Another ‘Teen Mom’ Reveals Her Atheism

atheist |ˈāTHēˌist|

noun

a person who does not believe in the existence of God or gods: he is a committed atheist. 
Oxford American Dictionaries 

It’s a noun. The adjective would be atheistic.

It’s both, Gus.

Since when teen moms are “role models”?

Dictionaries seem to disagree on that. Which is interesting because all the ones I’ve checked list theist as noun/adjective.

I hate to nit pick when someone is brave enough to come out as an atheist, but the sound of it being used as an adjective does grate on me.

I think it’s wonderful that younger people are able to announce their beliefs, or lack thereof, publicly.  Of course, I can see the fundamentalists now declaring that these girls, who are obviously sinning already by not having sex within the sanctity of marriage, would probably all be blissful  virgins if they weren’t heathens.  

That said, they have the confidence and hubris that comes with being young enough to know that they are right, which is great!  Perhaps not the best role models for family planning but good role models for being true to one’s self.

And when did anyone look to a twitter post for grammatically correct sentences?  I surely do not.  

wups! “think of you as AN atheist.”  Made the error myself!

Bad grammar is contagious.  

Gus: What do you mean “proper grammatical use”?  We of all people should know that there’s not some authority on high that tells us what constitutes proper and improper language use.  It might not be formal English, but this is Twitter, for crying out loud.

Also, the -ist suffix in English can be used to form either nouns or adjectives, so even if “atheist” had never before been used as an adjective (and I suspect it has, although I don’t have time to confirm that right now), this would still be a perfectly reasonable coinage per the usual rules of English.

Did she get pregnant after thouroughy planning it, maybe she got married early or was it an “accident”?
Parents can be good role models to their kids, sure. I assume that the teens in that show haven’t planned to get pregnant, if so they are NOT role models to other teens, heck porn stars are better role models at this point because they at least use contraception. To get pregnant before finishing school is a HUGE mistake, doing so on purpose is STUPID, basically it’s a life ruining experience.

Why can’t a teen mom be a role model? Okay, so she may have gotten herself into an unfortunate situation because of bad judgment (but it could just be an accident, as well). What matters at that point is how she handles the situation… and there is ample opportunity to be a role model.

Twitter mandates omitting unnecessary words since you only have 140 characters maximum

I disagree, I got pregnant before I was done with school, and so did several other moms in my program.  Our lives are not ruined, they are different.  You can’t plan everything.  I think it was easier for me to have a kid in school than if I had a job, I didn’t have to call in, just made up the work when my kid was sick.  I personally would like to see more support for teen/young moms, it would really make our lives better and our kids lives’ too.  Let’s out it in perspective, teens have been having babies for millions of years, it’s the society we live in with so little support that makes it difficult.

The teens saying they were atheist did not use all 140 characters, and 2 more characters isn’t much more to add.

These ‘bad grammar’ comments are rather snobby…

Really? The absence of an article in her tweet bothers you that much? Also, agnostics can be atheists, and vice versa. Seriously, I’ve used “atheist” with and without the “an” before it; there’s no deeper meaner hidden here.

There is a show called “The Atheist Experience”. I am an atheist person. You can be Christian, or a Christian. You can be Buddhist, or a Buddhist. Why can’t you be atheist and an atheist?

This smells like a weird form of the “no true Scotsman” argument. Like she does’t know what atheism is if she uses the word without a preceding article. Give me a break.

I use “I’m atheist” intentionally, the same way I use “I’m queer.” I don’t see why it would matter whether these people are really ‘just’ agnostic and apathetic… if they don’t really believe in a god or aren’t sure what they believe but don’t care… well, that means they’re not positively a theist, so atheist sounds like a good word to describe them.

I use “I’m atheist” when I think to, because it sounds more like simply an adjective describing one aspect of me, not saying anything about what positions I do affirm. I don’t know if there’s actually a difference, grammatically, but that’s just the way it sounds to me. 

This is definitely snobby.

I dunno, I think I’m making an issue out of this because I’m afraid people are saying they’re “atheist” just because it’s cool.  I’ve had discussions with not a small number of people who say they are atheist but in reality are attached to some deist, omnipotent/benevolent force idea.  I think many people end up thinking “Well I’m not Christian so I must be atheist,” which isn’t necessarily true.

Obvious answer: Text limits. Youtube comments are limited to 500 characters. Twitter to only 140 characters, based on cell phone text message limits.

Even if you write something less than 140 characters, since you get in the habit of condensing words and phrases anyway, even short messages will tend to have minimalized grammar.

Back when I spent a lot of time on YouTube (mostly commenting), I learned how to cut down my normal length anti-religion arguments into tiny little 500 character logic bombs. It’s good for practice, actually.

 Oh wow, I’m cool. Thanx Tom, i always suspected it but could never be sure as all my friends said i was a dull boy. Just goes to show that with all their “God this ‘n’ God that” they just didn’t know style when they saw it;-P

Perfect answer, like everything else language EVOLVES!

I agree, up to a point. 1.Teenagers have sex 2.Sex education is a joke(Abstinence) 3.Not so easy for teems to access contraception &/or abortions & 4. It’s happened. Of course ideally they would not have fallen pregnant but they did, now it’s up to them to deal with it & as far as i’m concerned they seem to be doing a pretty good job. Because they’re on TV i suspect they may be getting some extra help we don’t see but nevertheless they are portraying what is reality for too many young Moms. As an aside, i noticed you said how your Sis’ “even married the Guy”, i’m pleased she was happy, but for a lot of Teen girls the thought of marriage to someone who may have been not much more than a pal could be devastating & ultimately do more harm. It’s not worth it just to conform to societies expectations & the fact they both declare themselves Atheist tells me they’re not the conforming types!

 Maybe i’m a bit biased by the fact that i live in a country where sex ed is a bit more thorough and the access to contraception is very easy (family planning centers everywhere that guarantee anonimity, have professionals to talk with and provide very cheap contraception. And that’s only one way among many others).

I haven’t seen the show myself. The last time I saw a show on MTV that interested me was 2 decades ago.

If it’s like any other reality show, then it’s not realistic. Raising a child takes a lot of money? Who’s paying the bills? Do they show the mom’s working at all? Or is baby being paid for by the grandparents, MTV or “We the People”?

“Teens who had babies in the past were married with a husband who could not just walk away.”

I have to take issue with this claim. Many married fathers who were goaded into it at the end of a (figurative or literal) shotgun did in fact just walk away back in the “good old days,” and many teen/young mothers ended up in abusive relationships from which there was no relief or support, because marriage and parenthood were treated as punishment for female sexuality.

If you have issues with teenaged female pregnancy, take it up with the abstinenece only, anti-abortion advocates.

You get pregnant by accident when you don’t use birth control, or when you use ineffective birth control (largely because of ignorance). Perhaps you missed the fact that modern technology effectively allows sex to be separated from procreation. When the intent of the sex is not procreation, and proper birth control is in place, pregnancy is rare. An accident.

I would not suggest that teenagers avoid having sex. That would be unnatural. But they need to know how to prevent pregnancy and how to protect themselves from STDs- both of which are easy and inexpensively accomplished. They do need to be educated, though.

Sex is primarily a social mechanism, and it’s an important one. It is normal and natural for teenagers to engage in sex, and I think avoiding it tends to produce mentally unhealthy adults. There is no reason that people should not be able to have sex without having to worry about pregnancy.

A teenager is much more likely to be injured in an automobile accident than they are to get pregnant if they have protected sex. Either way, it’s an accident; we don’t suggest they don’t drive, despite the risk, and I don’t see why we would suggest that they don’t have sex.

But we do need to make sure they understand how to mitigate the risks- whether of driving or of sex.

 The statistics are staggering. Over 3 million teenagers get an STD every year. Almost 500,000 teenagers give birth to babies each year.  That figure does not include the number getting abortions.  The vast majority of those are to poor teenagers and those being raised in single parent homes.  There is simply no good reason to promote teenage sexual activity. You can promote the idea of a very happy sex life without promoting teenagers having sex.

 I don’t disagree with the idea that taking responsibility does not always mean getting married. However, unfortunately it rarely works out that way. Alot of young men in our society don’t have that sense of commitment instead they take the consequences of their actions as lightly as the sex they engaged in in the first place.  how many stories have you seen of young guys fathering multiple babies from multiple different women?  It is rampant and it is the result of taking sex lightly.

As for married people, they have already made a commitment to each other (hopefully for life) so if they get pregnant they are in a much better position to accept that responsibility.  

Arrgghhhh The grammar police are patrolling again.  Seriously get over it, it doesn’t matter!! The fact that she is saying she’s brave enough to say I’m AN atheist too so what is what matters. 

And this has virtually nothing to do with sex. Kids have sex even younger in Europe, and these statistics are MUCH lower there.

The problem isn’t teenagers having sex, it’s ignorant teenagers having sex. And blame for that ignorance lies directly at the feet of religion.

Personally, I would encourage my children to have sex as teenagers. I think the social development it promotes is key to a healthy adult (and not just a healthy adult sex life).

Happens sometimes =/= rampant.

Also, what part of not wanting kids did you miss in my question about the married couple? There are many good reasons to have sex, and only one of them is procreation. Not to mention, there is nothing about a legal contract of marriage which inherently creates a stable environment for raising offspring. Thus, divorce.

They might be heroes to the no-abortion-ever crowd, even though they are sinners for having pre-marital sex.   Glad to see they are atheists; this means less BS for their kids do overcome.

 “Teens who had babies in the past were married with a husband”
Not true.  There were thousands upon thousands of unmarried girls who “visited an aunt” for about 5 months.  There were plenty of men of all ages who simply disappeared to avoid parental responsibilities, and until very recently there was no way to track them.

 Look at the statistics and then see of you can describe multiple babies by multiple mothers something that just sometimes happens.

Of course sex within marriage is for many reasons beyond having children (in fact that is taught in the Bible) But trying to compare that with teenagers is comparing apples to oranges.

 I am sure that it occurred.  But the statistics now are staggering and a reflection of the change in our society. And in my opinion it is not  change for the better.

I don’t think there is anything to blame except religion. In Europe, people are much less crippled by it, and therefore there is wide support for social programs that provide education about contraception and safe sex to children before they become sexually active. All of the things that lead to kids not understanding how to have safe sex ultimately trace back to bad ideas stemming from religion.

The reason I don’t suggest waiting for sex until the 20s is because doing so is unnatural. Nature planned for sexual activity to start with the onset of sexual maturity.

 Typical way to try and stop a conversation by throwing an insult. So you can’t answer the question of how teenagers or society as a whole is benefited from teenagers having sex in their teens as opposed to waiting until they are in their twenties and presumably more mature or prepared to handle the consequences?

This is in reply to your latest post. Too narrow below.  All I can say is we will have to disagree

If you didn’t want to continue the conversation, just don’t reply.   Why say this?

 I thought it was funny.

Having sex does not mean you are consciously trying to get pregnant. Sometimes birth control fails.

 Teenage sex is the norm. We don’t have to do anything to encourage that. We know you didn’t say that teaching abstinence only was the answer, that’s the point. Abstinence only programs actively discourage kids from having sex, but those same kids suffer higher rates of stds and unplanned pregnancies. Obviously, discouraging teenage sex doesn’t stop it. Honestly, I find nothing wrong with rampant teenage sex as long as they’re being safe and everything is consensual.

Why is it better that this occurs in the teenage years at say 15 or 16 instead of later when they are more mature? That  question has yet to be answered.

 when you drive your car you are accepting the risk of getting into an accident and you have to be of a certain age to do that. If you have sex you are intentionally engaging in an activity that could lead to pregnancy and disease even if you are careful