Minding your own business & common courtesy.

It has always been compulsory, although I understand the benefits of being an asshole. I'm not signing up on their team.

It has always been compulsory, although I understand the benefits of being an asshole. I'm not signing up on their team.

The charge of being "impolite" or "rude" or "hateful" is itself wrong.

Look closely at what atheists have to say to theists, and apart from a few young hotheads who are just as evident on the theist side, what atheists are doing is simply expressing disagreement -- and not even really voluntary disagreement, since belief is the inevitable result of what you know and how you understand it.

Failing to agree with your beliefs is not "impolite". Its honest. And the appropriate response is to engage substantively and respectfully and honestly with those concerns. Because not doing that would be ... er ... impolite.

To be honest I don't I don't spend a lot of time thinking about religion because I don't believe in religion it would be like spending my time trying to convince other people there's no Santa Claus it's a waste of time so what I do is I generally try not to talk about it because they have potential to get very crazy and sometimes violent if you threaten their religion so the best thing to do is leave them alone and try to keep your lips sealed

If it is a normal conversation then all the normal rules apply. If you press me or try to put me down for not following the fiction you subscribe to then the gloves come off. Since I live in a very hard core right-wing area the gloves have been placed in the drawer so they'll be clean if I ever get to take them out. I am described at work as the resident atheist.

Very carefully, or not at all

Atheism is part of my personal belief system. I never argue the point with anyone.

i don't feel a need to broach the subject. why would i? i don't walk up to strangers and tell them i hate celery, or that i think john wayne couldn't act his way out of air, or that i don't intend to get a haircut ever again, so i wouldn't walk up to them and announce my lack of religious belief for no reason either. i might mention any of those things in an appropriate context: someone tries to serve me celery, or show me a john wayne film, or encounters me while my bangs are growing out and i happen to let out a frustrated yelp and then strengthen my resolve. if someone brings up religion, i am not shy about my lack of belief. in the right context, i might bring it up myself, but i am more likely to bring up politics, as it's on my mind more. this is a nice site on which to discuss such things (and discuss other things with folks who also hold no gods) but the fact of my being here doesn't mean i am obsessed with gods or atheism. it's not as if i have an agenda, like trying to get people to quit their religions. i do have a bit of an agenda regarding people who try to lay their religions on me!

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I think it’s totally fair to discuss atheism on Sunday, since that seems to be the day reserved for the ceremonies of belief.

I bite my tongue a lot. I don't get how seemingly perfectly intelligent people are believers.

Why would one bother to object to another’s philosophy unless they were proselytising. If a group believe in fairies or ‘Greys’ how does it affect an agonostic or atheist unless they felt threatened. A polite atheist is no different to a polite Christian in essence.

I usually don't broach it. I only respond when I see someone preaching lies. If they are willing to listen, we can have a conversation. If they are, as is so often the case, reptiles who don't only worship lies but the act of lying itself, I'll do my best to shut them down or show how dishonest they are to anyone who might be listening.

To be polite to the first, listen patiently and respectfully. If you must be polite to the second, keep your mouth shut. It's the only way s/he won't be offended.