I have always been an atheist

@froggtongue The rules of society say this is unacceptable. Separation of church and state and all that.

But it is rife.

@Gusman The issue with that is that a lot of those religious fellas don't want that separation, which is why they need to not be put into office. Forcing someone to follow whichever religion that person happens to be puts everybody at a disadvantage.

@froggtongue Here is the rub though
.
They are put into office by all the religious people who agree with their views. They are put into office because religious people want society to live by "The Book"
A religious politician, be it a zealot or a moderate knows to never say anything against religion because they might by voted out of office.
A democratic society allows people of all persuasions to have the same opportunities.

@Gusman You're not wrong in that they won't say anything against a religion for fear of losing the votes of that group. But the zealous ones will for sure say things that show the beliefs they follow. That's the red flag we as a society need to start paying attention to and be careful in how we vote.

@froggtongue Atheism is just as religious and just as controlling as any other religion. The adherent to atheism thinks he/she knows better than all the other religions. Atheism is completely incapable of looking at its own flaws.

@hippyjoe1955 Ah. You've hit a huge fallacy here. You know the "a-" part in many words which have Greek origin means "without". An "atom" means "without cut" because it was originally thought to be the most indivisible portion of substance. The "a-" in atheism also means without. "Atheism" just means "without a theology". Now, theology and religion don't have to be the same thing. One can have a theology of being spiritual and not be religious. Also, again harkening back to the messiness of language, not everyone agrees on what the word 'religion' means. I would say it means having a theology and practicing that theology through rituals that an individual or group performs. I'm open to discussing and altering my definition of it if you wanted to do that discussion. But to respond to your previous statement, I do not accept that atheism is just another religion.

@froggtongue I said that atheism is a religion. Religion can exist without a god. Religion is simply a world view by which you try to make sense of the world and your life. Go look up the 4th definition of religion given by Merriam Webster.

@SpudMuffin So you didn't look up the 4 definition of religion given by Merriam Webster dictionary. It is on line. Give it a go and stop looking so silly. If we were to be perfectly honest there is no such thing as an atheist. Everyone who is awake believes in some sort of causation. Whether it is the unexplained nature as envisioned by those who call themselves atheists or the unexplained Super Nature as believed by Christians. Both beliefs have Gods. Just that the Christian one is much more logical since no one believes that nature created nature. It simply doesn't work.

@hippyjoe1955 well, it makes a change for you to quote a source! Usually when someone questions you, you say something like 'educate yourself', or 'it's not my job to educate you.'
Your argument (for want of a better word) is pure sophistry. Atheism is not a religion, it's just an absence of belief in mythical beings.
It's not difficult to understand, but you have to try. Good luck with that!

@SpudMuffin So did you look it up?????

@hippyjoe1955 "There is no such thing as an atheist." That's getting real close to being derogatory. You're being entirely dismissive of other people. I could claim there's no such thing as a Muslim or a Christian because they both are offshoots from Judaism. But that wouldn't feel right to you and I'm assuming you'd probably take right offense to that.
So please, for all our sake, don't tell us there's no such thing as an atheist if you don't want me to tell you there's no such thing as a Christian. Or even a theist, since you weren't born believing in a god. In fact you said yourself you started out life as an atheist.

@hippyjoe1955 this Merriam Webster of yours doesn't seem to be a serious academic work - more of a commercial enterprise. Why don't you check out the OED?

@hippyjoe1955 You're the kind of person who is unexhaustive in this, as the subject of religion itself is. Don't take my absence as me backing down. I just have other things in my life I have to take care of.
But to get back to the point of the post, I don't care what you as a Christian or the person next to you as a Hindu or the other person across the street as a Mormon-Christian believe. So long as your politics are based on what's moral and beneficial for our society. If one of you says your religion needs to off someone else's life because your god demands it, the others wouldn't like that right? None of us would. We all should be basing our decisions on what's right and good for the group. Now we can discuss what that means as we don't all have the exact same ideas on that. But that would be a different topic once we get past this particular hurdle.

@froggtongue So you didn't look it up even though I gave you a reference but then you accuse me of not providing references which only proves why I don't usually give references. You won't look them up anyways.

@SpudMuffin Merriam Webster is a recognised dictionary and widely used in academic circles.

@hippyjoe1955 seriously? 🤣

@SpudMuffin And what dictionary do you think is used in university? I used Merriam Webster. I also used Oxford unabridged but it was about a metre thick so.....

@hippyjoe1955 mostly the OED and Cambridge - they actually use the correct spellings for one thing!

@SpudMuffin So does Merriam Webster. It uses American spelling but then English is funny that way. One guy spells it neighbor and another spells it neighbour. Who is right? Both.

@hippyjoe1955 Look, dude. When I have the time and look up what you request of me then discuss it a bit, will you be willing to also accommodate me and get back to the subject that was presented about politics and religion being mixed? This tends to be why I don't engage with religious folks like you because you won't even get back to the subject at hand and just keep spouting off in all different directions.

@hippyjoe1955 so two different ideas can both be right? Well done, you're getting there!

@SpudMuffin Having a different way of spelling is having different ideas? I thought it was just a different way of spelling. There are a lot of needless letters used in the UK that are not used in the US. Doesn't mean one is less educated than the other. It means that one user of the language has a different way of spelling. Kind of like the different ways of pronouncing. lieutenant In Canada we say leftenant. in the US they say Lootenant. Given that the word comes from French and the French say it lootenant. Meh.

@froggtongue The point I am making is you think based on your religion that the world should be corrected to better suit your religion. I disagree with you. Your religion will result in millions of dead people as we witnessed when ever your idea has been tried in the past. The great proof of Science swung in the door of the cathedral as millions of people were starved to death because they didn't want to go along with the 'scientific state'.

@hippyjoe1955 Your atheism is getting you to have wrong ideas. If you'd just accept the Almighty Void of Non-Religion, you'd learn the truth that you're not listening to how people identify themselves. And don't forget about the Crusades and Salem Witch hunts and all those times Christianity and the churches that follow that have killed to convert their followers. Oh and your own god drowned every man, woman and child in a flood if you believe that myth.
Start listening to what I'm saying. Atheism doesn't require rituals. Atheists are simply not convinced of your god. Until you can recognize that atheism is not a religion, that it's secular, and be willing to get back to the subject of mixing religion and politics, I'm not going to entertain you further.