I am an atheist, I do not believe in a god and am highly skeptical that there is one at all. However, when my parents, my wife, and I would eat together my wife and I would allow my parents to say a prayer out loud to their god. I realized as time went on that my parents did not have the default position, that there wasn’t some unspoken rule that I needed to wait for them to pray in order to eat, much less allow them to pray out loud as if this was for my benefit as well.

However, the issue is, for me to just say “Hey, let’s not pray”, it may come across that I am being aggressive and attacking them and their faith. As you may know, it doesn’t take much for many religious to believe they are being persecuted. So how could I combat this stigma while also showing the hypocrisy of defaulting to religious tolerance?

Well, if we ever sit down again to eat at the same table and my parents want to say a prayer, I will bow my head in respect of their religion, allow them to finish, and as they are about to eat I will say, “Wait, I would like to also commemorate this meal.” My parents will likely look at me in confusion and shock.

“What does he mean?”, they might wonder, then ask themselves, “Did he become a Christian again?”

My parents nod, as this is the tolerant thing to do when someone wants to practice their faith right in front of you.

I begin;

“We have all come here to this table to eat this food that has been provided to us by many hands. We are thankful for the farmers who raised the food to the harvesters that picked the food, the drivers that delivered the food and the stores that made the food available to us. We thank most of all the ones who have spent their time to make money in order that we have this food and the ones who took the time to cook this food.”

I pause for a moment and then conclude the prayer.

“Hail Satan.”

Religion has no place outside of our private lives

Christians will fight in order to get their doctrine into schools and into our government buildings. Christians will tell you that America is a Christian nation that was founded on Biblical values. They will blame mass shootings on their god not being in schools anymore, they will blame abortions on not being able to display the 10 commandments on government property. They will state that America would be a better and safer nation if only we’d get back to our “Christian roots”.

When atheists come to combat these ideas we are met with strong resistance. These are fights that we can often win but take time and resources. Satanists, however, win fights by simply putting into practice their beliefs and expecting the same religious tolerance as Christians.

As you can imagine, Christians are not thrilled to be sharing religious space with people who have a religion that highlights their doctrines most vile anti-christ.

When Christians pass out propaganda on school property no one bats an eye. This is, after all, the lord’s work. But, once a Satanist asks to give out Satanic coloring books, well, things need to be rethought.

The district also ended up letting in materials provided by an atheist group, the Central Florida Freethought Community, that sued in an attempt to stop the Bible giveaways. But after the request from The Satanic Temple, the district cut off all religious-material distribution, pending a possible policy change.

orlandosentinel.com

As you can see, an atheist group tried to fight this and ultimately ended up in a stalemate. The school decided to just allow atheists to pass out their material, which is not really a win since atheism isn’t a religion and so religious equality had not been served. But, when Satanism gets involved, Christians begin to experience what it’s like to have a religion that is not your own being present at a public place.

The true irony though is that Satanists are little more than atheists who have created a religion that unifies a group of people behind a set of ideas that are very secular. The “Satanic” coloring books they gave to kids were about science.