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Absolutely, when I lived in Tennessee. And not only did they assume you were the same religion as them, but they'd also assume you agreed with them politically. It's like they never would have imagined that anyone other than a far-right Protestant could possibly live in their town. Of course, pretty much all of the people they knew really were far-right Protestants, so I can kind of see why they'd make that assumption.
I am very definitely NOT a religious believer, and I maintain that I should have "freedom FROM Religion" just as clearly as others should be "free to believe IN Religion " of what ever stripe.
Some one mentioned Canada, as a place where most people are christians? Not true. The number of people who actually GO to church, every week is lower than it has ever been. Even in the Province of Quebec, which used to be heavily Roman Catholic ( 80 percent of the population back in the 60's ) the current numbers are down to 20 percent of the population of the Province ( seven million people live in Quebec ).
On the other hand, the numbers of Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs , and other minority religions are growing in Canada, quickly.
Americans, especially those who live in small towns, where just about every body is of the same race, and religion....cannot seem to understand that the whole world isn't that way, at all. I call it a lack of "world awareness ".
What are doing in for Easter Bunny, and easter eggs or Santa Claus, or Christmas gifts, do you what Christians to have a party of some of the days like 9/11 memorial or veterans day who need those ... nobody .... People need to respect other people ...
Re-post because the other one like this had HTML all through it. Sorry.
As a non-denominational Christian, I would like to add my two-cents. The definition of a Christian is a person who accepts the Christ, Jesus, as his/her savior. Anything more or less is erroneous. As we have all seen, there are some horrible people out there doing all kinds of heinous things in the name of God. For example: the KKK, the Kansas church group protesting military funerals, that crazy preacher that wanted to burn the Quran, Priests molesting children, televangelist hiring prostitutes, and the list goes on ad nauseam. I knew an atheist once who was a kinder, gentler, more Godly human than a lot of self-professed Christians I have known. Simply accepting Christ as the savior, or believing Christ was the son of God, or Christ was the ultimate blood sacrifice for our sins may make one a Christian, but it does not make one a good person. Most people who accept Christ as the savior do so as young children ( which is why “born again” has become the mantra of many folks when it didn’t take the first time) because they go to church or live with a family (that doesn’t make them good people) who believes Christ is the savior. It’s a generational thing like eating turkey on Thanksgiving without really dwelling on the pilgrims
As for “the Christian Religion”, that is a whole other matter. This Wikipedia site, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_denominations , reports that there are some 41,000 different denominations. Within the denominations (Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist, Baptist - again with the ad nauseam) teachings can vary. One little bitty book and 41,000 groups that cannot agree on what it says. Sheesh. How can one trust any of them. I can’t. It started with the Roman Catholics. They devised a man-made religion based on the Bible and tried to force everyone to believe they were the voice of God. (I spent a year in the Catholic church and It didn’t work for me. I spent years in a dozen or so denominations and none of them worked for me.) Then came human men who disagreed with the Catholic dogma (or maybe they just wanted their piece of the pie) and they set out to start a new religion. And so they did (and I guess to the tune of 41,000). So, every man’s dogma, doctrine, and beliefs led to myriad different interpretations of the Bible and what mankind had to do to avoid the fiery pit of hell (usually for a price, of course).
The sad part of this is that people who follow any one dogma, generally, are born into their man-made religion. They live and die in this religion without ever dreaming that what they are being told is not the same story through-out. If they did, they would probably be as disillusioned as I. They, also, might be inclined to read the book. They don’t read the book from cover to cover as they should, but in a verse here and a verse there. Try reading Gone With the Wind, Dr. Zhivago, War and Peace, The Conquest of Gaul, or any other book a paragraph here and a paragraph there to determine how much understanding there is. Geez. But church goers are indoctrinated as children as to what the book says. If they do ever get around to reading it, they auto-fill what they have been taught. Every denomination I ever investigated either said, “You are not supposed to understand” or they had their own “bible” written especially by them, of them, and for them. I never had one of them say to me, “read the book”! I have found only one minister (in 40 + years) that could tell me where the different races came from. When I asked him why he didn’t preach that from the pulpit, he said he’d get fired and be run out of town on a rail. All the others replied, “Well, you are not supposed to understand; you are just supposed to follow what you are told in church.” Well, um, not likely.
As for an answer to the original question. Church becomes an activity of great joy to many. They can not imagine that anyone would not want that for themselves. Also, Church teaches that all decent human beings are Christians and go to church. So, when you and I appear “decent”, then of course we must be Christians and we must go to church somewhere.
I suppose if you grow up in an environment where it seems like everybody shares your beliefs, it can come as a surprise to discover that this is not the case. From what I've seen, it seems like evangelical Protestants in smaller towns are most likely to believe that "everybody" is some sort of Christian...or at least ought to be.
One of my Jewish friends went to a Purim celebration last night, and I told him to eat a hamentaschen for me. He's bringing leftovers tomorrow. I've invited him to some of our less overtly religious events with food, so it's all good.
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Christian Assumptions
