My Scarlet Letter

Within the last few days on my personal Facebook, I have been contacted both directly and in a pretty passive aggressive nature, with regards to my "atheist propaganda".  I was begged to "stop" and it was inferred that because my opinion was different and I spoke passionately about it, I was going out of my way to be a bitch and call every christian, stupid. So I posted the following note and whose of you who have cause to write something similar are more than welcome to alter this to your will or simply provide you with inspiration.

I realize I may have offended a few of you in the last few weeks.  While I do respect everyone's right to believe what they want, I do not want to censor myself for fear of offending the masses.

I am an atheist, I write an atheist blog. Becoming an atheist was a very long, though tough journey for me and I have never felt freer than I do now. Having said that, if my posts offend you then I am more than happy to censor who can see them. To those of you who made your feelings known, thank you. I will try to pause and wait until I can communicate my feelings about certain topics artfully, instead of my typical way which is to see something *I* find offensive and then reposting it with the exact explatives that are going through my head at any given moment.  Please let me know if you wish to be blocked from such posts (private message is fine, no explanation needed). There are 2 people I spoke 2 privately and they are already on this list. I hold no ill will toward anyone who wishes not to see these posts, I love you all :)

The only thing I do ask is that, if I am to censor myself - please check yourself. I don't care what you post on your own walls but please don't come to mine with the express intent of preaching your faith.  I'm well aware of the tenants of your faith and in some cases, more so than you are. I am not a completely uneducated person who just woke up and decided to be an antagonistic ass.  If I see something I don't like on yours, I can delete it from my news feed and call it a day. Facebook makes it very simple for people to remain friends and interact and ignore topics that might cause controversy.

I realize this is a touchy subject but the fact of the matter is, that it's my life now.  And yes, I'm sure as I acclamate myself to being a non-beliver in a believers world, my outspoken cander may die down (not likely but possible). To those of you who I may have offended I am truly sorry, that was not my intent and when I comment on an article I am speaking simply about the group of people mentioned in that article or people of a similar mentality.

Many of you are sweet, wonderful, loving caring christians. Please don't think that I don't know that and respect it.

Hopefully, if we can communicate our feelings without making others feel attacked, then the lines of communication won't seem so unattainable. Keep leading to good fight, freethinkers.

Peace, K