Why I do not call myself an atheist

[Brian37]

I am an atheist, PERIOD. Other people's baggage and ignorance is their problem, not mine.

[red]

You might think that 'Agnostic' would be less confrontational, but experience doesn't bear out the hypothesis.
Indeed I seemed to attract more wanna-be proselytisers under that label than any other.
Of course the annoyance with that situation spurred me to research both the origins of the Universe (into the arcane terms of Quantum Mechanics, that no Creationist might flat-foot me) and the origins of Monotheism (I had an advantage in that one of my university modules was on archaeology and thus I can evaluate the evidence for myself) as a result of which I would now be confident in declaring that Monotheism is a fraud, likely originating with a character called Ezra (480–440 BCE), though this is still something of a work in progress.
Of course that still leaves around 3000 recorded deities as possibles, but I'm not getting harassed by any of their followers.
"Not Religious" seemed to slip under the radar of the bible bashers, at least until I slipped up at the question; "Are you a believer?" and the negative response sent them into rabid mode.

[Brian37]

If our species never questioned social norms our species never would have left the caves. Confrontation is needed sometimes. It is what got blacks out of slavery, what gained women the right to vote.

I am sorry, but when you have assholes who want to substitute science with myth, what would you suggest I do? When you have assholes in many different sects of religions worldwide who still demand gender rolls and submission of women and girls, what would you have me do?

There is a HUGE difference between being confrontational out of hate, and being confrontational to IMPROVE the human condition.

I refuse to allow theists to frame the conversation in terms of human rights, my issue is not human rights, my issue is what they do to politics while basing their lives on a myth. They can claim all they want an invisible friend and I have EVERY RIGHT to say "bullshit, there is no such thing"

If you allow them to label you to placate their emotions, you are allowing them to bully you into submission by proxy of political correctness. This is always the tactic of old school thinking that fears progress and change. If blacks and women took your approach they would still be oppressed.

I am an atheist. I will not allow their baggage to control me.

[Paradox]

In returning back to this thread I am reminded about how unnecessarily vocal about my explorations I can be at times. I think of an idea that I think may be outside the box in a good way and I go with it and am quick to vocalize it before I have really assessed it. I apologize you all had to suffer through all that. I actually employed the tactic for a bit and the concept either went over other people's heads (in that I could not articulate it in an understandable way) or it backfired. I had one Christian tell me, "that's awesome you do that, because that way atheists won't think you support all their agendas"... :facepalm: - Sort of the opposite of what I was trying to achieve.

Anyway, while this particular tactic is one I have abandoned, I still feel that the label 'atheist' prevents, for me, too many conversations I would like to have with some people. I understand why many of you would prefer the label for yourselves, because what this comes down to is differences of personalities (and maybe even hobbies). I really like calm and informal debates because I just love that sort of dialogue. I read somewhere that male puppies will sometimes let smaller female puppies win a wrestling match because they are smart enough to know that dominating their playmate right off will make their opponent not want to play for long. I thought that was so funny and it reminded me of myself in that I don't avoid compelling confrontation because I am scared of rejection or other such spiral of silence theories, but because I just want to discuss things with people of different opinions, and I want it to last for some time!

I hope you all can at least understand where I am coming from on that and don't see me as someone who does not support your causes with the same level as passion as you all.

Thank you all who read through my silliness. You all have reminded that sometimes you gotta get in people's face to further progress, even if it means 'play time' ends sooner in that situation.