when it comes to understanding religion. We don't always come off too badly.

nice!

When a good portion of religious people start calling people who share the same views as I do unflattering names as soon as we tell them we don't believe in their specific brand of faith.

This sounds quite a bit different to your original claim, which was about 'society'. Now we've narrowed it down to 'a good portion of religious people' who are 'calling people names' just because those people don't believe in their specific brand of faith. I fail to see how this constitutes society dictating that you accept other people's faith in whatever religion.

I also said we were "taught growing up" about tolerance, acceptance, diversity... etc. Don't know where you're from, but everyone among my social circle have learnt pretty much the same thing whether from teachers, parents, or the media; then somehow along the way it seems everyone is so concerned with the theists and the many various religions that the atheists or variations thereof have somehow fallen through the cracks. and I'm not just speaking for myself, I have friends in both the west and the east coasts, a few in the midwest, a few in the south and even a couple canadians. generally speaking we've found that most of the time if atheists let slip their beliefs they will be viewed differently, to say the least.

Throughout every single one of my high school years I was called every name under the sun, and bullied ceaselessly (verbally and physically), for my religious beliefs, due largely to the fact that I was one of only about half a dozen religious children in the entire school of several hundred; you were a target if you weren't an atheist. Does this mean that society was dictating that I must accept the atheism of other people? No it doesn't. It was just kids doing what they had been taught to do at home.

Yikes. For me my childhood was the other way 'round... odd since I didn't live in the bible belt. But I'm guessing neither did you.

edit: spelling

[Rockefeller]

The majority of atheists and agnostics who understand religion well are ex-religious people. The article even says this:

American atheists and agnostics tend to be people who grew up in a religious tradition and consciously gave it up, often after a great deal of reflection and study, said Alan Cooperman, associate director for research at the Pew Forum.

So they're not knowledgeable about religion because they're atheists, they're knowledgeable about religion because they used to be religious.

That's true. Furthermore, it says: "These are people who thought a lot about religion, [they're] not indifferent. They care about it."

[Fortigurn]

I also said we were "taught growing up" about tolerance, acceptance, diversity... etc.

Yeah, so were we. Multiculturalism and tolerance for diversity were part of the national curriculum. What they were taught at home of course, was another story. I was living in a very rural area in Tasmania, a local town with just two streets and less than 500 residents. The vast majority of the kids were from farming families, and had no higher aim than to work on the family farm or take up a manual trade; only three kids in my year level went on to university, which was seen as completely unnecessary by most people in the town. It was a backwater of incredible ignorance, bigotry, prejudice, and stupidity. For the first year that we were in the neighbourhood, we experienced repeated vandalism of our house and cars, simply because we were 'from the mainland' (Tasmania is an island state, and people in this part of Tasmania viewed 'mainlanders' with suspicion). This had nothing to do with the predominant atheism in the area, it was just what can be expected from ignorant peasants.

Don't know where you're from, but everyone among my social circle have learnt pretty much the same thing whether from teachers, parents, or the media; then somehow along the way it seems everyone is so concerned with the theists and the many various religions that the atheists or variations thereof have somehow fallen through the cracks. and I'm not just speaking for myself, I have friends in both the west and the east coasts, a few in the midwest, a few in the south and even a couple canadians. generally speaking we've found that most of the time if atheists let slip their beliefs they will be viewed differently, to say the least.

I'm from Australia, where politicians typically do not dare identify themselves as religious out of fear of ridicule and dismissal by the electorate. Our Prime Minister is a self-declared atheist woman in a de facto relationship. I am fully aware of the social weirdness of the US, especially when it comes to religion. Any atheist living south of Canada has my complete sympathy, though even in the US there are plenty of states in which atheism is met with simply a shrug and 'So what?'. But even in the US, I don't believe it's true to say that society dictates that you must accept other people's faith in whatever religion. If that were actually true, the ACLU would be all over it, and so would every single atheist group.

Yikes. For me my childhood was the other way 'round... odd since I don't live in the bible belt. But I'm guessing neither do you.

Most certainly not.