The Christian Right often claims they're persecuted,
but nothing could be further from the truth.
In fact, if you live in America,
here's how good it is to be a Christian:
You get time off work to celebrate your religious holidays.
You don't have to pretend to celebrate someone else's religious holidays to fit in.
You can greet people as if they belong to your faith, you know,
Merry Christmas!, Happy Easter!
No one walks around saying, you know, "Happy Ramadan".
You have entire genres of music dedicated to promoting your beliefs.
And multiple TV channels.
And buildings in pretty much every city in America.
And schools.
When you put bumper stickers on your car promoting your beliefs,
you don't have to worry that your car's going to get vandalized.
Political candidates who share your faith
don't have to worry about their beliefs being a liability.
Politicians who say they make decisions that are guided by their religious beliefs
aren't labeled extremists, unamerican, unpatriotic or heretics.
Politicians pander to you.
They don't pander to atheists.
You get to break the law because of "tradition".
Don't believe me. Just google "public school graduation and prayers" and you'll see what I mean.
People don't typically mock you for practicing your faith.
When you recite an oath, it conforms to your beliefs;
it doesn't contradict them.
You get to live in one of the most religiously tolerant countries on Earth,
and still get away with claiming that you're persecuted.
When you tell people your religion,
they know exactly what you're talking about.
That doesn't happen with Islam, or Hinduism, or Buddhism, or even atheism.
When you write on a job application that you volunteered at your place of worship,
it probably makes you look really good.
It doesn't work the same way when someone writes, you know, "I led my campus atheist organization".
You can travel to any part of the country
and know that you'll be able to find a community of like-minded believers.
Other people don't define you by your faith.
No one says, "Oh, that's Bob. That's my Christian friend".
No, but I know I've been referred to as someone else's atheist friend, a lot of times.
You can be polite and not have people see you as an exception to your label.
One of the reasons my site is called FriendlyAtheist.com is because I heard so many people telling me
that atheists were always angry or militant.
Your faith doesn't prevent you from adopting a child.
In fact, it probably helps.
Your faith is taught in college classes across the country.
You get entire sections in bookstores.
Hell, you get your own bookstores!
People don't feel a need to save you and convert you to a different way of thinking.
When you hear people refer to the word "god",
you can be pretty comfortable that they're talking about your god.
No one just assumes you're going through a phase.
Your parents are probably not going to disown you for your beliefs.
You can find full-time careers that are all about promoting your beliefs.
Hotels cater to your faith. You can find a Bible in every hotel in America.
When you gather with other Christians,
you don't have to do it secretly.
You don't have to "come out" as a Christian,
and you don't have to have a second secret Facebook profile page
just so you can be open about your beliefs.
Those are just some examples of how good it is to be a Christian.
I'm sure there are a lot of other ways and you can leave those in the comments below.
And, by the way,
I'm not saying that Christians have it easy in every possible sense of the word.
But I am saying it's a lot easier to be a Christian
than it is just about anything else
religion wise any way in America.
My name is Hemant Mehta and I write at FriendlyAtheist.com
Leave a message below and we will be sure to read it.