Thursday, February 19, 2009

My Challenge

I live in a very conservative part of the USA, the Southeast, the very idea of Atheism down here is like a statement of being a domestic terrorist, a pedophile, a whore, and a murderer all at once. At my office, which shall not be named, I have actually been told "jokingly" that had they known I was a liberal atheist when I was applying, I would not have gotten the job. Would they have made such jokes towards a baptist? Would a Mormon be told "if I had known you have an imaginary friend who lives up in the sky judging every move you make, I wouldn't have hired you."? NO!

We live world where war, murder, rape, abuse, theft, vandalism, and discrimination in the name of "God" are more common than reason. I find this to be sad.

I am a vegetarian, and a homosexual among other things, and I notice that when a company discriminates or states intent to discriminate against one of the groups that I am a part of, we boycott them. When companies in the fashion industry use fur in their line, vegetarians, animal rights activists, and ecologist boycott their brands in order to show that they will not reward these people for their ignorance/brutality/lack of ethics. When Kellogg removed their support from Michael Phelps after a photo of him smoking a water pipe was released, marijuana users in the US began to boycott them, showing that they believed that cannabis use was not something that should be reason for dismissal. If he could break world records in a pool in Beijing while stoned, I say he was damn good!

Businesses that identify themselves as Christian or Christian-affiliated should be treated as being as dangerous as the churches they stand beside. Most people do not see the underlying effects of these connections. They think that Christian supermarkets just withhold one's wine and beer for a few hours on Sunday, but they fail to see how far this spreads.
A Christian business can fire people for their sexual orientation, for refusing to celebrate Christmas, for any arbitrary reason that a customer, manager, or employee might deem unfitting of an employee of their God-fearing establishment.
This is where my challenge comes into play. Just like how animal rights activists do not shop at stores that sell fur, I say as Atheists, we boycott Christian businesses.

This may seem easy, there are very few grocery stores that will put a cross in the front of their store, and I doubt many of us would go to one of them anyways, but what about stores that do this more covertly? Wal-Mart stated that they would not sell birth control pills because it was "morally wrong". Harris Teeter (a powerful grocery store chain in the Southeast) will not sell alcohol at certain times and claims it is in the interest of their Christian affiliation.

I am in the process of obtaining an "approved" list from "Focus on the Family" which will become the first draft to my boycott list. More stores added as they become known.

From this day forth, I refuse to buy any product that supports the Christian agenda in any of its socially destructive efforts!

I invite all Atheists, Non-Theists, Agnostics, Scientists, and any other person who believes in free thought and intelligent inquiry to join me on my campaign for a world where the far reaching claws of the Church are clipped and left for the gullible few on Sunday mornings.

1 comment:

  1. You say: "We live world where war, murder, rape, abuse, theft, vandalism, and discrimination in the name of "God" are more common than reason. I find this to be sad."

    You are probably talking about Islam, is the only religion that does all that legally in their midst. Catholicism has a problem too with child abuse, besides that you exagerate. It seems that you are the one making the drama and wanting the attention. http://homosexualidad-lesbianismo.blogspot.com/2010/10/la-funcion-del-anus-rectum.html

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