Atheism wasn't a choice for me. By the time I realized what an atheist was, I'd already become one. As soon as I realized it is a lack of belief, it only took a moment when I thought about it to acknowledge to myself that I didn't. And hadn't for a while.

And contrary to the two claims I saw here, FWIW, most atheists I know say they also came to the conclusion unexpectedly. I think that one who 'chooses' to believe in something is talking themselves into believing. They've decided that this bait looks mighty tasty right now and I'm going to take it. Then they proceeded to swallow it as they learn about how to fit the new 'belief' into their lifestyle over a course of time.

For me the conclusion had already been made before its ramifications became clear to me. I did not need study to disbelieve. The evidence I'd accepted had already created the lack of belief within me.

Which is exactly why the Democratic party, if it stands for equality and a level playing field for all, needs to be aware of exactly the thing you write about. How is one not a victim if you must keep your lack of belief in the shadows? Abandonment for simply using critical thinking and questioning Is an injustice. In some case it leads to loss of a job or not getting that housing just as other minorities have suffered.
We need a movement which confronts organizations like the Democratic party which claim to be the champions of equality. But first, we must raise the issue to the public.

Meanwhile our national myopia continues as trying to change the face of Congress and state and local governments is largely an afterthought at best. Those races likely have far greater significance overall on the direction of the country than who resides in the White House. If Democrats don't win the Senate back, changes to the Supreme Court will continue to be laboriously slow or halt altogether through parliamentarian dodges. Even with Clinton in the White House. People can support many important races for critical congressional seats even if they aren't in your state. Until Republican Gerrymandering is unwound in a majority of districts across the nation soon it won't be until at least 2022, after the next census, that Democrats have a chance to take back the House of Representatives.

Yes, it's hard for liberal members of a religion to argue against their fundamentalists. It's all based on interpretation of something which often escapes rational discussion. The closest thing to evidence they have is the words on the page which makes it hard to sway fundies. It's irrational belief against irrational belief where any interpretation may be as valid as any other.

Still they should be held responsible to try. Usually it is rationality applied to real world situations and a wider public secular view which ultimately gets all the religious to.soften their views. Perhaps public mass protest by them, as used against the Westboro Baptist Church with other Christians participating which brings other extremists to their senses if not members of that congregation.

In the Muslim world this approach is obviously much more difficult.

I edited the first.part of my post as the numbers in that article were from an older article in April. When I did a search for the article at Huff Post it came up ahead of the one he posted the other day. I assumed they were in chronological order until I started reading.some comments and realized that one was nearly a month old.

Well it ain’t over until it’s over. According to Seth Abramson in an article linked below on Huffington Post he makes the argument that with Bernie’s 15% win in West Virginia, Hillary will have to win 90% of all the remaining states to make it impossible for Bernie to not get enough pledged delegates. Furthermore in that article he argues that with Bernie's favorables and dominant support of Independent voters over Hillary, he is much better positioned to beat Trump and help win more seats in Congress for the Democrats than Hillary. Independents are 42% of the electorate while Democrats are 29% and Republicans 26%. Pew Research in 2014 suggests a bit more than half are liberal Independents. And as such, if the super delegates do their job, which is to help nominate the candidate most likely to win the presidency, many be be under pressure to support him instead. That is, if he doesn’t actually win more delegates than Hillary outright. If Independents only come out for Trump, as I suspect they will, he stands a chance of winning. Consider how wrong the pundits and pollsters have been about him so far. Perhaps about his possible Independent support as well. With Hillary it’s a crap shoot how many will show up for her compared to outsider / essentially independent Trump.

If nothing else, Bernie will go to the convention representing nearly half of the Democratic party which is a lot of leverage to shape the party’s platform. If the Democrats want unity within the party and put a lot of his platform integrated into the Democrats policies moving forward (for what that is worth). If they don't want that unity, well at least a lot of people will know where they stand with their establishment.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/seth-abramson/berni...