Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Coming out as an atheist

I've been an atheist since 1994 and for at least the first two years I was what I would call these days a closet atheist. I had stopped attending church services and basically was focused on trying to overcome the withdrawal symptoms I acquired as a result of my separation. It's weird but upon backward reflection it was akin to separation anxiety as suffered most commonly by children and adolescents. The only difference was that my family and loved ones at the time was the church.

The church in those days was my life, I lived for doing what I believed was to be the will of God. I worked hard at helping my fellow brethren in Christ with their daily struggles, and the youth of the church looked up to me. The service of the Lord was my reason for being and my self appointed purpose and goal in life. At the time of course I did not see it as self appointed, I believed that I was called by God himself to carry out his will through my ministry.

Having had many discussions with fellow atheists who were at one time believers I found that I was not alone in this. It's almost like a gay person struggling with how he or she could articulate to those they love about their alternative lifestyle choices. I think that it is not that bad for coming out to family if you have a similar situation such as mine.

I come from a very divided family and outside of my immediate family such as my wife and kids I am not that close to my extended family. I keep to myself and am a loner for the most part and am content with the simplest things in life. To my knowledge to date I am the only atheist in my entire family. For about two years I kept my atheism to myself and not even my wife was aware of the change that was going on in me. When I came out my family basically just did not take me seriously and thought that I was just going through some phase and that I would eventually get over it.

It's going to be 19 years since I left the faith and my mind is entirely made up that the biblical god does not exist, that Jesus never existed, and that the bible cannot be trusted as a reliable document for knowledge of any kind. It gets science wrong, history wrong, and is wrong about a slew of information which we have learned through more conventional fields of knowledge to be wrong. It cannot be trusted as an historical document either; since most of the claims made throughout the scriptures cannot be verified such as the global flood and other mythological and ridiculous tales told within its pages.

For others though who have very strong family ties and care about what others think of them it is not so easy. When someone decides to leave the faith they risk losing everything from every so called friend they have met in the faith. Their own family will ostracize them and treat them like the plague simply because they have overcome the oppression of religious beliefs. When I left the church for instance, I lost all of my friends, and even to this day am considered the family loon.

The biggest consequence for me was my dependency on my faith to help me through life. Like a child it was time to ween myself from religion all on my own with no one to talk to or anywhere to turn for advice. In those days the information that we now have readily available on the internet was not available. Many more prominent atheists were just coming out themselves. I learned to live without religion the hard way on my own. I read every book I could find on several topics that helped to put into perspective my fears and my doubts about my former beliefs.

I kept silent for two years while I did my research. I was focused on books that might be able to explain many of my subjective experiences while a believer. I read books on psychiatry, psychology, books on hypnosis, etc. It wasn't till about 96' when I was on my way to work that I was approached on the subway platform by two Jehovah's witnesses and was asked if I would like to know about God or something to that effect. I was in a hurry and I blurted out that I had no time to which they responded by asking me if I was not interested in eternal life. I said that I wasn't and that I had enough on my plate at the moment with this life.

On that day it dawned on me that I should not be ashamed of who I am and what I believe. I remembered that freedom of speech is one of my constitutional rights and if you don't agree with me then that is your right as well. From that moment on I decided to let everyone know that I was an atheist and damn proud of it! Theists can run around proselytizing to the world and I have to keep my mouth shut simply because I don't find their beliefs convincing? Theists claim that they are under attack and that they are being persecuted whenever we speak out against them. But their accusations simply don't hold water.

When religion decides to force its ways into our government and seek legislation in favor of their groups beliefs based on nothing more than their own convictions of faith then we have to speak up. When religion crosses the line into government affairs such as individual rights of freedom etc. then they should expect to find some opposition.

There are many reasons people find it difficult to "come out" and for every atheist these reasons are different. Some are concerned about what their family or community will think of them, others risk losing everything in their professional lives, or they are dealing with inner struggles about their former beliefs etc. It's not easy to break from tradition and go against the grain but that is exactly what atheists and other suppressed groups have to do. Women fought for their rights to vote, men of color fought for rights to be treated equally, gays currently fight for their rights as a whole to be gay and accepted by society.


Thankfully today many people coming out as atheists have so many resources available to them such as books and online forums and web pages where they can get help with both their personal struggles and inner conflicts and with dealing with the adverse effect that may result from family members etc. There are several online sites where you can find information about evolutionary theory and critical thinking etc.  Here is a small list of some sites I recommend to atheists who are seeking to educate themselves about atheism and some of the common struggles we all face. These are some of the sites that I commonly frequent or refer others to enjoy the process of learning and enlightenment.

http://www.infidels.org/

http://godlesshaven.com/index.html

http://www.whywontgodhealamputees.com/

http://www.goatstar.org/

http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/index.htm

http://www.skepdic.com/

http://www.atheistrev.com/

http://atheism.about.com/?nl=1

http://jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/

http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-evolution.html

http://psicop.bravepages.com/

http://ncse.com/evolution/science/evolution-primers

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evo_01

Finally, for you new atheists you can check out the out campaign for more information.

http://outcampaign.org/


15 comments:

  1. I "discovered" atheism in about 1989 or so, especially after reading "Not Necessarily the New Age," especially the mathematical debunking of Buddhist afterlives, and then Flim Flam, by James Randi. I realized that Christianity was just as silly as the other religions.

    On the old forum for infidels.org (now at freeratio.org) there were a couple of Myers-Briggs surveys. Overwhelmingly, people were INTJ or INTP (I'm INTP). I think church is more appealing to extraverts, so we introverts are more likely to feel confortable leaving despite all the things you listed here. And then NT is a kind of thinkers' category. That's the rationalism that leads us away from faith. If you are either governed by emotions or very much in need of a lot of people and comfortable in crowds, leaving the faith is much much harder.

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  2. Good post! And some very interesting links (many I did not know of). And I'm INTJ.

    Chatpilot, I would be very interested in seeing a post on recommended books for those considering atheism (or at least skepticism in general). What would you recommend, from across all disciplines you have read? My ulterior motive is that I want books to recommend to spread the non-faith, as it were. Thanks!

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    1. Byron, Richard Carrier wrote a short book entitled 'Why I Am Not A Christian.' It is a very good read and provides four specific reasons why the author does not believe in God. Here is the book description as it is displayed on amazon.com

      Dr. Richard Carrier, world renowned philosopher and historian, explains the four reasons he does not accept the Christian religion, describing four facts of the world that, had they been different, he would believe. He is brief, clear, and down to earth, covering the whole topic in under ninety pages of easy-to-read explanation. Those four reasons are God's silence, God's inaction, the lack of evidence, and the way the universe looks exactly like a godless universe would, and not at all like a Christian universe would, even down to its very structure. Dr. Carrier addresses all the usual replies to these claims, in ways you might not have heard before, relying on his wide experience in debating and studying these issues all over the world for more than fifteen years. A perfect book to introduce yourself, or your friends, to why fewer educated people are embracing Christianity than ever before. Ideal for handing out to door-to-door missionaries.

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  3. if I may.... I would recommend The Bible Unearthed, which examines the archaelogical evidence of the Old Testament period, much of which disproves the O.T. stories or at least muddles them. The conclusion is that the O.T. was codified in Joshua's time (ca. 7th Century BCE). It would be a good recommendation for biblical literalists, and because it doesn't go right after Christ like so many other rational books do, it's a little less threatening. (The prophesy stuff that they apply to Jesus was Joshua's way of pointing to himself as the great awaited leader)

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  4. LadyAtheist, it's good that you brought that book up I have two more along the same lines of that one that I am currently reading.They are both written by Thomas L. Thompson.

    1. The Mythic Past
    2. The Messiah Myth

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    1. Thanks for the recommendations. I'm currently reading a Bart Ehrman book but I've read enough of his other books that only some of it is new to me.

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    2. I've read most of Bart Ehrmans books I refuse to read his latest book 'Did Jesus Exist?' I am convinced beyond a doubt that he didn't. He does not present anything new in that book that could change my mind. I used to work at Oxford University Press a couple of years back and I got to meet him and at times pick his brain on certain issues. He was cool but he had little patience for anyone who criticized his opinions.

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  5. Perhaps I'm more fortunate than some "outed" atheists, but my entire extended family are truly godless, most of the younger ones from birth. I have never attended church as an adult (but in high school in the '50's that's where the girls were, so...). My bride of nearly 52 years came from an episcopalian background, but by the time we met (at the end of college), she considered herself "agnostic," having been exposed to courses in logic, critical thinking and science. The road to atheism from there was rather short.

    While we neither encouraged nor discouraged our daughters to examine religious values, they were, of course exposed to numerous views from among their public school classmates, and on occasion even attended a church service or Sunday school lesson at a friend's invitation (after which they would wonder how "smart" people could accept this or that adult version of Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy).

    None of us, my wife and I, our siblings and their spouses, our children and their spouses, or our grandchildren necessarily wear our atheism "on our sleeves," but neither do we hide the fact that we don't subscribe to mythology and superstition. We have told the leaders of the few organizations to which we belong that we are put off by prayers and benedictions at events, and, surprisingly, they mostly respect our position. A retired Baptist minister in one group for the past four years has offered a secular "thought for the day" usually based on the words of well-known politicians, philosophers and poets, rather than the religiously afflicted.

    Seeing the anguish bestowed by "good" people upon many non-believers who have "left the faith," I feel extremely thankful for my own good fortune and that enjoyed by my entire clan.

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    1. Welcome to my blog paul, and thanks for sharing your story.

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    2. Thanks for the welcome, Chatpilot. I've been lurking here for some while, and I must say that it is encouraging to see one with your background having wholeheartedly embraced reality. I'm only sorry that more of my generation haven't awakened to the fallacy of "faith." It seems that "older" and "wiser" don't always go hand-in-hand.

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    3. Based on my own experience I believe that the more committed you are to your beliefs the harder it is for you to get out. I had a lot of subjective experiences which to me was evidence and confirmation of my beliefs at the time. Reading about psychology and experimenting with Taoist meditation I was able to duplicate some of the physical sensations I felt as a believer. It was a long tough road out but when I did I felt truly saved from the superstitions that once held me captive beyond all reason.

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  6. You are right about the benefits of the Internet to those beginning to explore atheism. I know that having access to an online community would have helped me greatly. I really thought I was alone until I stumbled across Bertrand Russell's "Why I am Not a Christian" in a used bookstore. It was so liberating to discover that others felt the same way and that it was okay to do so.

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  7. I never believed in god my entire life but that crap was always shoved down my throat either by my family or by my ex-husband. Finally got divorced from him in 1996, and told my family a few years later that I've had it with religion and I don't care anything about it anymore. Now I've got my sister-in-law after me to convert like she did. I rarely talk to her unless she's at my parents' house.

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    1. The best way to deal with that is to be direct and to the point but not insulting. Whenever members of my family start on the God stuff I cut them off with a curt "you know I don't believe in that junk." That usually changes the direction of the conversation. For those that insist, then I get a little insulting whenever they bring it up by ridiculing their beliefs.

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